High ferritin is an indicator of high inflammation.  check the GI tract for dysbiosis and the diet should be anti-inflammatory. Ferritin is an acute-phase reactant like CRP and will go up when there is inflammation. So it’s worthwhile finding the source of inflammation. Make sure to avoid any supplements that contain iron.

A couple other things to ask your doctor to look into are: chlamydia pneumoniae, hemochromatosis and if necessary, you can do a test for HFEC282Y and H63D, the main culprits.

Of course, there are other reasons for high ferritin. In any case, you’ll want support for the formation of hydroxyl radicals formed by Fenton reactions which can damage membranes, in addition to dealing with what’s causing the elevated ferritin.

It is important to run an Iron panel (iron, transferrin, TIBC, sat %); if iron is truly high (and not just an increase of ferritin due to inflammation) you will want to consider supplementing glutathione for the below reasons:

– Iron is a cofactor (along with copper) for the Fenton reaction, higher iron levels will upregulate this pathway and catalyzing of Fenton reaction will deplete Glutathione status thereby inhibiting Th1 status.
– Vitamin D,  Fish oil, and other agents that help support Treg activity through increased levels of TGFb will result also increased free radical production; TGFb also leads to   increased fibrosis due to plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 (PAI-1))
– PAI-1 is considered to be an essential factor in the development of fibrosis and increased fibrosis can promote encapsulation of infections making it difficult to access and eradicate pathogens (GI dysbiosis or elsewhere in body) with antimicrobials.
– Increasing the GSH levels only inhibits the downstream effects of TGFb (oxidative damage and increased fibrosis), GSH does not inhibit TGFb itself, therefore increased activity of Treg cells that TGFb initiates is not impacted

• This reply was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by Marla Pietruszko.

Definitely reducing inflammation can help for sure!