Iron and menopause: does increased iron affect the health of postmenopausal women?

Abstract

Estrogen deficiency has been regarded as the main causative factor in menopausal symptoms and diseases. Here, we show that although estrogen decreases by 90%, a concurrent but inverse change occurs in iron levels during menopausal transition. For example, levels of serum ferritin are increased by two- to threefold from before menopause to after menopause. This observation has led us to hypothesize that, in addition to estrogen deficiency, increased iron as a result of menopause could be a risk factor affecting the health of postmenopausal women. Further studies on iron and menopause are clinically relevant and may provide novel therapeutic treatments.

FIG. 1.

Concurrent but inverse changes of ferritin versus estrogen during menopausal transition. Serum levels of 17β-estradiol (E2) were converted to percentage of peak value at 500 pg/ml serum at age 25 years. Levels of ferritin were expressed as nanograms per milliliter serum. E2 data as a function of age were obtained from the website http://www.drlam.com/A3R_brief_in_doc_format/Estrogen Dominance.cfm. Ferritin data were obtained from ref. . (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article at www.liebertonline.com/ars).

FIG. 2.

Proposed mechanisms of increased iron as a result of menopause on osteoporosis and skin aging. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article at www.liebertonline.com/ars).