OVERVIEW AND MECHANISMS OF IRON REGULATION

There are two major disturbances of iron balance: iron deficiency and iron overload. Iron-deficiency anemia is a major problem in developing countries and affects between 500 million and 600 million people worl dwide. While iron overload is much less prevalent, it has a number of major pathologic sequelae and there have been recent suggestions that even modest increases in the body's iron stores may have pathologic as sociations. To understand the ways in which iron balance can be distur bed it is necessary to have an understanding of how losses from the bo dy are matched by the absorption of iron in different dietary settings as well as the limits of this regulatory control.