[HN Gopher] The War for Iron
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The War for Iron
Author : etiam
Score : 116 points
Date : 2023-02-04 13:08 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| jbandela1 wrote:
| If you look the author is Derek Lowe. He is also the author of
| the hilarious series: Things I won't Work With. (If you have not
| read that series you should definitely do so)
|
| I am really impressed by and grateful for people who are deep
| subject matter experts and can also write in a very engaging
| style that regular people can follow along with and learn from.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Ah, thanks. I recognized the face, but not the name. Things I
| won't Work With is hilarious.
|
| Old joke: "Nice to see you. I recognize your name, but I'm
| damned if I can remember your face."
| v8xi wrote:
| Siderophores are some of the craziest things in biology, in my
| opinion. Short peptides (often <10 amino acids) with affinities
| to metal irons that are just incomprehensibly low with binding so
| tight you can actually deplete metals from water - 0 atoms per
| liter. An excellent technology for future e.g. heavy
| metal/nuclear contamination remediation
| rcme wrote:
| The iron-plankton connection was used in attempt to boost salmon
| yields [0]. Iron was dumped off the side of a boat to cause a
| plankton bloom, with the goal of ultimately producing more
| salmon. It seems to have kind of worked?
|
| 0:
| https://archive.nytimes.com/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/...
| unglaublich wrote:
| Ah, as usual: a short term profit optimization strategy with
| unknown, but potentially disastrous long term cost.
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| Interesting. The infected human body stops absorbing some metals
| because the infecting bacteria will miss it more.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Another article that emphasizes just how ridiculously complicated
| the immune system can be. Here's the source report that this
| article discusses:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-022-00723-5
|
| Note that they were studying a mouse model of sepsis, which is a
| full-blown blood-borne bacterial infection that is certainly
| fatal in humans as often as not. Today this is treated by
| antibiotic injection and is rarely fatal if caught early, but
| likely this process is something like a last-ditch defense
| against the invading bacteria. Sequesting iron after blood cell
| lysis might inhibit bacterial growth but probably also means it's
| harder for the remaining blood cells to deliver oxygen to and
| pick up CO2 from important cells like those in the heart and
| brain, and it might mess up other basic metabolic processes.
| Hence this probably isn't something that gets triggered too
| easily, or which plays much of a role in mild illnesses. It might
| also be a counter-productive response in some viral illnesses.
|
| Anyone who thinks they might be in the early stages of sepsis
| should seek immediate medical attention in an emergency room.
| This happened to me once, after foolishly swimming in the ocean
| after getting a deep cut on my leg - which swelled up to half
| again its normal size with long red streaks shooting up the whole
| length of the leg. Two big shots of rifampicin in each buttock
| and a week spent in bed with a course of some other oral
| antibiotics and I was fine, but in the pre-antibiotic era that
| might not have been the case!
|
| > "Early sepsis is characterized by the systemic inflammatory
| response syndrome (SIRS) - tachycardia, tachypnea, fever (over
| 100.4 F or 38oC) or hypothermia (below 96.8 F or 36oC), and
| leukopenia or leukocytosis."
|
| https://www.news-medical.net/health/Everything-You-Need-To-K...
| kldavis4 wrote:
| Just curious, but which beach were you swimming at when you
| were infected?
| letharion wrote:
| This seems to go hand in hand with the idea, suggested by Jason
| Fung and others, that one should fast when sick.
|
| If we stop eating, then there's less nutrients available for
| invaders, who have a large need to grow and replicate so they can
| spread to the next host. The human body doesn't need to rapidly
| grow though, so it can go without much food for a few days.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| And the body can focus on fighting the disease and not
| digestion, which is work, too. I am currently sick and I just
| don't want to eat (much), so I won't. That's why we have fat
| reserves.
| nradov wrote:
| Anecdotally, several people have told that they lost a few
| pounds of fat while suffering from mild COVID-19 symptoms
| despite still eating during the course of the disease. And
| this was real fat loss, not just dehydration. Fighting the
| infection seems to burn a lot of calories.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| The centruries old saying is _starve a fever, feed a cold._
|
| But probably the best thing to do is: eat (but not too much) if
| you're hungry, don't if you're not (but probably don't go too
| many days without food).
| joshmarinacci wrote:
| Interesting. I've been sick for the past 48hours and have zero
| appetite, but very thirsty for plain water.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Do you have fever? Digestive proteins don't work well when
| you get fever. It becomes harder to absorb nutrition from
| food.
| unglaublich wrote:
| So you would expect that you need _more_ food to absorb the
| same amount of nutrients.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| The presumed point is to have fewer nutrients. Reduced
| appetite accomplishes this, as do less efficient
| digestive processes. Both together should compliment each
| other.
| letharion wrote:
| I tried finding the articles I learned this from originally,
| but he appears to have migrated to a new blog and I can no
| longer find the sources, but IIRC Fung claims that this is
| the bodies way of solving precisely the "no-nutrients-for-
| the-invader" problem. Just dial down hunger as low as
| possible, to avoid eating.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Hmm. I wonder what the impact is on those that are already anemic
| and get an infection that causes this reaction.
|
| I also wonder whether there is any impact on length of illness by
| taking things like iron and magnesium.
|
| Aren't zinc and magnesium a couple of the things they say to take
| during sickness?
| pacaro wrote:
| It can be bad. My partner has fairly severe chronic iron
| deficiency anemia, an infection landed them in an ICU followed
| by a month of hospitalization
| cperciva wrote:
| See also "anaemia of chronic disease" -- people with chronic
| infections or inflammation often end up suffering from what is
| effectively iron-deficiency anaemia, because their bodies
| sequester iron to keep it away from pathogens.
| sph wrote:
| That's my running theory why my IBS, especially after eating
| gluten-rich foods for multiple days, gives me terrible restless
| legs syndrome that keeps me up at night: malabsorption and
| systemic inflammation causes iron deficiency, which in my case
| is resolved after a week of zero carb diet. A myriad of
| vegetables likewise give me IBS-like symptoms, whereas meat
| causes zero discomfort and has a ton of bioavailable minerals.
|
| I've also found cod liver (such an underrated delicacy) and
| iron supplements sometimes give me a tremendous amount of
| energy a couple hours after ingestion, possibly due to chronic
| mineral deficiencies. I am not anaemic btw, and male, so I'm
| not losing iron every month. I should try and take iron pills
| more often, but one needs to be careful not to go overboard
| with metals.
|
| EDIT: well, apparently iron therapy for IBD is a thing. Somehow
| I had never heard of it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_supplement#By_injection
| justinator wrote:
| "a myriad of vegetables" - are we talking nightshades?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Are nightshades a common trigger for ibd? I know they often
| are triggers for RA.
| cperciva wrote:
| Not my field, but I'd be surprised if this was an iron issue;
| the timescales don't match up. I wouldn't be surprised if
| magnesium was an issue though.
| jtbayly wrote:
| That answers one of my questions in another comment. Thanks.
|
| It did seem like an obvious point of concern, since our bodies
| need iron.
| fwungy wrote:
| We accumulate iron as we age, and the accumulation correlates
| with mortality.
|
| Women's mortality starts to match men's as they progress on
| menopause. The theory on that is that their iron markers go up
| when they stop menstruation. This is also probably why blood
| donors have better health and longer lifespans, even when you
| account for the better starting health of the blood donor cohort.
| pacaro wrote:
| One of my siblings has hereditary hemochromatosis, so their
| body retains far more iron than it should. This is not fun.
| Careful diet helps slow the buildup, but the only effective
| treatment is blood letting
| clsec wrote:
| Since you said one of your siblings has it, I assume you are
| half siblings? I have hereditary hemochromatosis, and since
| my sisters and I have different mothers, I am the only one in
| my family to have it. It takes two parents who carry the
| gene.
|
| Anyway, yes, bloodletting (properly called phlebotomy) is
| really the only way to deal with it. The first 3 years after
| my diagnosis my hematologist and I tried out quite a few
| things to help control it, including diet modifications and
| different time intervals between phlebotomies. We ended up
| settling on phlebo every 6 weeks and eat whatever I want.
| pacaro wrote:
| The variant in question is autosomal recessive, so my
| sibling has two copies of the genes and I got lucky and
| have one
| dbcooper wrote:
| This is also a problem with iron salt supplements.
|
| As someone with Crohn's disease, I am interested in developing
| superior alternatives.
| trashface wrote:
| Do you know if iron supplementation increase the risk of
| harmful gut infection in susceptible people, for instance those
| with diverticulosis? I've recently started supplementing iron
| myself (i'm mostly vegetarian and have had low iron levels on
| blood tests before) and have noticed some unpleasant intestinal
| changes, which could be related. I do have diverticula but not
| crohn's.
| User23 wrote:
| I can't answer your question, but I can say you really need
| to talk to a medical professional or nutritionist who knows
| your circumstances and not get the answer from the Internet.
|
| It's well and good to generalize and I do that myself[1], but
| if you know you have some atypical condition please just talk
| to a pro who really understands your situation.
|
| [1] For example I mentioned in another comment not too long
| ago that under normal circumstances dietary cholesterol isn't
| a big deal and it's not. But there are people with certain
| conditions for whom it is a very big deal.
| hansvm wrote:
| Cooking with cast iron, especially not being afraid to do
| longer-cooked mildly acidic foods like a braise or a lasagna,
| gives a pretty bio-available boost to your iron. It's mostly FE
| (II), but it doesn't have much time to oxidize before it's
| appropriately metabolized.
| [deleted]
| yetihehe wrote:
| You can also try cooking soup with uncoated (without zinc)
| iron nails, or use something like https://luckyironfish.com/
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