In this article:
- Why test ferritin levels?
- What are normal ranges for a ferritin blood test?
- Causes and symptoms of low ferritin levels
- Causes and symptoms of high ferritin levels
- How can you correct low ferritin?
- How can you correct high ferritin?
- Benefits of getting your ferritin levels tested
It’s easy to blame your daytime fatigue on anything from a bad night’s sleep to eating too much sugar, but what if you’re dealing with a hidden iron deficiency? A ferritin blood test could give you the answers you needed, even if they aren’t the answers you expected.
Takeaways:
- Ferritin and iron aren’t the same thing, but ferritin is still an accurate reflection of the body’s iron stores.
- While low ferritin is a more common condition than high ferritin, both of them can cause some pretty gnarly health problems.
- Since ferritin plays such a big part in the way you look, feel, and function, it’s smart to get it tested if you suspect an imbalance.
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Why test ferritin levels?
Ferritin isn’t the same thing as iron, but it’s still an important biomarker if you want to check up on your iron stores. Why? Because ferritin is a blood protein that’s responsible for storing a lot of your body’s iron - about 25% of it, in fact. Since ferritin levels will rise and fall along with iron levels, testing ferritin rather than iron is still an accurate way to determine if your overall iron stores are off-balance or not.
But why get your ferritin tested in the first place? Well, if you don’t have any symptoms of an iron imbalance, there honestly isn’t much reason to. However, a surprising number of people suffer from either high or low iron; it’s actually one of the most common deficiencies in the world, with about a third of the global population affected. In other words, if you’re going to get anything tested, ferritin is one of the best places to start.
What are normal ranges for a ferritin blood test?
While men and women need different iron intakes (mainly due to regular blood loss through menstruation), their ferritin stores should be about the same. If you get your ferritin levels tested as an adult, you’d want to see a number between 13 and 150 µg/L.
That’s a pretty big range, though - what if you’re at one end or the other of “normal” ferritin levels, but you feel like something’s off? Here’s something to know about lab testing: when you apply standardized methods to something as idiosyncratic as someone’s biology, that person’s test results won’t always fit within the scientific norm.
And here’s something else to consider: being within the reference range doesn’t necessarily mean everything’s good. For example, if you get a reading of 15 µg/L on your ferritin blood test, that means you’re flirting with iron-deficiency anemia. Sure, you’re within the “normal” reference range, and you aren’t technically considered anemic yet. However, this doesn’t mean you should wait until things get just a little worse on paper before taking steps to improve your iron stores.
Most importantly, remember that while the experts can tell you a lot about your health, you’re ultimately the one who decides what “normal” feels like for you. If your ferritin levels could use some changes on paper, but you also don’t have any negative symptoms, there isn’t really a reason to try to correct anything. Being at the edge of the reference range might warrant keeping an eye out for future symptoms, but if your body is comfortable where it is, why try to make it change?
Causes and symptoms of low ferritin levels
Before you can fix a deficiency, you have to understand why it happened, and how to keep it from happening again. If you’re dealing with low ferritin, there could be several causes:
- Excessive menstrual bleeding
- Frequent blood donations
- Internal blood loss due to gastrointestinal disorders, such as IBS or Crohn’s disease
- Low dietary iron
As you can see, ferritin stores are closely linked to blood stores, but that isn’t the whole story. Ferritin is mostly stored in the liver, spleen, muscles, and bone marrow, meaning that if your iron levels drop, your body can pull the iron it needs from your ferritin stores. Of course, you can’t keep using up your ferritin reserves forever; at some point, you’ll either have to increase your iron intake, or you’ll start noticing symptoms that something isn’t right. What would these symptoms be, you may ask?
- Fatigue
- Weakness
- Dizziness
- Headaches
- Pale skin, lips, gums, and/or tongue
- Hair loss
- Shortness of breath
- Brittle nails
In extreme cases, people with iron-deficiency anemia can barely function - but the warning signs could show up before you even have full-blown anemia. Symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and headaches can happen with a lot of different nutrient deficiencies, but the classic hallmark of iron deficiency is pale skin - as in, people will start asking if you’re a vampire, and almost mean it. Even if you have a darker complexion, you should still be able to tell a difference in your lips, gums, and tongue. While skin tone is affected by things like genetics, sun exposure, and more, everybody should have a nice pink tongue; if it seems like your natural color is fading away, that’s a strong indication of low ferritin.
Causes and symptoms of high ferritin levels
High ferritin might not be nearly as common as low ferritin, but the effects can be just as severe. In the majority of cases, high ferritin is caused by excessive doses of supplemental iron; it could also come from a genetic condition called “hereditary hemochromatosis”, or even from frequent blood transfusions. There’s no need to be overly concerned about getting too much iron from your diet; you’d have to eat pounds and pounds of even the most iron-rich foods in order to end up with iron overload from food.
The bad news is, iron overload is hard to spot through symptoms alone; most people will only experience fatigue during the early stages, which isn’t much help since literally everything causes fatigue. If the condition is left to progress, however, you could spot some of the following symptoms:
- Abdominal pain
- Joint pain
- Loss of libido
- Gray- or bronze-colored skin
These symptoms may not seem that intimidating, but that’s only what someone could experience at the beginning; if iron is allowed to build up in your organs, you might end up with:
- Heart failure
- Diabetes
- Infertility
- Cancer
- Hypothyroidism
- Liver cirrhosis
- Arthritis
- Erectile dysfunction
- Depression
How can you correct low ferritin?
Your body can’t make its own iron, so if your levels are low, the solution is simple - start adding more iron to your diet or supplement regimen. If you’re interested in taking the dietary approach, you’d do best to focus on foods that are rich in heme iron:
- Organ meats like liver, heart, and kidney
- Muscle meat from beef, lamb, or poultry
- Seafood like clams, mollusks, oysters, and tuna
What if you follow a vegetarian or vegan diet, though? In that case, you’ll want to look for foods high in non-heme iron:
- Legumes such as beans, lentils, and peas
- Nuts and seeds like hazelnuts, almonds, and flaxseeds
- Leafy greens such as spinach, swiss chard, and kale
Many people address the issue with iron supplements too, which can be easier than making dietary changes. If this is part of your game plan, make sure you get an expert opinion on your dosage; after all, you don’t want to end up with iron overload!
How can you correct high ferritin?
While reducing your dietary and supplemental iron intake can help, this condition is sometimes serious enough to warrant actual medical intervention as well. The most common strategy is therapeutic phlebotomy, which is basically strategic bloodletting. Each session will remove blood (and therefore iron) from your body, prompting it to release excess ferritin stores from your organs in response.
Another approach is known as iron chelation therapy, in which substances are introduced into the bloodstream which binds to the iron and helps your body eliminate it. This option comes with quite a few side effects, though, so it usually isn’t the first line of defense when treating iron overload.
Benefits of getting your ferritin levels tested
As mentioned above, you can still have ferritin-related issues even if you’re within the reference range. Plus, having low or high ferritin isn’t a one-time occurrence; it tends to be a chronic problem that gets worse over time. With at-home lab tests from Base, you can get your ferritin levels tested, as well as other biomarkers that might be affecting your energy and concentration.
Once you know how your ferritin levels are doing, you won’t have to second-guess your dietary choices or hope that you aren’t shooting yourself in the foot with an iron supplement. With accurate information on what your body’s doing and what your body needs, you’ll be able to take charge of your own health in the way that works best for you.
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