PCOS, Iron, and why high iron levels hurt fertility.
Combining selenium with the amino acid NAC (n-acetylcysteine) has shown potential to improve polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) symptoms associated with excess iron intake (Zaugg, 2022 #312). Excessive iron intake, particularly iron from consumption of meat sources which provide heme iron is linked to greater incidence of infertility. This is due to how heme iron is in a very reactive state that causes oxidation in the body. For this reason, the body prefers to be given non-heme iron which comes from plant sources, such as spinach, cacao, and the grain amaranth. The body then has the ability to convert the non-heme iron to heme iron as needed and therefore avoid the oxidative damage that occurs from a great deal of heme iron floating around in your cells. This is discussed extensively in Opening the Door Beyond RDA’s: Nutrition for Pregnancy and Lactation.
Other issues can be caused by excess heme or animal based iron such as increased incidence of gestational diabetes. For this reason before and during pregnancy it is best to focus on plant based iron with the occasional intake of animal based iron so that you can obtain some B12 from food sources.
Read more on Iron on any of these posts:
https://thecarmencooks.com/staging/3924/ironformsandphytates
Zaugg, J., et al. (2022). “Materno-fetal iron transfer and the emerging role of ferroptosis pathways.” Biochemical pharmacology: 115141.
