Iron Deficiency Changes the Structure of the Brain

University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) scientists determined that teens who exhibit a deficiency of iron tend to be at higher risk of suffering conditions affecting the brain later on in life.

The risk mostly addresses forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease. This correlation has been hinted at for some time now, but this is one of the first studies ever conducted to actually demonstrate it, PsychCentral reports.

The exact mechanisms through which iron deficiency harms the brain all those years later has not yet been understood in detail, but future studies will undoubtedly shed more light on this issue.

The study was led by UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson. His team measured transferrin levels in a series of teen test subjects. Transferrin is an iron-transporting protein in the bloodstream, which apparently also influences the very structure of the brain.

In the research, it was demonstrated that higher or lower levels of this molecule in the bloodstream led to different brain structures when the test subjects reached early adulthood. “We found that healthy brain wiring in adults depended on having good iron levels in your teenage years,” Thompson says.

He adds that the correlation itself was a lot stronger than anyone expected to see. The thing that surprised researchers most in establishing the strength of this link was finding that it exists even if all test participants were young and healthy.

According to the team, none of the participants would have been cataloged as iron-deficient. “We also found a connection with a gene that explains why this is so. The gene itself seems to affect brain wiring, which was a big surprise,” Thompson goes on to say.

One of the reasons for this may be that brain function is more dependent on iron and iron-transporting proteins than anyone first estimated. When this is correlated with the fact that iron-deficiency is one of the most widespread medical problems around the world, this research catches on new meaning.

Previous studies have already associated poor iron intake with poor cognitive development in children, whereas excessive iron intake is known to cause brain damage in adults. Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington disease patients are known to exhibit abnormally-high iron concentrations in their brains.

“This is one of the deep secrets of the brain. You wouldn’t think the iron in our diet would affect the brain so much in our teen years. But it turns out that it matters very much,” Thompson concludes.

Details of the new study were published in the latest online issue of the esteemed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).