12 November 2008

When Your Blood Runs Cold


If you feel cold a lot, or feel cold when other people don't, you might have your doctor check your blood iron levels. Women who have poor tolerance of low temperatures are likely to be iron-deficient, agreed two separate research teams in studies backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At Pennsylvania State University, research directed by John L. Beard, Ph. D., associate professor of nutrition, found that when anemic women are cold, they produce lower-than-normal levels of thyroid hormone, lowering their metabolic rate. Iron-deficient women use less oxygen, produce less body heat, and feel even colder.


Henry C. Lusaki, Ph. D., Department of Agriculture nutrition researcher at Grand Forks, North Dakota, confirmed the low-iron-cold-body theory. Women volunteers are a low-iron diet for 80 days. Tested in a cool (64 F) room, they began to shiver after some 80 minutes. Their blood levels of the hormone norepinephrine increased two or three times, showing stress. After one hundred days on an iron-rich diet, the women tolerated the coolness for an average of 92 minutes.

Most women consume less than the recommended amount of dietary iron- 18 milligrams daily. High iron foods include fish, poultry, meat, beans, beets, greaan leafy vegetables. Vitamin C aids in absorbing iron, and prescribed iron supplements may restore cold resistance along with the body's iron stores.

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