I’m iron deficient. Which supplements will work best for me and how should I take them?

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Iron deficiency is common and can be debilitating. It mainly affects women. One in three premenopausal women are low in iron compared to just 5% of Australian men. Iron deficiency particularly affects teenage girls, women who do a lot of exercise and those who are pregnant.

The body needs iron to make new red blood cells, and to support energy production, the immune system and cognitive function. If you’re low, you may experience a range of symptoms including fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, headache, irregular heartbeat and reduced concentration.

If a blood test shows you’re iron deficient, your doctor may recommend you start taking an oral iron supplement. But should you take a tablet or a liquid? With food or not? And when is the best time of day?

Here are some tips to help you work out how, when and what iron supplement to take.

LittlePigPower/Shutterstock

How do I pick the right iron supplement?

The iron in your body is called “elemental iron”. Choosing the right oral supplement and dose will depend on how much elemental iron it has – your doctor will advise exactly how much you need.

The sweet spot is between 60-120 mg of elemental iron. Any less and the supplement won’t be effective in topping up your iron levels. Any higher and you risk gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhoea, cramping and stomach pain.

Three pregnant bellies during a stretching class.
Low iron can especially affect people during pregnancy and women who do a lot of sport. Kamil Macniak/Shutterstock

In Australia, iron salts are the most common oral supplements because they are cheap, effective and come in different delivery methods (tablets, capsules, liquid formulas). The iron salts you are most likely to find in your local chemist are ferrous sulfate (~20% elemental iron), ferrous gluconate (~12%) and ferrous fumarate (~33%).

These formulations all work similarly, so your choice should come down to dose and cost.

Many multivitamins may look like an iron supplement, but it’s important to note they usually have too little iron – usually less than 20 mg – to correct an iron deficiency.

Should I take tablets or liquid formulas?

Iron contained within a tablet is just as well absorbed as iron found in a liquid supplement. Choosing the right one usually comes down to personal preference.

The main difference is that liquid formulas tend to contain less iron than tablets. That means you might need to take more of the product to get the right dose, so using a liquid supplement could work out to be more expensive in the long term.

What should I eat with my iron supplement?

Research has shown you will absorb more of the iron in your supplement if you take it on an empty stomach. But this can cause more gastrointestinal issues, so might not be practical for everyone.

If you do take your supplement with meals, it’s important to think about what types of food will boost – rather than limit – iron absorption. For example, taking the supplement alongside vitamin C improves your body’s ability to absorb it.

Some supplements already contain vitamin C. Otherwise you could take the supplement along with a glass of orange juice, or other vitamin C-rich foods.

A woman pours orange juice into a glass next to a bowl of strawberries and kiwifruit.
Taking your supplement alongside foods rich in vitamin C, like orange juice or kiwifruit, can help your body absorb the iron. Anete Lusina/Pexels

On the other hand, tea, coffee and calcium all decrease the body’s ability to absorb iron. So you should try to limit these close to the time you take your supplement.

Should I take my supplement in the morning or evening?

The best time of day to take your supplement is in the morning. The body can absorb significantly more iron earlier in the day, when concentrations of hepcidin (the main hormone that regulates iron) are at their lowest.

Exercise also affects the hormone that regulates iron. That means taking your iron supplement after exercising can limit your ability to absorb it. Taking your supplement in the hours following exercise will mean significantly poorer absorption, especially if you take it between two and five hours after you stop.

Our research has shown if you exercise every day, the best time to take your supplement is in the morning before training, or immediately after (within 30 minutes).

My supplements are upsetting my stomach. What should I do?

If you experience gastrointestinal side effects such as diarrhoea or cramps when you take iron supplements, you may want to consider taking your supplement every second day, rather than daily.

Taking a supplement every day is still the fastest way to restore your iron levels. But a recent study has shown taking the same total dose can be just as effective when it’s taken on alternate days. For example, taking a supplement every day for three months works as well as every second day for six months. This results in fewer side effects.

Oral iron supplements can be a cheap and easy way to correct an iron deficiency. But ensuring you are taking the right product, under the right conditions, is crucial for their success.

It’s also important to check your iron levels prior to commencing iron supplementation and do so only under medical advice. In large amounts, iron can be toxic, so you don’t want to be consuming additional iron if your body doesn’t need it.

If you think you may be low on iron, talk to your GP to find out your best options.

Alannah McKay, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sports Nutrition, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • 13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don’t Do – by Dr. Amy Morin

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The saying “happy wife; happy life” indeed goes regardless of gender. One can have every other happiness, but if there’s relational trouble, it brings everything else down.

    This book is not intended, however, only for people whose relationships are one couple’s therapy session away from divorce. Rather, it’s intended as a preventative. Because, in this as in every other aspect of health, prevention is better than cure!

    It is the sign of a strong couple to be proactive about the health of the relationship, and work together to build and reinforce things along the way.

    The style of this book is very accessible pop-science, but the author speaks from a strong professional background in social work, psychology, and psychotherapy, and it shows.

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    Click here to check out 13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don’t Do, and strengthen your relationship(s)!

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  • Blackberries vs Blueberries – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing blackberries to blueberries, we picked the blackberries.

    Why?

    They’re both great! But the humble blackberry stands out (and is an example of “foods that are darker are often more nutrient-dense”).

    In terms of macronutrients, they’re quite similar, being both berry fruits that are mostly water, but blackberries do have 2x the fiber (and for what it’s worth, 2x the protein, though this is a small number obviously), while blueberries have 2x the carbohydrates. An easy win for blackberries.

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    In the category of minerals, blackberries have a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Blueberries are not higher in any minerals. Another easy win for blackberries.

    Blueberries are famous for their antioxidants, but blackberries actually equal them. The polyphenolic content varies from one fruit to another, but they are both loaded with an abundance (thousands) of antioxidants, especially anthocyanins. Blackberries and blueberries tie in this category.

    Adding up the sections makes for an easy, easy win for blackberries—but diversity is always best, so enjoy both!

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  • Almonds vs Pecans – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing almonds to pecans, we picked the almonds.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, almonds have more protein, carbs, and fiber, as well as the lower glycemic index. A strong start for almonds here, though pecans have more fat (and the healthy blend of fats is quite comparable from one nut to the other).

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    When it comes to minerals, both contain a lot of goodness, but almonds have more calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while pecans have more copper, manganese, and zinc. A clear win for almonds, though as we say, pecans are also great for this, just not as great as almonds.

    As a side-note, both of these nuts have been found to have anticancer properties against breast cancer cell lines. In all likelihood this means they help against other cancers too, but breast cancer is what the extant research has been for.

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  • Managing Your Mortality

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    When Planning Is a Matter of Life and Death

    Barring medical marvels as yet unrevealed, we are all going to die. We try to keep ourselves and our loved ones in good health, but it’s important to be prepared for the eventuality of death.

    While this is not a cheerful topic, considering these things in advance can help us manage a very difficult thing, when the time comes.

    We’ve put this under “Psychology Sunday” as it pertains to processing our own mortality, and managing our own experiences and the subsequent grief that our death may invoke in our loved ones.

    We’ll also be looking at some of the medical considerations around end-of-life care, though.

    Organizational considerations

    It’s generally considered good to make preparations in advance. Write (or update) a Will, tie up any loose ends, decide on funerary preferences, perhaps even make arrangements with pre-funding. Life insurance, something difficult to get at a good rate towards the likely end of one’s life, is better sorted out sooner rather than later, too.

    Beyond bureaucracy

    What’s important to you, to have done before you die? It could be a bucket list, or it could just be to finish writing that book. It could be to heal a family rift, or to tell someone how you feel.

    It could be more general, less concrete: perhaps to spend more time with your family, or to engage more with a spiritual practice that’s important to you.

    Perhaps you want to do what you can to offset the grief of those you’ll leave behind; to make sure there are happy memories, or to make any requests of how they might remember you.

    Lest this latter seem selfish: after a loved one dies, those who are left behind are often given to wonder: what would they have wanted? If you tell them now, they’ll know, and can be comforted and reassured by that.

    This could range from “bright colors at my funeral, please” to “you have my blessing to remarry if you want to” to “I will now tell you the secret recipe for my famous bouillabaisse, for you to pass down in turn”.

    End-of-life care

    Increasingly few people die at home.

    • Sometimes it will be a matter of fighting tooth-and-nail to beat a said-to-be-terminal illness, and thus expiring in hospital after a long battle.
    • Sometimes it will be a matter of gradually winding down in a nursing home, receiving medical support to the end.
    • Sometimes, on the other hand, people will prefer to return home, and do so.

    Whatever your preferences, planning for them in advance is sensible—especially as money may be a factor later.

    Not to go too much back to bureaucracy, but you might also want to consider a Living Will, to be enacted in the case that cognitive decline means you cannot advocate for yourself later.

    Laws vary from place to place, so you’ll want to discuss this with a lawyer, but to give an idea of the kinds of things to consider:

    National Institute on Aging: Preparing A Living Will

    Palliative care

    Palliative care is a subcategory of end-of-life care, and is what occurs when no further attempts are made to extend life, and instead, the only remaining goal is to reduce suffering.

    In the case of some diseases including cancer, this may mean coming off treatments that have unpleasant side-effects, and retaining—or commencing—pain-relief treatments that may, as a side-effect, shorten life.

    Euthanasia

    Legality of euthanasia varies from place to place, and in some times and places, palliative care itself has been considered a form of “passive euthanasia”, that is to say, not taking an active step to end life, but abstaining from a treatment that prolongs it.

    Clearer forms of passive euthanasia include stopping taking a medication without which one categorically will die, or turning off a life support machine.

    Active euthanasia, taking a positive action to end life, is legal in some places and the means varies, but an overdose of barbiturates is an example; one goes to sleep and does not wake up.

    It’s not the only method, though; options include benzodiazepines, and opioids, amongst others:

    Efficacy and safety of drugs used for assisted dying

    Unspoken euthanasia

    An important thing to be aware of (whatever your views on euthanasia) is the principle of double-effect… And how it comes to play in palliative care more often than most people think.

    Say a person is dying of cancer. They opt for palliative care; they desist in any further cancer treatments, and take medication for the pain. Morphine is common. Morphine also shortens life.

    It’s common for such a patient to have a degree of control over their own medication, however, after a certain point, they will no longer be in sufficient condition to do so.

    After this point, it is very common for caregivers (be they medical professionals or family members) to give more morphine—for the purpose of reducing suffering, of course, not to kill them.

    In practical terms, this often means that the patient will die quite promptly afterwards. This is one of the reasons why, after sometimes a long-drawn-out period of “this person is dying”, healthcare workers can be very accurate about “it’s going to be in the next couple of days”.

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    Further reading: Goods, causes and intentions: problems with applying the doctrine of double effect to palliative sedation

    One last thing…

    Planning around our own mortality is never a task that seems pressing, until it’s too late. We recommend doing it anyway, without putting it off, because we can never know what’s around the corner.

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  • Almonds vs Pecans – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing almonds to pecans, we picked the almonds.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, almonds have more protein, carbs, and fiber, as well as the lower glycemic index. A strong start for almonds here, though pecans have more fat (and the healthy blend of fats is quite comparable from one nut to the other).

    In the category of vitamins, almonds have more of vitamins B2, B3, B9, E, and choline, while pecans have more of vitamins A, B1, B5, B6, and K. Numerically that’s a tie, though the biggest margins of difference are for vitamins A and E, respectively, and we might want to prioritize almonds’ extra vitamin E, over pecans’ extra vitamin A, given that vitamin A is more easily found in large quantities in many foods, whereas vitamin E is not quite so abundant generally. So in short, either a tie or a slight win for almonds here.

    When it comes to minerals, both contain a lot of goodness, but almonds have more calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while pecans have more copper, manganese, and zinc. A clear win for almonds, though as we say, pecans are also great for this, just not as great as almonds.

    As a side-note, both of these nuts have been found to have anticancer properties against breast cancer cell lines. In all likelihood this means they help against other cancers too, but breast cancer is what the extant research has been for.

    So, naturally, enjoy either or both (in fact, both is ideal). But if you want to choose one for nutritional density, it’s almonds.

    Want to learn more?

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    Take care!

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  • ‘Sleep tourism’ promises the trip of your dreams. Beyond the hype plus 5 tips for a holiday at home

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Imagine arriving at your hotel after a long flight and being greeted by your own personal sleep butler. They present you with a pillow menu and invite you to a sleep meditation session later that day.

    You unpack in a room kitted with an AI-powered smart bed, blackout shades, blue light-blocking glasses and weighted blankets.

    Holidays are traditionally for activities or sightseeing – eating Parisian pastry under the Eiffel tower, ice skating at New York City’s Rockefeller Centre, lying by the pool in Bali or sipping limoncello in Sicily. But “sleep tourism” offers vacations for the sole purpose of getting good sleep.

    The emerging trend extends out of the global wellness tourism industry – reportedly worth more than US$800 billion globally (A$1.2 trillion) and expected to boom.

    Luxurious sleep retreats and sleep suites at hotels are popping up all over the world for tourists to get some much-needed rest, relaxation and recovery. But do you really need to leave home for some shuteye?

    RossHelen/Shutterstock

    Not getting enough

    The rise of sleep tourism may be a sign of just how chronically sleep deprived we all are.

    In Australia more than one-third of adults are not achieving the recommended 7–9 hours of sleep per night, and the estimated cost of this inadequate sleep is A$45 billion each year.

    Inadequate sleep is linked to long-term health problems including poor mental health, heart disease, metabolic disease and deaths from any cause.

    Can a fancy hotel give you a better sleep?

    Many of the sleep services available in the sleep tourism industry aim to optimise the bedroom for sleep. This is a core component of sleep hygiene – a series of healthy sleep practices that facilitate good sleep including sleeping in a comfortable bedroom with a good mattress and pillow, sleeping in a quiet environment and relaxing before bed.

    The more people follow sleep hygiene practices, the better their sleep quality and quantity.

    When we are staying in a hotel we are also likely away from any stressors we encounter in everyday life (such as work pressure or caring responsibilities). And we’re away from potential nighttime disruptions to sleep we might experience at home (the construction work next door, restless pets, unsettled children). So regardless of the sleep features hotels offer, it is likely we will experience improved sleep when we are away.

    A do not disturb tag hangs on hotel door handle
    Being away from home also means being away from domestic disruptions. Makistock/Shutterstock

    What the science says about catching up on sleep

    In the short-term, we can catch up on sleep. This can happen, for example, after a short night of sleep when our brain accumulates “sleep pressure”. This term describes how strong the biological drive for sleep is. More sleep pressure makes it easier to sleep the next night and to sleep for longer.

    But while a longer sleep the next night can relieve the sleep pressure, it does not reverse the effects of the short sleep on our brain and body. Every night’s sleep is important for our body to recover and for our brain to process the events of that day. Spending a holiday “catching up” on sleep could help you feel more rested, but it is not a substitute for prioritising regular healthy sleep at home.

    All good things, including holidays, must come to an end. Unfortunately the perks of sleep tourism may end too.

    Our bodies do not like variability in the time of day that we sleep. The most common example of this is called “social jet lag”, where weekday sleep (getting up early to get to work or school) is vastly different to weekend sleep (late nights and sleep ins). This can result in a sleepy, grouchy start to the week on Monday. Sleep tourism may be similar, if you do not come back home with the intention to prioritise sleep.

    So we should be mindful that as well as sleeping well on holiday, it is important to optimise conditions at home to get consistent, adequate sleep every night.

    man looks at mobile phone in dark surroundings
    Good sleep hygiene doesn’t require a passport. Maridav/Shutterstock

    5 tips for having a sleep holiday at home

    An AI-powered mattress and a sleep butler at home might be the dream. But these features are not the only way we can optimise our sleep environment and give ourselves the best chance to get a good night’s sleep. Here are five ideas to start the night right:

    1. avoid bright artificial light in the evening (such as bright overhead lights, phones, laptops)

    2. make your bed as comfortable as possible with fresh pillows and a supportive mattress

    3. use black-out window coverings and maintain a cool room temperature for the ideal sleeping environment

    4. establish an evening wind-down routine, such as a warm shower and reading a book before bed or even a “sleepy girl mocktail

    5. use consistency as the key to a good sleep routine. Aim for a similar bedtime and wake time – even on weekends.

    Charlotte Gupta, Senior postdoctoral research fellow, Appleton Institute, HealthWise research group, CQUniversity Australia and Dean J. Miller, Adjunct Research Fellow, Appleton Institute of Behavioural Science, CQUniversity Australia

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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