Is spirulina causing iron overload?
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Helen Connor
Can 40 g of spirulina day cause iron overload? Someone just told me it could and I couldn't find a discussion of that in the files.
Thanks for any info. -- Helen Connor and Blessing (IR/PPID) Scappoose, OR Member since May 2017 Case History: https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/files/Helen%20and%20Blessing Photo Album: https://ecir.groups.io/g/CaseHistory/album?id=6847
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Dr. Kellon, could you explain this further? I was under the impression that there is a lot of iron in spirulina so I have also cut it out of my minis' diet as they are iron overloaded. For this reason, I have been looking at the mineral content of a lot of herbs that I used to give, such as spirulina, fenugreek, tumerirc, etc. Why wouldn't we count the iron content of the herbs we use as part of their daily intake?
Also, as an example, both my minis test high in selenium and I couldn't figure out why when the hay always tests very low and I don't give anything else other than the custom mixes. Then when I focused on the milk thistle powder I had been giving to her for her high GGT as being the culprit and you suggested I switch to milk thistle extract powder, that made a huge difference in getting her selenium within control. Wouldn't the same kind of theory apply to spirulina and iron, etc.? Thanks. -- June Oregon, USA Oct 2012 Case Histories for Sadie and Chip Sadie's Photos Chip's Photos Ω
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Hi, June, and thank you so much for asking this!!!! It is of very real concern for everyone who wishes to feed their equines for their optimum health.
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I can't for the life of me find it now but I have seen reference to Milk Thistle having potentially high selenium content (or maybe contamination). I suspect it also "spares" selenium to some extent since this wasn't the first time I've seen selenium go up when on Milk Thistle. It's not a toxicity issue, just an increase.
-- Eleanor in PA www.drkellon.com
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June,
Dr. Clougher's description of iron in Spirulina is exactly right. There's not enough in there to make a difference. The 40 g may actually supply as much as 24 to 50 mg but still pales compared to to the hay content. -- Eleanor in PA www.drkellon.com
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Yes, all I can say is that Sadie's high selenium levels (not toxic but just very high), started to come down to a reasonable level when I switched to the milk thistle extract powder that you suggested to me. I don't know all the theory behind it all, I just know it has been working that way for Sadie and Chip.
-- June Oregon, USA Oct 2012 Case Histories for Sadie and Chip Sadie's Photos Chip's Photos Ω
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Dr. Kellon, even though the amount of iron in spirulina is not much, because I have iron overloaded minis, I guess my thinking is that even a little in a lot of different herbs may end up affecting the total iron intake in my guys, especially Chip, who has to be on soaked pelleted feed. I don't measure out my herbs...I just add a sprinkle to each meal...so have no idea how many mg that equates to. So I just try and stay away from herbs that are high in iron. Is this still overkill?
-- June Oregon, USA Oct 2012 Case Histories for Sadie and Chip Sadie's Photos Chip's Photos Ω
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Everything you feed has iron in it. All the herbs might be overkill unless you have a specific reason for giving them. Peppermint can actually help chelate iron when prepared as a tea using 20 g of peppermint/liter of water and substituting that for all water consumed. For a mini in cool weather that would be minimum 4 to 5 liters/day so 80 to 100 grams of peppermint. Should mention here I tried this with an iron overloaded horse and it didn't work.
If you go here: https://phytochem.nal.usda.gov/phytochem/chemicals/show/10201?qlookup=iron&offset=0&max=20&et=C and click on the heading High ppm it will sort the herbs by iron content, highest first -- Eleanor in PA www.drkellon.com
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Oh thank you Dr. Kellon. I sprinkle the herbs to encourage Chip and Sadie to finish their supplements. Otherwise, they tend not to clean it up. I did try a peppermint infused tea at one point and sprayed that over their supplements and they seemed to like that. I think I will go back to doing that since it sounds like a safe thing. I was trying to use different herbs in case any one of them given long term would not be good. Thank you for the site. This will be very helpful to me.
-- June Oregon, USA Oct 2012 Case Histories for Sadie and Chip Sadie's Photos Chip's Photos Ω
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