Iron as part of a multivitamin and mineral supplement

[violaine]

Is it safe to take a multivitamin and mineral supplement that also contains iron?

[j2buttonsw]

Why not? Iron is an essential component of haemoglobin (amongst other things) so it is good to get ironed up.

[Hamish]

Like all suppliments you can take too much so always follow the instuctions on the bottle. Whilest the body does contain about 4g of iron it is safely stored in a protein cluster called ferritin, only a small amount is 'free' in you blood. If you were to overdose on iron pills you would increase the amount of 'free' iron with very bad consiquences.

[tracymort]

too much iron is bad. Too much over time can lead to many bowel probs like IBS and cancer.

[desertrat]

Just as you should keep all medicines out of the reach of children it is especially important to keep tablets which contain iron out of their reach; as an overdose of those tablets is very likely to be fatal to a child.

[violaine]

Thanks for the responses everyone. So would it be safe for an adult to take a multivitamin and mineral supplement that also contained up to (but no more than) 100% of the RDA for iron? The supplement I was looking at contains 86% of the RDA for iron.

[Hamish]

Unless I had a condition and was recomended by a doctor I would not take a multivitamine with 100% as I will also get a lot of iron from my diet...*% sounds fine.