Iron deficiency is more common without animal sources. Given my diet, I think being iron deficient is considerably more likely than having too much iron. I haven’t done a blood test. I also don’t have any strong intuition if it is better to have too much or too little iron (my prior would be that too little is worse).
A related question, should manganese rich foods also be avoided? For example, just a few slices of whole wheat bread have a similar manganese content to a typical supplement (100% daily value or 2.3 mg).
On the whole, this comment has resulted in a very small update for me against taking multivitamins (mostly from the “Supplements have some beneficial components, but also some detrimental/poisonous ones and so their overall effect is net neutral or slightly negative” hypothesis). The net update is small because that link about chromium/manganese triggers my quackery alarms quite strongly.
You are almost certainly getting enough iron in your diet as a person who (presumably) doesn’t menstruate. If you are not feeling fatigued or dizzy on the regular, you almost certainly have enough iron. If you are worried, get a blood test, don’t just supplement willy-nilly.
I would recommend you do a food diary for 3 days and enter into chronometer or myfitnsespal. You are probably getting 10-15mg of iron a day and the RDI for adult men is 8mg. Yes, vegans get non-heme iron, but the iron in meat is something like 80% non-heme, so most people actually get a very small amount of heme iron, and diet tends to have no impact on iron intake.
I speak generally as I don’t know what your diet looks like: if you eat pizza pockets and ben & jerrys for every meal then you have bigger problems than your multivitamin.
I’m a vegan doing a nutrition degree (at an accredited university, not at one of those woo-woo online holistic centres). I also have low iron because I have dysmennorhea, which I assume you can’t suffer from.
Definitely take b12 and take D if you don’t get sun (you probably don’t). Make sure you are getting vegan D if that’s important to you, most D is not vegan. Also make sure the D is an appropriately high dose, not the very low doses that are in multivitamins.
Iron deficiency is more common without animal sources. Given my diet, I think being iron deficient is considerably more likely than having too much iron. I haven’t done a blood test. I also don’t have any strong intuition if it is better to have too much or too little iron (my prior would be that too little is worse).
A related question, should manganese rich foods also be avoided? For example, just a few slices of whole wheat bread have a similar manganese content to a typical supplement (100% daily value or 2.3 mg).
On the whole, this comment has resulted in a very small update for me against taking multivitamins (mostly from the “Supplements have some beneficial components, but also some detrimental/poisonous ones and so their overall effect is net neutral or slightly negative” hypothesis). The net update is small because that link about chromium/manganese triggers my quackery alarms quite strongly.
Why do you believe that?
You are almost certainly getting enough iron in your diet as a person who (presumably) doesn’t menstruate. If you are not feeling fatigued or dizzy on the regular, you almost certainly have enough iron. If you are worried, get a blood test, don’t just supplement willy-nilly.
I would recommend you do a food diary for 3 days and enter into chronometer or myfitnsespal. You are probably getting 10-15mg of iron a day and the RDI for adult men is 8mg. Yes, vegans get non-heme iron, but the iron in meat is something like 80% non-heme, so most people actually get a very small amount of heme iron, and diet tends to have no impact on iron intake.
I speak generally as I don’t know what your diet looks like: if you eat pizza pockets and ben & jerrys for every meal then you have bigger problems than your multivitamin.
I’m a vegan doing a nutrition degree (at an accredited university, not at one of those woo-woo online holistic centres). I also have low iron because I have dysmennorhea, which I assume you can’t suffer from.
Definitely take b12 and take D if you don’t get sun (you probably don’t). Make sure you are getting vegan D if that’s important to you, most D is not vegan. Also make sure the D is an appropriately high dose, not the very low doses that are in multivitamins.