You felt pale. Tired. Breathless. You got recommended to take an iron supplement. When the iron supplement therapy started, things got worse. Nausea every morning. Constipation that became a daily routine. That horrible metallic taste after having the supplement. Then the choice to live with iron deficiency than deal with the annoying side effects of the supplements.
This is a real problem. A problem faced by so many people out there. Studies show that up to 75% people who were prescribed iron supplements experienced gastrointestinal side effects and a large sum of them quit due to the same. Non compliance of oral iron was estimated to be around 27 to 75%.
But here is what most people do not know. Iron supplement side effects are not inevitable. They are a consequence of the type of iron you consume. And once you understand why they happen, it becomes easier to point out the solution.
Why Conventional Iron Supplements hurt your stomach?
The vast majority of iron supplements in the market use iron salts like ferrous sulphate, ferrous fumarate and more. These are cheap, widely available and have been prescribed for as long as we can remember. They are also the primary reason why the side effects of iron supplements exist.
Here is what happens inside your body when you swallow a conventional iron supplement. The tablet dissolves in your stomach releasing iron ions into the gastric environment. These iron ions are highly reactive and when they make direct contact with the mucosal lining of your stomach, they trigger oxidative stress. This essentially is a low-grade chemical irritation which causes inflammation of the gut lining.
The result? You know too well. Nausea, cramping, metallic taste, bloating, diarrhea, constipation or even the occasional black stool that can be alarming to see. Moreover, the metallic taste that erupts on your taste buds is due to the dissolved iron travelling back up your esophagus.
NOTE: The more iron that remains unabsorbed in your stomach, the worse the side effects can be. Conventional irons have low bioavailability, meaning most of the iron consumed remains unabsorbed and that causes the GI problem you experience.
The absorption problem makes things worse.
Conventional iron salts have very low bioavailability (10-15%), even in ideal conditions. In real life scenario, it gets worse. With food habits, close consumption of tea/coffee with iron supplements and gut inflammation created by iron itself, the numbers fall even lower. This ultimately creates a vicious cycle as so little iron is getting absorbed and therefore, more iron dosage is needed. Increase in doses means that more idle iron is present in gut and that causes irritation. More irritation then leads to more skipped doses.
This is why noncompliance is so high. It is not that people do not want to treat their iron deficiency. It is the fact that the treatment is difficult to tolerate.
Why is Ferrous Sulfate still at the top of the market with all its drawbacks?
Ferrous Sulfate has been a standard. It is cheap, familiar and a practice embedded in all of us. In a market where healthcare costs matter a lot, a supplement costing less becomes an ideal choice regardless of its side effects.
The situation gets more dire as noncompliance plays a massive role in iron supplement patients. Iron deficiency is a silent epidemic and the iron supplements have become the primary driver.
How is Liposomal Iron different?
Liposomal iron in simpler terms is iron with a smarter and more efficient delivery. Encapsulated in a protective shell called the liposome which is a tiny lipid sphere (fat). This protective shell does something unbelievable and remarkable; it allows the iron to bypass the stomach entirely. Now, instead of the iron getting wasted in the gut, the iron surpasses it to the smaller intestine directly.
How is HbAA+ different?
HbAA+ is designed to solve the problem from the ground up. Using Liposomal Ferric Di-phosphate, it encases the iron in a protective lipid shell that surpasses your gut altogether. No gut contact. No oxidative stress. The iron is released only when it reaches the smaller intestine, where it is absorbed directly. Your gut never even knows it was there.
However, HbAA+ goes further than just solving the delivery problem. Most iron supplements, even the ones using liposomal technology, address only the heme synthesis. Heme is only one half of the hemoglobin though. The other half is globin. Globin is a protein chain built from specific amino acids. No matter how much iron you consume, without globin it will not be able to assemble the whole hemoglobin.
It includes L-Leucine, L-Histidine, Glycine and L-Methionine. These are the 4 key amino acids your body needs to build globin chains. On top of that, every tablet contains complete co-factors stack that is left out by conventional irons. Folic acid and Vitamin B12 for red blood maturation, Vitamin B6 for heme synthesis, Vitamin C to enhance absorption and Zinc to support the erythropoiesis process.
The result, one tablet that ensures whole hemoglobin production, not just one part of it.
The biggest win: iron never touches your gut, so there is no nausea, no constipation, no metallic taste and no reason to skip a dose!
When to see a doctor?
If the side effects are severe, this requires immediate medical attention. Side effects to be aware about are:
- Severe abdominal pain
- Blood in stool
- Nonstop vomiting
- Symptoms or iron toxicity (vomiting, diarrhea, metabolic acidosis and shock)
Especially during pregnancy make sure iron supplements are taken under medical supervision.
