Very interesting article about iron toxicity. We took our youngest daughter to an international adoption clinic for a complete check-up soon after her arrival home from China. When her blood work-up results came back, they insisted we start supplementing her diet with iron even though her numbers did not show a deficiency. They had the nerve to prescribe iron supplements, as well as prescription "Tums" with calcium without even discussing with us the reasoning behind it. They simply called it into our listed Pharmacy and then called days later to follow up (sounds real professional, ha?). Anyway, the person I spoke to on the phone said the reason for the iron supplements was due to speculation that she may outgrow her iron stores and the Tums were for extra calcium for bone growth due to her small size. I insisted that I was more than capable of supplying plenty of natural calcium and iron to ensure proper growth and health as well as explaining she was my 4th adopted child. I also explained that my daughter at the time had apparent constipation problems and that iron supplementation would likely do more harm than good. Still, absolutely nothing I said changed her recommendation and was also told they wanted to recheck her blood 3 months later (fat chance!).

The thing that irritated me most about the whole experience was the arrogant attitude that experienced knowledgeable parents are viewed as incapable of providing a well balanced nutritional diet and that they "know it all". Iron supplementing needs to be carefully considered and while I agree that some may have risky conditions that require supplementation to maintain health, it still is my opinion that high iron levels can be just as harmful as low iron levels. This article definitely points that out.

There is no like button on here, but thumbs up.

Another thumb's up!! The Tums got my attention too. I became anemic from taking Tums for acid reflux pain (before BTD), and I had never been anemic in my entire life!! I only took them about a month. I shudder when I think of people taking Tums and and the entire flock of their awful cousins!! I wonder sometimes if these arrogant characters have taken a course in destroying the health of the entire population!

I remember when I'd recently put my kids on  BTD, and the pediatrician had a talk with my Type O teens about diet. (Apparently she couldn't find anything wrong with Jack's B diet.) She asked them what they ate and then told them "since you don't eat any dairy, take Tums for calcium." We kind of laughed it off on the drive home- how tums aren't a well absorbed form of calcium, other minerals are needed for bone health (and are not found in Tums) and dairy isn't such a great source of minerals anyway! Oh, and let's not forget that tums contain artificial colors, which gives my younger daughter ADD symptoms. Even if I did believe that she needed a calcium-only supplement to make up for the lack of dairy in her diet, there's no way I'd buy Tums for her!