Diet Counts!

This image shows the iron-related gene HFE and were it is located in the brain.

According to the article posted in ScienceDaily on January 12, 2012, researchers at UCLA have found that in addition to causing cognitive problems, a lack of iron early in life can also affect the brain's physical structure. Paul Thompson, a neurology professor at UCLA, along with his colleagues, measured levels of  transferrin, is a protein that transports iron throughout the brain and body, and found that these levels were related to detectable differences in both the brain's macro-structure and micro-structure when adolescents reached young adulthood. Thompson and his team have also identified a common set of genes that influences both transferrin levels and brain structure. They believe that this “discovery may shed light on the neural mechanisms by which iron affects cognition, neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration…” Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency worldwide, causing poor cognitive achievement in school-aged children, according to the article in ScienceDaily. Yet later in life, iron overload is associated with damage to the brain, and abnormally high iron concentrations have been found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington diseases. Therefore, increasing the intake of iron in teens, will increase the production of myelin in the body and will therefore increase the speed of brain communication. Thanks to Thompson and his team studying how a lack of iron early in life can also affect the brain’s structure and function later in life, readers will come to learn how important an intake of iron is during the teen years. Reflecting on his findings, Thompson proclaimed, "This is remarkable, as we were not studying iron deficient people, just around 600 normal healthy people. It underscores the need for a balanced diet in the teenage years, when your brain's command center is still actively maturing.” Thompson’s team’s findings appear in the current online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article because I learned how important it is to have a sufficient amount of iron in the teen years. I also plan on having children one day and because of this study and article I will forever remember how important it will be to make sure they are receiving enough iron.