ABSTRACT
Iron is an essential nutrient, the deficiency or excess of which has significant clinical and physiological implications. Iron deficiency results in multiple functional consequences, including impaired growth and energy metabolism, altered thyroid hormone and glucose metabolism, and altered immune system function. Iron-sufficient control groups must be used for comparison with groups fed diets containing varied iron contents. Some studies have fed all animals the same iron-deficient diets, while providing the control animals iron in weekly iron dextran intraperitoneal injections. Dietary fat may also be a confounding variable in the diets, as interactions between type of fatty acid composition and iron absorption and metabolism have been documented. Dietary fatty acid patterns have also been shown to affect some of the physiological manifestations of iron deficiency, example, plasma thyroxine concentrations. Care must be taken to clean all supplies and equipment with standard laboratory soap and/or a strong chelating agent and water to reduce contaminants.
