Nutrition · Module 11 · Trace minerals

Trace Minerals Lab

Build a day of iron foods and watch a body's iron stores, red cells and blood tests change over months, run the thyroid on different iodine intakes, practise mineral math, sort it all out, and apply it to real-life cases. Nothing here is graded.

Part 1: Iron Status Simulator

day 0
Heme iron Nonheme iron Hepcidin Ferroportin Transferrin Ferritin stores Reference range band
Live readouts
MeasureValue

A teaching model with rounded values. Absorption rates (heme about 15 to 40%, nonheme about 2 to 22% before meal effects), losses (about 1 mg a day, plus about 0.5 mg a day on average for menstruation, 1.5 mg more for heavy periods, about 4 mg a day late in pregnancy, about 230 mg per blood donation) and the links between stores and blood tests (1 ng/mL ferritin for about 8 mg stored iron) are simplified so changes show up within months. Turning on hemochromatosis restarts the run with several years of build-up already in the stores. Reference ranges vary by lab, age and sex. Real people vary a lot; this is not a diagnosis tool.