Get your Ferritin and B12 Levels

If I could only give out one piece of advice when it comes to people suffering from depression or anxiety, it’s this: find out your ferritin (stored iron) and Vitamin B12 levels.

If every family doctor checked just these two things before putting someone on an antidepressant, it would save an incredible amount of grief. Such a simple thing, but not having recent ferritin or B12 levels, or them being too low, is one of the most commonly-missed and easily treated causes of depression and anxiety.

Why Ferritin and B12 are Important

Iron and B12 are used for a variety of things in the body, including assisting in the process of creating neurotransmitters like serotonin which help regulate your mood. If you don’t have enough iron and B12 available, you don’t produce enough neurotransmitters. You can end up severely fatigued, with low energy, poor concentration, bad memory, more anxious, etc.  In other words, low iron or B12 mimic many of the usual symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Antidepressants are designed to keep the number of neurotransmitters available in your brain at a high enough level. But no antidepressant is going to help you if you don’t have enough neurotransmitters to begin with. Experimenting with antidepressants under these circumstances is an incredible waste of your time and money.

What Causes Low Ferritin and B12?

There are lots of causes. For example, excessive bleeding can reduce iron. Inadequate dietary intake can be an issue, as can inadequate absorption of what you eat. Many medications can decrease absorption, as can some foods. Many people gradually lose the ability to absorb B12 as they get older, and develop all kinds of cognitive problems as a result. Too many, whose B12 isn’t checked, may be mistakenly assumed to have some kind of dementia. If the low B12 is corrected (e.g. via injections), the cognitive problems often quickly go away.

What you Need to Check

There are multiple different blood tests to check for iron levels, but for this purpose you need to make sure your serum ferritin is checked. This is a measure of the amount of iron stored in your blood that’s not already part of other things like blood cells, and so is available to help create neurotransmitters. Vitamin B12 levels are more straightforward. So ask your doctor if you’ve recently had a ferritin and a B12 level done, and if not, get them to order it. Then ask for the actual result of each.

Within Normal Range Isn’t Good Enough

You probably know that different blood tests have a range that’s considered normal, and anything above or below that range gets flagged in the lab reports that go back to your doctor.

Here’s the problem: for people with mental health symptoms, the normal ranges are too low.

The normal range for ferritin is 12–300 ug/L. That’s good enough to make sure there’s enough iron for building blood cells, but not enough for neurotransmitters. To avoid problems with fatigue, memory, concentration, etc. your ferritin level must be at least 50.

Similarly, the recommended level of Vitamin B12 is a minimum of 150 pmol/L, but for optimal mental health your B12 level should be at least 240.

Consequences in Practice

Many doctors, if they’ve ordered these tests at all, see them come back normal, and that’s the end of it. This is not good enough. The clinical difference between the official normal range and the optimal range for people with mental health symptoms can be substantial. I’ve seen many people have their symptoms improve, in some cases dramatically, simply by correcting these deficiencies.

Becoming deficient can happen anytime too. Some people are on antidepressants for years, with good effect, when they gradually start developing symptoms again, which worsen over time. Too many doctors are quick to assume that their antidepressant has “pooped out” and try to switch them to something else, instead of first checking if there is a new or worsening ferritin or B12 deficiency.

There is so much research and evidence behind this, that it is one of the few things that I would recommend truly pushing with your doctor if they are hesitant. Too many doctors (and pharmacists) are reluctant to treat low ferritin or B12, as long as the numbers are close to the normal range. Unless they can offer a good reason that supplementation to these higher minimum levels would be harmful, this is one worth fighting for.

Take Action!

Go to your doctor, check if you’ve had recent ferritin and B12 levels measured. If not, get them to order it. Ensure your ferritin is at least 50, and your B12 at least 240. If not, ask them how best to correct it. Make sure it gets checked again several months later.

Further Reading

Effect of iron supplementation on fatigue…  Canadian Medical Association Journal, August 7 2012.

It Could Be Old Age, or It Could Be Low B12. New York Times, November 28 2011.

0 thoughts on “Get your Ferritin and B12 Levels

  • I am do look relating to this article right now. I was told by a hemotologist this past Thursday that a month ago my labs showed I was amemic and my ferritin was 25. A month later, I’m not anemic however my ferritin is 18 and I feel worse then I did a month ago. Doing research is far more beneficial then seeing a specialist that told me nothing but lab results I can interpret for myself. Frustrated, tired and just want to feel normal again :-/

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