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This should really be a reply to the posting containing a press release on iron toxicity as a potential risk factor for PD, but I deleted that after reading it; sorry. A brief quotation from it: "Researchers reported last year that high intake of iron, especially in combination with high manganese intake, may be related to risk for Parkinson's disease. "People who had higher than average dietary iron intake and who also took, on average, one or more multivitamins or iron supplements per day were 2.1 times more likely to be Parkinson's patients than those who had lower than average dietary iron intake and who took fewer than one multivitamin or iron supplement per day. "Levenson said her findings show that people should not self-prescribe iron supplements but should wait until a doctor notifies them of a deficiency." My physician mentioned at a recent visit that my iron level was very high, so this caught my attention. There is much iron in the drinking water where I live, but I decided to do some reading to see if other dietary changes might help. After all, there's no point in knowing one's iron level is high and that's bad, unless something can be done about it! Sources of iron that can lead to a dietary excess include not only vitamin supplements, as mentioned in the above quotation, but also red meat, alcohol, and acid foods (such as tomato sauce) that have been cooked in iron cookware. (Alcohol, of course, isn't actually a _source_ of iron, but it does seem to promote uptake and/or retention.) Oh, yuk. I have consumed, with enthusiasm, generous quantities of all of the above for most of my life. I knew about iron cookware, but always thought (until this year) that dietary iron was good for me. Dunno if I've also had high manganese intake; apart from whole-wheat bread and lentils, I'm not a big consumer of any of the high-manganese foods that a quick web search for "sources of manganese" revealed. I thought the above notes might interest others on the list who might wonder how to keep the iron level normal. I'll have to ask my doc if altering the diet is enough to bring the iron down or whether a course of phlebotomy might be needed. Good thing I like fish as well as steak... ;-) -- | G r e g L o u i s | gpg public key: 0x400B1AA86D9E3E64 | | http://www.bgl.nu/~glouis | (on my website or any keyserver) | | http://wecanstopspam.org in signatures helps fight junk email. | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn