Dietary Iron, Alcohol Consumption and Serum Ferritin Concentrations in African Americans.

We investigated the relationship of dietary iron and alcohol consumption with serum ferritin concentration among 143 inner-city African-Americans from the community. Seventy-one of the participants reported consuming an average of more than four alcoholic drinks per day and 72 less than two alcoholic drinks per week. The mean age was 47 years for the high alcohol group and 49 years for the low alcohol group. Thirteen (18%) of the participants in the high alcohol group were women compared to 27 (38%) in the low alcohol group. Body mass index and rates of positivity for HIV and hepatitis C virus were similar. Typical daily dietary iron and alcohol consumption was calculated based on a dietary questionnaire that has been validated for use among various ethnic groups (University of Hawaii). The relationship of dietary iron content and alcohol consumption with log10 serum ferritin concentration and with log10 ratio of serum ferritin to AST (ferritin/AST) was examined in multivariate linear regression models that adjusted for age, sex, ferroportin Q248H status, caloric intake and serum concentrations of CRP and ALT. Ferritin/AST has been shown to correlate with hepatic iron concentration in the setting of alcoholic liver disease. Both average daily dietary iron from meat, poulty and fish (P = 0.013) and average daily alcohol consumption (P = 0.015) correlated positively with log10 serum ferritin, but average daily non-heme iron content did not (P = 0.9). Similar findings obtained for log10 ferritin:AST. According to this modeling and holding other variables constant, a 70 kg individual with serum ferritin of 100 ng/ml associated with dietary iron from meat, poultry and fish of 3.5 mg/day would have serum ferritin of 135 ng/ml (95% c.i. 107–172) associated with dietary iron from meat, poultry and fish of 7.0 mg/day. Similarly, a 70 kg individual with serum ferritin 100 ng/ml associated with no alcohol intake would have serum ferritin 124 ng/ml (105–148) associated with alcohol consumption of 56 g/day. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the amount of dietary heme iron and the degree of alcohol consumption influence the amount of storage iron in the body as reflected by serum ferritin concentration.