P.D. Mangan / Dumping Iron and triglyceride/HDL ratio

[JR5]

Dunno if you guys follow P.D. Mangan, but he used to write a dissident blog before transitioning to offering health advice full time with a special focus on analyzing nutritional studies. He's a biologist by background, in his 60s, and looks fantastic:



Anyway his twitter his here (I use Nitter to view tweets without being logged in): https://nitter.cz/Mangan150

Two interesting takeaways from his work that I think about regularly:

(1) His theory that women live 4-5 years longer than men because of their menstruation which dumps iron from the blood. Men don't dump iron so it accumulates for them and eventually causes big negative health effects. His solution? Donate blood regularly, which is the only way to remove iron for men. Interesting that bloodletting, which was used for millennia, may have health benefits after all... (he wrote a book on this called "Dumping Iron"). I have been donating blood for a couple of years now because of this.

(2) The most important blood lipid marker is your triglyceride/HDL ratio. A ratio over 3.5 makes a person 16x more likely to suffer from heart disease. There is not a single other blood marker that has anywhere near the correlation that this ratio has. You can see here for the underlying studies on it: https://roguehealthandfitness.com/longevity-anti-aging/the-most-important-lipid-panel-marker/ And LDL and total cholesterol does not seem to matter much at all...

 

[Jeremiah Branch]

You're definitely old school if you even know that he used to write a dissident blog. Props, bro. Very few people around know that, and it is impossible to discover it unless you "were there" since he has deleted everything.

And I totally agree that those are two very key take-aways from his health writings. Lowering blood ferratin is a highly, highly underappreciated factor in improving health.

 

[stadtaffe]

(1) His theory that women live 4-5 years longer than men because of their menstruation which dumps iron from the blood. Men don't dump iron so it accumulates for them and eventually causes big negative health effects. His solution? Donate blood regularly, which is the only way to remove iron for men. Interesting that bloodletting, which was used for millennia, may have health benefits after all... (he wrote a book on this called "Dumping Iron"). I have been donating blood for a couple of years now because of this.

How offen do you donate it? I think the amount they take is half a litre, I've only done it once or twice in my whole life.

Will consider that ratio at my next blood test, it's something I check every few years and worry about slightly.

 

[JR5]

How offen do you donate it? I think the amount they take is half a litre, I've only done it once or twice in my whole life.

Will consider that ratio at my next blood test, it's something I check every few years and worry about slightly.

I try to donate every 3 or 4 months, but Red Cross guidelines I think let you donate every 8 or 10 weeks which is too often for my taste. They sometimes even pay you for donating depending on time/location. Also, see this article by P.D. who states that the "normal range" for iron via blood tests are wrong, and men should strive for levels far below it: https://roguehealthandfitness.com/longevity-anti-aging/the-normal-value-iron-matters/

 

[StanWildman]

For those of us who have grown to deeply distrust the American medical establishment, donating blood is a difficult idea to get one's head around. After the past few years it is hard to imagine going in, sitting in their chair, and letting a nurse go at it.

 

[JR5]

For those of us who have grown to deeply distrust the American medical establishment, donating blood is a difficult idea to get one's head around. After the past few years it is hard to imagine going in, sitting in their chair, and letting a nurse go at it.

I havn't had any negative experiences personally with the professionalism of the Red Cross employees or the methods they use to draw blood. If the concern is somehow the needles they use are infected and one day you'll wake up with AIDS, I guess anything is possible in this globohomo Hellworld, but I can only speak from my anecdotal experience as well as there not being any such reports in the media or elsewhere that I have seen. One would have to make their own cost/benefit analysis at the end of the day, like with anything else.

 

[stadtaffe]

It's a big fat needle to take that amount of blood but I'd still do it occasionally.

I'm asuming giving blood is not anonymous - my only fear would be that they go and enter data about your blood into a database without your authority.

 

[JR5]

It's a big fat needle to take that amount of blood but I'd still do it occasionally.

I'm asuming giving blood is not anonymous - my only fear would be that they go and enter data about your blood into a database without your authority.

I can only speak to the Red Cross, which is where I go. They have facilities all over the place: https://www.redcrossblood.org/give.html/find-drive. It is definitely not anonymous, they have your name, they get your driver's license, and you have to fill out a 50-100 question questionnaire every time you go ("Have you had sex with a man?" "have you used needles?" "have you travelled abroad anytime in the last 3 years?" have you had a COVID vaccine?" (yes that is one of the questions) "have you taken any medication in the last 48 hours?" etc). The giving blood part takes about 10 minutes, it's not that bad imo, then they give you a drink and some snacks after.

 

[Jeremiah Branch]

There are other ways to reduce blood ferratin levels aside from giving blood at Red Cross.

There is a natural plant-derived compound called Inositol Hexaphosphate, marketed as "IP 6", and quite cheap. Taken consistently daily on an empty stomach for a few months, this compound chelates (removes) iron from your system. I used it when I was first trying to reduce my blood iron in addition to blood donation.

Mangan talks about this protocol in his book, and also in various articles on his website: https://roguehealthandfitness.com/?s=chelation

You can also go to a doctor you trust and have him take blood from you (phlebotomy). It's the same process as the Red Cross but it will cost you money and usually doctors will not take as much blood in one session as you can do at Red Cross, in fact significantly less.

There are other natural compounds that also act as chelating agents and/or hinder the absorption of iron. These include: dairy, caffeine (coffee and green tea, dark chocolate), curcumin, resveratrol (found in red wine), NAC, and others. It is very interesting to notice that most of the items on this list are so-called "anti-inflammatories", indicating that their effectiveness may in fact directly result from their removing ferratin from the body, i.e. iron is a powerful inflammatory substance.

Generally, I would advise people to remove iron as it accumulates rather than trying to avoid it in the diet. Red meat is too good a source of nutrition and protein to avoid. Its far easier (and effective) to bring your blood ferratin down through the methods described above, eat as you like, and then continue to use the protocols to manage it going forward. The main challenge is usually the initial process of bringing it down in the first instance. Once you have it down to a manageable level, you can give blood twice, maybe three times a year. And then you also have a reason to drink coffee, tea and wine, and to eat cheese and dark chocolate.

Also, it should go without saying: Get your blood ferratin level checked before you start the process. Being anemic, while very rare in men, is not a good place to be. And make sure you are paying attention to the correct blood marker: There are various measures of iron / ferratin, and you need to focus on the correct one. It's usually called "blood ferratin", but even the term can vary by where you live etc. Read Mangan's articles.

It is also extremely interesting to note that women have overall lower death rates prior to menapause, but that they start to catch up with men once they stop menstruating. That in itself is powerful evidence of the effect on health of giving blood / reducing blood iron levels.

The medieval phenomenon of doctors using leeches to bleed their patients is always given as the example par excellence of ancient "ignorant and barbaric" practices. It turns out they were onto something real.

tl;dr: Lowering your blood ferratin level is likely the single most important health intervention any middle-aged man can undertake.

 

[Blade Runner]

Dunno if you guys follow P.D. Mangan, but he used to write a dissident blog before transitioning to offering health advice full time with a special focus on analyzing nutritional studies. He's a biologist by background, in his 60s, and looks fantastic:

View attachment 1116

Anyway his twitter his here (I use Nitter to view tweets without being logged in): https://nitter.cz/Mangan150

Two interesting takeaways from his work that I think about regularly:

(1) His theory that women live 4-5 years longer than men because of their menstruation which dumps iron from the blood. Men don't dump iron so it accumulates for them and eventually causes big negative health effects. His solution? Donate blood regularly, which is the only way to remove iron for men. Interesting that bloodletting, which was used for millennia, may have health benefits after all... (he wrote a book on this called "Dumping Iron"). I have been donating blood for a couple of years now because of this.

(2) The most important blood lipid marker is your triglyceride/HDL ratio. A ratio over 3.5 makes a person 16x more likely to suffer from heart disease. There is not a single other blood marker that has anywhere near the correlation that this ratio has. You can see here for the underlying studies on it: https://roguehealthandfitness.com/longevity-anti-aging/the-most-important-lipid-panel-marker/ And LDL and total cholesterol does not seem to matter much at all...

I'm pretty sure I know the reason why (1) is the case, but it is not iron. I won't talk about this here for several reasons, but maybe I will in the future. In any case, yes, donating blood is linked to increase in longevity, that is true.

He is on to something with (2). The cholesterol and statin nonsense runs deep. Triglycerides are almost exclusively related to bad eating habits, type and quantity of food.

 

[Unending Powerhouse Match]

What if I don't trust the medical establishment to not use my blood in some kind of ritual? They do weird crap with the foreskins of babies, so why would I trust them to respect my blood?

"Trust me bro, I will only use it for transfusions for sick people". They might as well have a sign on the doors of their clinics with my face crossed out.



Should I just go find/buy a leech and let it feast upon me for a bit? How feasible is that? Just keep the leech as a pet. Put a cute little hat on it. Name it "Primarch Sanguinius". At least with a leech I know God made it and I know with absolute certainty what it's going to use my blood for.

Would be nice if there were bloodletting clinics where you could watch your blood being safely disposed of.

 

[Get2choppaaa]

There are other ways to reduce blood ferratin levels aside from giving blood at Red Cross.

There is a natural plant-derived compound called Inositol Hexaphosphate, marketed as "IP 6", and quite cheap. Taken consistently daily on an empty stomach for a few months, this compound chelates (removes) iron from your system. I used it when I was first trying to reduce my blood iron in addition to blood donation.

Mangan talks about this protocol in his book, and also in various articles on his website: https://roguehealthandfitness.com/?s=chelation

You can also go to a doctor you trust and have him take blood from you (phlebotomy). It's the same process as the Red Cross but it will cost you money and usually doctors will not take as much blood in one session as you can do at Red Cross, in fact significantly less.

There are other natural compounds that also act as chelating agents and/or hinder the absorption of iron. These include: dairy, caffeine (coffee and green tea, dark chocolate), curcumin, resveratrol (found in red wine), NAC, and others. It is very interesting to notice that most of the items on this list are so-called "anti-inflammatories", indicating that their effectiveness may in fact directly result from their removing ferratin from the body, i.e. iron is a powerful inflammatory substance.

Generally, I would advise people to remove iron as it accumulates rather than trying to avoid it in the diet. Red meat is too good a source of nutrition and protein to avoid. Its far easier (and effective) to bring your blood ferratin down through the methods described above, eat as you like, and then continue to use the protocols to manage it going forward. The main challenge is usually the initial process of bringing it down in the first instance. Once you have it down to a manageable level, you can give blood twice, maybe three times a year. And then you also have a reason to drink coffee, tea and wine, and to eat cheese and dark chocolate.

Also, it should go without saying: Get your blood ferratin level checked before you start the process. Being anemic, while very rare in men, is not a good place to be. And make sure you are paying attention to the correct blood marker: There are various measures of iron / ferratin, and you need to focus on the correct one. It's usually called "blood ferratin", but even the term can vary by where you live etc. Read Mangan's articles.

It is also extremely interesting to note that women have overall lower death rates prior to menapause, but that they start to catch up with men once they stop menstruating. That in itself is powerful evidence of the effect on health of giving blood / reducing blood iron levels.

The medieval phenomenon of doctors using leeches to bleed their patients is always given as the example par excellence of ancient "ignorant and barbaric" practices. It turns out they were onto something real.

tl;dr: Lowering your blood ferratin level is likely the single most important health intervention any middle-aged man can undertake.

Yes. Everything you said here is 100 percent correct.

IP6 can be helpful in reducing Hematocrit also.

Instead of donating blood, I take 1 cap of Jarrow Brand IP6 + 1200 mg of NAC every morning.

Even when Ive increased my testosterone dosage for athletic competition, it's allowed me to keep my hematocrit down to under 50.

Here is PhD Dr. Scott Stevenson to explain:




I've also overdone the blood donation: 6 donations over 12 weeks. All under doctor supervision. It was awful. My workouts sucked, my mood and energy was crap. Got my hematocrit down from 54 to 43... And after that I said never again.

Now it hovers between 45 and 50.

 

[Rainy]

I came across this the others day, can't find it now though.

Study showing men who donate blood regularly have considerably higher free testosterone levels.

 

[Get2choppaaa]

I came across this the others day, can't find it now though.

Study showing men who donate blood regularly have considerably higher free testosterone levels.

It may have a short term effect by reducing iron... But I don't think this would have any long term effect.

The bigger reason to donate blood for therapeutic phlebotomy is that you're hematocrit gets too high and you're at risk for stroke/high blood pressure.

 

[SCW]

I first came across the benefits of blood donation from Tim Ferris's 4-Hour Body, publish in 2010.

Relevant excerpt below:

Thought bloodletting went out of fashion around the time of the Salem witch trials? Not entirely.

I’m betting on a major resurgence, and it all has to do with excess iron.

More than estrogen, it’s thought to partially explain why post-menopausal (but not pre-menopausal) women have a similar incidence of heart attack to men. I’ve donated blood since 2001 to be on the safe side.

And I’m not alone. The New England Centenarian Study, conducted by Boston University’s School of Medicine, is the world’s largest and most comprehensive ongoing study of “centenarians,” or people who live past 100. Dr. Tom Perls, director of the study and an associate professor of medicine, gives blood every eight weeks to mimic the loss of iron due to menstruation, which he believes will increase his longevity:

“Iron is a critical factor in our cells’ ability to produce those nasty molecules called free radicals that play an important role in aging.… It may be as simple as having less iron in your body.”

There is ample evidence that iron reduction through phlebotomy (bloodletting) can not only improve insulin sensitivity, but also reduce cancer-specific and all-cause deaths. High iron stores have been correlated to an increased number of heart attacks in otherwise symptom-free males, and blood donation has conversely been correlated to a decrease in “cardiovascular incidents.”

Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades suggest aiming for blood ferritin levels of 50 mg/dl, which, if your levels aren’t over 400, can usually be achieved with 1–4 whole blood donations spread two months apart. No leeches required. If you’d like to increase the removal of pesticides and other environmental toxins normally stored in fat, you can do two things: schedule to donate a double portion of plasma, and drink a cup of caffeinated coffee about 60 minutes before going to the center. Donated blood will always contain such toxins, so you are not being a bad citizen by temporarily increasing their excretion.

Though some scientists argue that iron depletion is necessary for full cardiac benefits, I see no harm in acting on the positive implications of dozens of other studies.

Consensus won’t come anytime soon, but even if you don’t extend your own life, you might save someone else’s.

Karma is what karma does.

 

[StanWildman]

I wonder about the efficacy for reducing iron of the general heavy metal detox regime using chlorella, bentonite clay, and diamotaceous earth. Been doing this for a couple months at a time, on-off, for the past several years to deal with mercury and aluminum. I guess the only way to find out if it's removing iron too is to bite the bullet and go in and submit to the needle for full blood work up.... I do hate to pay for that every year because then I have to listen to my GP give me a raft of dubious dietary advice, still basically promoting the food pyramid.

Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades

Had not thought of them in many years, thank you for the reminder. I happened to learn about their first book, Protein Power, just when it was released and it was a life-changer. The Drs. Eades made some critical changes to their program with the second edition of the book. Taken together they are great resources.

 

[Blade Runner]

Iron (reduction) is not the reason for the longevity. It doesn't even make sense if you think about it - it is required for our living and oxygenation of our tissues. Now, if you are taking anabolic steroids and artificially raising hematocrit, or have hemochromatosis (a disease), then fine. But normal, healthy people are not experiencing less longevity because of having something they require - it's bizarre thinking.

Trust me, the (main) reason why you gain longevity is because you are losing other things in your blood, not iron. Do not take chelates or other such herbals or medications to reduce iron, it doesn't make sense and these guys aren't even giving you a reason why (because they are guessing as to why blood letting is beneficial).