http://www.mdjunction.com/forums/anemia ... on-testing"If the serum iron and TIBC levels are low While UIBC is low to normal and ferritin levels are normal to high, the pattern is consistent with a chronic illness."
so, anemia of chronic disease. aka anemia of inflammation. from wikipedia / earlier TiMS discussion:
general-discussion-f1/topic13343.html#p130062anemia of chronic diseaseSerum iron - low
Transferrin & TIBC - low
TS - normal
sounds like that might be about right. so. conditions associated with anemia of chronic disease include infections, cancers, autoimmune conditions.
http://www.med.unc.edu/medclerk/medsele ... nemia2.pdfgiven that list alone, we know there's more to worry about than iron.
unpacking serum RBC magnesium a little, found this:
http://diabetes.org.in/journal/2002_oct ... ticle1.pdfnon-diabetic controls... RBC Mg 5.2+0.15 (mg/dl) ... Serum Mg 2.06+0.068 (mg/dl)
so, i don't like the looks of your RBC mag number, because it's lower than the control group in the study above, and even that control group had much lower serum mag status than we'd like to see in a truly optimal scenario. i'll have to dig around a bit to see if i can find more studies that measured serum mag and serum RBC mag at the same time.
going forward, if you can really work on the zinc, copper, and magnesium some more, that should help cut inflammation and associated iron issues...
i ran a nutritiondata search on foods highest in zinc, copper and magnesium. one guess which delicious item tops the list... (hint: next best option is veal liver mmmm!!)
http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000 ... 000-w.html