I had a look at all that just now Terry, looks very interesting!
Here's what I'm getting from it so far:
1.
We also absorb less iron during times of inflammation"
2.
inflammatory conditions in the body can
increase production of hepcidin by the liver.
3.
hepcidin is meant to keep iron away from bacteria, but
in chronic inflammation, it sequesters it for too long and
patients end up with "anemia of inflammation"
4. patients who have iron sequestered due to chronic inflammation
(anemia of inflammation) will show
normal or high ferritin.
5. patients who have a
real iron deficiency show
low levels of ferritin.
the following little quote is from that wiki link you sent thru, so you know where 4 and 5 above came from, but i haven't checked the references yet...
In anemia of chronic disease without iron deficiency, ferritin levels should be normal or high, reflecting the fact that iron is stored within cells, and ferritin is being produced as an acute phase reactant but the cells are not releasing their iron. In iron deficiency anemia ferritin should be low.
some interim conclusions:
1. people with chronic inflammation anemia should show high-normal iron test results.
2. if you show low ferritin, you don't have chronic inflammation anemia.
3. without chronic inflammation anemia, an individual is not chronically inflammatory; hepcidin is not being released.
4. when an individual is not inflammatory, iron absorption is not impaired.
so my next question is, are we MS patients chronically inflammatory 24/7, or do we only get acute intermittent inflammatory episodes during relapse?