SUPPLEMENTS
To be useful, iron must be in its special state, called ferrous.
There is no benefit in having a large pile of iron in the ferric
state. (“Ferrous” has an “o” like “good,” to help you remember.)
This is why the correct form of an iron supplement is ferrous, as
in ferrous gluconate. Even this cannot be given safely.
While transferrin and lactoferrin move iron from place to
place, ferritin , stores it.
Ferritin is a roundish ball of protein with tiny holes in the
sides. Protein is sticky. Ferritin balls stick to old, worn out red
blood cells, persuading them to give up their iron atoms which
slip into the tiny holes to be trapped inside as ferric iron.
But here, ferric iron can do no harm, even though thousands
of molecules pile up inside. Ferritin is equipped to handle it just
like a hive is designed to hold bees. Ferritin then proceeds to
store this rather dangerous iron until it can be recycled. This oc-
curs mainly in the spleen and liver. But all cells have some fer-
ritin; it is in their lysosomes.
Unfortunately, ferritin has an enemy, asbestos. Our bodies
are riddled with tiny tufts of asbestos. We have inhaled some,
no doubt, but we have eaten most of it in food. Our bodies are
able to excrete a great deal of it in spite of its needle-like
shapes. But the body uses ferritin, our sticky iron-storage pro-
tein, to coat and bundle-up these asbestos tufts (as discussed on
page 30). That bursts open your ferritin molecules.
Ferritin is full of recycled iron waiting to be converted to the
ferrous form. Both reducers, cysteine and vitamin C, can do
this^92 but the Syncrometer detects they don’t work in the pres-
ence of asbestos. Undoubtedly asbestos has oxidized cysteine
and vitamin C, ruining their reducing power. But a supplement
of methyl sulfonyl methane (popularly called MSM ), a strong
reducing agent, can substitute for them, and in just a few days
(^92) Williams, W.J., Beutler, E., Erslev, A.J., Lichtman, M.A., Hematology 3rd Ed.,
McGraw-Hill, 1983, p. 308.