Laura,

I hope the following clears up some of the confusion.

The following is from "Present Knowledge in Nutrition", 7th ed. (1996) by
Ziegler and Filer.

"Bunge in 1892 described the special vulnerability of infants to iron
deficiency. The author found that milk was an unusually poor source of
iron, and predicted that excessive feeding of milk could lead to iron
deficiency after neonatal iron reserves were depleted. In 1928 , Mackay
was among the first to demonstrate that iron deficiency was the reason for
anemia prevalent among infants in East London, and she showed that anemia
could be alleviated by providing iron-fortified powdered milk.
Nevertheless, the practice of adding iron to infants' diets did not become
widespread in the United States until the 1960's, and is still not common
in a number of developing countries."

Milk is not a great source of iron. It contains some but absorption is a
problem because the non-heme iron in the milk remains bound to other
components of the milk. Components of the milk will also inhibit the
absorption of non-heme iron from other sources if they are ingested at the
same time. Addition of extra iron to some milk products (iron fortified
milk) is intended to compensate for this.

On the other hand, vitamin C enhances non-heme iron absorption. The
addition of relatively small amounts of vitamin C to a meal increases the
absorption of iron from the entire meal.

Heme iron, the form of iron found in meat, poultry and fish, is absorbed
two to three times more readily than nonheme iron and is less affected by
other dietary components.

Meat also enhances the absorption of non-heme iron from other sources.
Nonheme iron absoprtion from a meal containing meat, fish or chicken is
approximately four times greater than from equivalent portions of milk,
cheese or eggs.

I hope this helps.

Dan Harvey

Laura Bee wrote:

I was talking to our ped yesterday and we were talking about the whole rice
milk thing with Max... Anyway I brought up the fact that Max sometimes
drinks up to 32 ounces of rice milk each day. Our ped said that for a 2
year old that is way too much milk of any kind. I knew that 2 year olds
should get at least 16 oz. but I didn't know you should set a limit. He
said that when kids get excessive milk that the high iron content can
actually cause their systems to become anemic. I am not sure, but I think
he said something about it binding with the red blood cells or something.
Dan or Dr. Bob can you explain this better? I was unaware of this and
thought I would share. I have talked with many of you who also have milk
lovin' angels. Also what about angels that get pediasure or formula that
has high iron content -- could this also cause anemia over long periods of
time?

Beez (Max, 2.8, +, Lancaster, Ohio)

_________________
Dan Harvey
Father of Matthew (3, AS), Jay (7) and Michelle (9)
Vice-President, ASF
http://www-chem.ucsd.edu/asf/
http://chem-faculty.ucsd.edu/harvey/AS_info.html