Ferritin
μg/L
Iron store. Deficiency impairs cognition and work capacity; excess is not a performance upgrade.
Iron-deficiency anemia has a clear clinical path to fatigue and cognitive slowing. That is not a license to treat high ferritin as an executive-function stack. The interesting causal question is correction of deficit, not megadosing.
Also called iron stores.
Connected relationships
MECHANISM+ INCREASES
Randomized trial · Moderate
Ferritin→Cognitive performance
Higher Ferritin increases Cognitive performance.
Treating iron deficiency in young women can move attention and memory on named tasks. Murray-Kolb and Beard (2007) showed that in a blinded 16-week trial. Two later trials in the same age band again find the gain where ferritin rose. Berglund's infant trial found no WISC-IV difference at age 7.
Sources
- L. E. Murray-Kolb et al. (2007). Iron treatment normalizes cognitive functioning in young women
- C Blanton et al. (2014). Improvements in iron status and cognitive function in young women consuming beef or non-beef lunches.
- AJ Leonard et al. (2015). A study of the effects of latent iron deficiency on measures of cognition: a pilot randomised controlled trial of iron supplementation in young women.
- SK Berglund et al. (2019). Effects of iron supplementation of low-birth-weight infants on cognition and behavior at 7 years: a randomized controlled trial.