Introduction -- Biochemistry of iron -- Systemic iron homeostasis -- Anemia and iron deficiency -- Diagnosis of iron deficiency states -- The iron requirement -- Bioavailability -- Diet in iron deficiency -- Iron and special diets -- Iron supplementation.

This reference book deals with the latest scientific findings concerning the iron supply of the human organism with natural foods. It dispels the misconception that plant iron is less valuable than animal iron by presenting the absorption of iron from plant foods via a newly discovered metabolic pathway. From this, new points of view can be derived for vegetarians and vegans, who have so far been counted among the risk group. Furthermore, it is dedicated to forward-looking possibilities of diagnosing iron deficiency and describes modern concepts for determining the bioavailability of iron in food. New findings on the biochemistry of iron in brain metabolism, the description of the different reference values of the international professional societies and practical advice for special diets, risk groups and age groups as well as cooking recipes with simple information on iron intake complete the work. The book is aimed at nutritionists and medical practitioners, nutrition and food scientists, dieticians, pharmacists and sports scientists. Content: Iron absorption, bioavailability and metabolism International Reference Values Diagnosis of iron deficiency Iron negative list of foods Author: Professor Dr. Klaus Günther is a lead principal research scientist at the Research Centre Jlich, member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. He is a specialist in minerals and trace elements in food and teaches as a professor at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Bonn, Germany. This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.