Knowing one's iron levels is crucial to long term health. For guys, the problem is more often excess iron (iron overload), but for women it is more likely deficiency (resulting in anemia). Either can be corrected easily but many people are not aware of their iron levels.
Technically there are a number of ways of measuring iron, including blood levels and stored levels. But anyone can find out a basic measure of your blood iron levels simply by donating blood at the Red Cross (you can also find out your blood type this way, it is printed on the ID card they send you in the mail). Before they draw blood they will do an iron test to make sure the levels are high enough to take out blood. They give a number that one can check against the recommended range.
Excess iron builds up in your liver and when the liver is full it floats around in the body, potentially doing a lot of damage. A prominent book on the subject is The Iron Time Bomb, summaries can be found all over the net.
http://www.naturalhealthlibrarian.com/ebook.asp?page=Iron%20Overload
Those who turn out to have excessively high iron levels used to have to go give blood every month or so to lower them, but now it has actually become very easy to lower them due to a cheap extract from rice bran called IP6. It chelates (binds to) iron, escorting it out of your body. Iron levels come down very quickly.
Those who have low iron can eat more foods containing iron--however plant-based iron is not absorbed well, so meat is a better option.
You can find out how much iron (or other nutrients) a food has at
nutritiondata.com
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