Ferritin goes up in times of inflammation and infection because the body up regulates hepcidin, which gets the body to store the iron and ferritin to sequester iron from the potential pathogens and starve them of iron so they can’t thrive. As a side effect of this is that in the storage form it’s unavailable to ourselves too, and we can become anemic. Is that correct or have a oversimplified?

Dr. Amy Nett:  Okay, so I think very generally, yes. What you’re saying is correct. There’s probably a little more complexity into this since hepcidin actually plays a number of roles in iron regulation. Hepcidin is upregulated in infection and chronic inflammation. And yes, there may be some degree of acquired anemia in response to the inflammation. So I think yes, generally you do have that correct.