At about the age of 14, Lily* started to feel tired a lot of the time. She would regularly oversleep and lacked the energy to do basic things. It was also the time she started menstruating and having heavy periods.<\/p>\n
At 25, Lily was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and prescribed antidepressants for her symptoms. While they helped her, she also had to put up with the side-effects of memory loss, low sex drive and weight gain.<\/p>\n
A decade later, she went to a GP who asked her more questions than any of the previous doctors and ordered a blood test. They revealed that her iron levels were the lowest they had ever been, bordering on anaemia. The doctor recommended an iron infusion.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe week after, I just felt so wildly different,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n After decades of experiencing symptoms of tiredness and feeling overwhelmed, \u201cyou start to identify with that, as just who you are\u201d.<\/p>\n Lily is among one in five Australian women<\/a> who have an iron disorder, and many, like her, live for years with debilitating, untreated symptoms.<\/p>\n The scale of iron disorder misdiagnoses is not well understood and there is a lack of research in the area.<\/p>\n One study of more than 1,000 Swiss women with iron disorders found 35% were initially misdiagnosed<\/a> and treated for the wrong condition, most commonly depression.<\/p>\n Dr Nicole Jenkins, a scientist at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health<\/a>, says such misdiagnoses are not surprising considering symptoms like feeling down or finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning are common between iron and mood disorders.<\/p>\n Iron is necessary for the production of dopamine, which is often called the \u201cfeelgood chemical\u201d, so if iron levels are low, dopamine production tends to be low too.<\/p>\n \u201cDepression and iron deficiency can often occur at the same time,\u201d says Jenkins, who is working on a new type of test to better detect iron disorders. \u201cBut if you\u2019re getting treatment for depression and you\u2019re not getting treatment for your iron deficiency, then the treatment for depression may not be as effective.\u201d<\/p>\n Jenkins knows first-hand how hard it is to be diagnosed with an iron disorder. Seven years after she developed symptoms of extreme tiredness she was finally diagnosed correctly and treated.<\/p>\n Having spent her career researching iron balance in ageing, Jenkins felt \u201ca bit silly\u201d that she hadn\u2019t realised low iron was to blame for her own symptoms, which included feeling tired all the time and, eventually, an irregular heartbeat.<\/p>\n But for many years, her blood test results had been normal.<\/p>\n Dr Nicole Jenkins says the new blood test could help with diagnosis and treatment. Photograph: Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health<\/p>\n As she looked into the issue, she discovered why. Jenkins also had endometriosis, which not only caused the heavy periods leading to low iron, but was also the reason blood tests did not pick up her iron deficiency until her levels were dangerously low. Some chronic health conditions, including endometriosis, can distort the results of tests for iron levels.<\/p>\n Measuring the bottles, not the water<\/p>\n At the moment, the most accurate method for testing iron deficiency is to measure the protein that stores the iron, known as ferritin.<\/p>\n Jenkins says we can imagine our iron is like water inside tiny bottles. \u201cThe current test will tell us how many water bottles we have,\u201d she says, \u201cbut they don\u2019t tell you how much water is in them.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem is that while some \u201cbottles\u201d are full of \u201cwater\u201d, others are empty, she says.<\/p>\n Another issue is that at times of inflammation<\/a> \u2013 which can be caused by an illness such as a common cold, as well as chronic health conditions \u2013 ferritin levels will go up independently of their iron levels.<\/p>\n This means ferritin-based iron tests can be inaccurate, particularly in people with chronic health conditions, and result in misdiagnosis, as well as delayed diagnosis.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Not just an issue of diagnosis<\/p>\n Lily\u2019s problem did not lie in her diagnosis, as blood tests did pick up her low iron levels. But her body did not readily absorb the iron tablets she was recommended. They did not make a difference to her energy levels and gave her bad side-effects, including cramps.<\/p>\n She stopped taking antidepressants after her iron infusion but her GP prescribed her the birth control pill to manage her heavy periods \u2013 and her anxiety spiked again.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything is so intertwined, it can be really hard to make sense of what is low iron, what\u2019s anxiety, what\u2019s depression, what\u2019s hormonal,\u201d Lily says.<\/p>\n A new test<\/p>\n Jenkins is the chief executive and cofounder of FeBI Technologies, a spin-out company of the Florey Institute and the University of Melbourne, which is developing a world-first blood test that could measure iron itself \u2013 not ferritin.<\/p>\n She says the new test could not only help the issues of misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis of iron disorders, but could also help the management of iron disorders, as doctors could better understand how patients are responding to iron tablets or infusions.<\/p>\n The test uses quantum sensors based on nanodiamonds \u2013 tiny diamonds used in car polish which are not expensive but contain properties that react to a magnetic signal.<\/p>\n The iron within ferritin has a magnetic signal, so these sensors react when they\u2019re in the presence of iron, Jenkins says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re measuring how much these sensors change and that tells us how much iron is in the ferritin.\u201d<\/p>\n The federal government\u2019s critical technologies challenge program has provided almost half a million dollars to fund prototype development at Sunrise Health Service Aboriginal Corporation in Katherine, in the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n The six-month trial beginning in August will involve speaking to communities about how the test can be made accessible, affordable and able to operate in any environment.<\/p>\n Jenkins hopes the test will be widely available to help people by 2028.<\/p>\n Prof Derek Abbott, an expert in quantum systems at the University of Adelaide, who was not involved in the project, says using the quantum sensors based on the nanodiamonds to detect iron in blood is \u201centirely feasible\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIron deficiency is indeed a significant global problem,\u201d Abbott says. \u201cTo be able to do an accurate on-the-spot measurement would be a godsend.\u201d<\/p>\n *Name has been changed to protect medical information<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At about the age of 14, Lily* started to feel tired a lot of the time. 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