ReviewNutrients2013
Iron: protector or risk factor for cardiovascular disease? Still controversial.
Review in Nutrients, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 82 citations in OpenAlex.
- Copper in colorectal cancer patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Carcinogenesis · 2025Pooled it
- Novel loci and biomedical consequences of iron homoeostasis variation.Communications biology · 2024Pooled it
- Dietary iron intake and body iron stores are associated with risk of coronary heart disease in a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.The Journal of nutrition · 2014Pooled it
- Iron deficiency and cardiovascular disease: an updated review of the evidence.Current atherosclerosis reports · 2013Pooled it
- The Effect of Serum Trace Element Levels On Cardiovascular Diseases in Adults in the Ravansar Region (Western Iran): A Risk Assessment Study in the Context of Elevated Lipid Profiles.Cardiovascular toxicology · 2026Article
- Sex specific associations of urinary metals with TyG index in the Chinese elderly .Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Repeated Injection of Very Small Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Particles (VSOPs) in Murine Atherosclerosis: A Safety Study.Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Exploration of the Healthy Donor Effect Among 0.6 Million Blood Donors in China: Longitudinal Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- Serum Mg, Zn and Fe levels among coronary artery disease patients in an urban south Indian region.Bioinformation · 2024Article
- The effect of circulating iron on barrier integrity of primary human endothelial cells.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- White Matter Injury: An Emerging Potential Target for Treatment after Subarachnoid Hemorrhage.Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity · 2023Review
- Propensity score analysis of red cell distribution width to serum calcium ratio in acute myocardial infarction as a predictor of in-hospital mortality.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2023Article
- Association between iron status and incident coronary artery disease: a population based-cohort study.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Admission Serum Iron as an Independent Risk Factor for Postoperative Delayed Cerebral Ischemia Following Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: A Propensity-Matched Analysis.Brain sciences · 2022Article
- Cohort Profile: The Shaanxi Blood Donor Cohort in China.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2022Article
- Non-Transferrin-Bound Iron in the Spotlight: Novel Mechanistic Insights into the Vasculotoxic and Atherosclerotic Effect of Iron.Antioxidants & redox signaling · 2021Review
- Association Between Serum Human Epididymis Protein 4 Levels and Cardiovascular Events in Obese Patients with Breast Cancer.Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity : targets and therapy · 2021Article
- Dietary patterns and cardiovascular disease risk among Chinese adults: a prospective cohort study.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2020Article
- The role of hepcidin and iron homeostasis in atherosclerosis.Pharmacological research · 2020Review
- New insights into the role of iron in inflammation and atherosclerosis.EBioMedicine · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Iron is the second most abundant metal in the Earth's crust. Despite being present in trace amounts, it is an essential trace element for the human body, although it can also be toxic due to oxidative stress generation by the Fenton reaction, causing organic biomolecule oxidation. This process is the basis of numerous pathologies, including cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The relationship between iron and cardiovascular disease was proposed in 1981 by Jerome Sullivan. Since then, numerous epidemiological studies have been conducted to test this hypothesis. The aim of this review is to present the main findings of the chief epidemiological studies published during the last 32 years, since Sullivan formulated his iron hypothesis, suggesting that this element might act as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We have analyzed 55 studies, of which 27 supported the iron hypothesis, 20 found no evidence to support it and eight were contrary to the iron hypothesis. Our results suggest that there is not a high level of evidence which supports the hypothesis that the iron may be associated with CVD. Despite the large number of studies published to date, the role of iron in cardiovascular disease still generates a fair amount of debate, due to a marked disparity in results.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.