No giving blood particularly for men (I wonder why) is good because having too much iron in your body rots your flesh: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/haemochromatosis/

Am I missing something? You link is to an inherited disease. If you don't have this inherited disease is this relevant for most people?

The way the comment is phrased, it implies that it's bad for men in general. Your link says for people with a specific issue.

Here is a better link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_overload

The link actually says iron overload can also be called haemochromatosis too so a bit confusing that that page says it’s inherited…

I don't understand the issue with cast iron pots after reading that either.

My understanding is that to get iron overload, your body would need to absorb excess iron and store it. This happens with haemochromatosis over a long time (30+ years), but it can also happen if you consume way too much iron by, for example, taking too many iron supplements when you don't need them. In normal circumstances and with a standard diet, the body will regulate it's iron intake so that too much doesn't get stored and so there's no iron oberload.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but this leaves me a little confused about what the commenter meant. If you have a normal diet and don't have haemochromatosis or some other confounding factor, I don't see how enough iron could be leached from a cast iron pot to cause iron overload.

If you cook acidic things like tomatoes, apparently it can leech a significant amount of iron - apparently in some cases exceeding what you'd get from food.

https://examine.com/articles/are-cast-iron-pans-unsafe/

Yeah, the main problem for men isn't full blown iron overload but rather subclinical iron excess which mostly comes from dietary heme iron since it bypasses the body's iron intake regulator compared to non-heme iron.

It makes no sense to fixate on elemental iron residue from your cast iron pan, especially if you're still getting heme iron infusions from red meat.

> particularly for men (I wonder why)

Anyone who doesn't lose blood somehow - for modern humans that usually means either menstruation or blood donation - should be careful of sources of excess iron in their diet. It's one reason why multivitamin supplements are often labelled as "for men" or "for women". The women's one will have iron.

Donating blood actually has multiple positive upsides!

My other half works for the NHS blood/transfusion department and was able to trace my blood (after I gave her the number on the blood pack) and confirm that I was negative for various diseases including syphilis.

Also, you get a free iron/anaemia test before donating.