Iron-Loading Anemia

ABNORMALITIES in iron metabolism associated with anemia have been demonstrated in nutritional pyridoxine deficiency in several animal species.1 2 3 4 However, a similar condition in human beings has been produced only once, in an eight-month-old mentally retarded boy.5 Removal of this essential vitamin and the addition of the antagonist 4-desoxypyridoxine to the diet of human adults has not resulted in any hematologic disturbance despite the appearance of other clinical and laboratory manifestations of pyridoxine deficiency.6 In 1956 Harris et al.7 described a patient with a hypochromic microcytic anemia and iron overload who had a partial hematologic response to pyridoxine therapy. In this . . .