Study of Serum Hepcidin Rate Variations During Menstrual Cycle

Hepcidin is the major hormone regulating Iron Metabolism. Synthesized primarily by hepatocytes, it interacts with the cellular iron exporter ferroportin, causing its internalization and preventing the release of iron from enterocytes and macrophages. In a normal organism decrease iron stock causes a decrease in hepcidin synthesis thus promoting intestinal absorption of iron. Since valid methods for the determination of hepcidin serum rate are available, this dosage is increasingly used to diagnosis iron metabolism pathologies, in particular iron overload. The interpretation of hepcidin dosage results requires to know physiological variations of this hormone. Several works have shown that hepcidin varies according to a circadian cycle, that its values differ by sex and, in women, by age. As far as the investigators know, no study has focused on possible variations in serum hepcidin rates values during menstrual cycle in women. Yet this question seems relevant since it has been shown that during the menstrual cycle blood loss can cause significant iron and hemoglobin variations, which can significantly modulate the synthesis of hepcidin. This study investigate whether there are significant variations in the values of serum hepcidin rates during the menstrual cycle in order to make recommendations on the practical dosage determination of hepcidin in premenopausal women.