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I apologize for not ever seeing this old post before.

I checked the links and they do not work, so I added the paper here (attached)

"Approximately 14 million units of whole blood are collected annually by blood centers throughout the United States. As a result, approximately 3.5 tons of iron is removed from whole-blood donors each year. This loss of iron is evident in the decrease in the iron stores as mea- sured by serum ferritin that is associated with whole blood donation.12 Garry and coworkers2 demonstrated that serum ferritin concentration decreases steadily through five blood donations and then stabilizes at a mean concentration of approximately 20 ng per mL. During the course of these donations, it appears that daily iron absorption gradually increases to the point that the donor’s iron needs are met without further depletion of stores. However, there is individual variation in the ability to absorb dietary iron, and many frequent donors are deferred for low Hct. Superdonors are a self-selected population able to repeatedly donate whole blood without being deferred for low Hct despite having depleted iron stores, indicating that they have higher than expected absorption of dietary iron."

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