Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Discussion Board

Hello -

I’ve been researching a lot lately and was wondering why Hepcidin is not a biomarker used in RLS to evaluate functional issues with iron transportation. If you believe in the inflammation theory, it seems like a very logical marker as increased inflammation would increase Hepcidin and reduce iron transport. Even if you don’t, it could at least be used as a weight in evaluating serum ferritin, which is a very flawed marker. From there, one could potentially look into therapies that decrease Hepcidin, potentially increasing iron transport.

Any thoughts?

I just re-read the wikipedia article on hepcidin to refresh my memory. Several points were made that may bear on your question. The first is that hepcidin was discovered in 2000. It typically takes many years of research to clarify the roles of newly discovered hormones before measuring the levels becomes useful to regular medical doctors. The doctors have to be educated, and start to request the test before manufacturers will make a test available for clinical use. AFAIK, hepcidin tests are only available in research settings. Just think how much problem we have getting doctors better educated about what ferritin levels mean. Ferritin tests have been available to doctors for decades, and most still don't know what "normal" means for an RLS patient.

Hepcidin levels go up with inflammation, and there are several other easily available tests for inflammation. Tests for hepcidin may be helpful in the future, but are not likely to be useful any time soon.

I believe several pharmaceutical companies are researching hepcidin-blocking drugs, which if developed could much reduce the need for IV Iron.

Searching through the forums I found a study done on the very subject of Hepcidin. Seems like they found low Hepcidin in CSF, and higher Hepcidin in the brain. This could suggest that the Hepcidin in the brain could potentially be reducing iron uptake in the brain.