There are many toxins causing disease, but there's overwhelming evidence that the most common one causing obesity (and related diseases) in America is the mandated iron fortification.

It is now known that anemia can also manifest as anemia of chronic disease where the body intentionally stops absorbing iron and stores it in tissues in order to keep iron levels low in the bloodstream—to avoid feeding iron-loving pathogens and cancer. It can be counterproductive to give iron to someone who has anemia of chronic disease.

The countries that fortify their foods with iron are the very countries that have the most problems with their wheat and carbohydrates. The demand for “gluten free” has skyrocketed in these iron-fortified nations. Mysteriously, other developed, non-fortified countries don’t seem to have problems with their carbohydrates.

One recent study connected fortification trends to obesity, but overlooked iron as the culprit.

Gluten sensitivity was rare in the US before 1950, when widespread fortification was instituted. Sweden and Finland had voluntary fortification up until 1995, and Denmark fortified until 1987, when they banned it due to health concerns and low bioavailability. After de-fortification, iron deficiency anemia was virtually unchanged in those countries, proving that the iron fortification actually did very little to prevent anemia.

Coincidentally Sweden’s gluten sensitivity epidemic ended in 1996, within one year after they stopped fortifying flour. The Netherlands doesn’t fortify their flour and has virtually no issues with gluten. France does not fortify their flour and gluten sensitivity is very rare there.

The French are technically “undernourished” by modern standards; they eat roughly 40% more wheat than Americans do—a tradition dating to at least the 1800s—they’re “addicted” to antibiotics, have no interest in exercise, and yet they have 1/3 the obesity.

While iron is an essential trace element, it’s not a safe one. Iron easily oxidizes—it rusts—and excess iron has been strongly linked to virtually every major chronic disease that has plagued developed nations over the 20th century: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, AMD, arthritis, chronic liver diseases, and endocrine disorders. Even heart disease markers, such as homocysteine, may simply be an indirect marker of iron stores.

Whatever isn’t absorbed passes directly to the colon and causes damage and disrupts the microbiota, ushering in a host of downstream health consequences.

Iron can affect the structural and immunological integrity of the gastrointestinal tract and its microflora, potentially promoting invasion by pathogenic enteric bacteria, as well as increasing gastrointestinal inflammation. [4] For developing countries, iron supplementation resulted in higher incidence of or higher mortality from infections.

When iron is added to food, they have to add a significant amount because only a fraction of fortification iron is absorbed and most of the given dose passes into the lower small intestine and colon. Iron negatively affect crypts in the colon, increases free radical production in fecal material, and increases lipid peroxidation in the mucosa of the large intestine. Phytic acid, which inhibits iron absorption, suppresses colonic cancer, which has been linked to iron.