Abstract
Many hypotheses, most of them wrong, deal with the duodenum and iron absorption. At present, we accept that the balance of iron between the organism and its environment is controlled not by excretion of inadvertent excess but by the intestine's intelligent restriction of the amount it absorbs from dietary sources. A mechanism called mucosal block is informed of the body's requirement for iron, refuses available iron when not needed, accepts it when the requirement is increased. How the complex system is effected is not known. Anemia is not the signal. If it were, patients who have the thalassemia minor with 10 g of hemoglobin would all be iron loaded. They are not. Hypoxia is not the signal; patients with cyanotic heart disease would have iron-storage problems, which they do not. It is not the abnormally rapid synthesis of hemoglobin in chronic hemolytic diseases. If this were the determinant, everyone with
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