Influence of Sleep Deprivation on Iron Metabolism

AMONG the basic factors which have a bearing on iron metabolism and its serum level certain attention has been paid during the past two decades to the influence of biological rhythms 1 and various stressing stimuli 2 . In conjunction with this we decided to make use of an experimental set-up which involves the prolonged and complete upset of the basic biological rhythm of the alternation of wakefulness and sleep—that is, sleep deprivation. This work was stimulated in particular by the finding of an extreme drop of plasma iron (revealed in preliminary experiments) during the 120th hour of vigilance in four experimental subjects 3 .