FIGURE 2.

Geometric mean (95% CI) hepcidin concentrations during 8 h after an oral dose of 6 mg Fe with a meal, 60 mg Fe with a meal, or 60 mg Fe without a meal as FeSO₄. Curves display values at each time point for the respective meal for all 32 subjects. P values for the linear mixed effects model were as follows: P-time × meal effect < 0.01, P-time < 0.001, and P-meal = 0.71. Note that hepcidin concentrations continued to increase after peaks of transferrin saturation (Figure 1) and non–transferrin-bound iron (Figure 3) had been reached at ∼4 h.