Ferritin dropped during a long BPC cycle — coincidence?
14 posts
Pulled a random CBC mid-cycle. Ferritin went 142 -> 87 ng/mL over 10 weeks on BPC-157. Hgb/Hct unchanged. No heavy periods (male), no GI bleeding, not donating blood.
Iron panel otherwise fine. Training and diet unchanged.
Anyone else seen ferritin drop on long BPC courses?
5 Replies
51 posts
Ferritin is an acute-phase reactant — it goes UP with inflammation and DOWN when inflammation resolves. If BPC is reducing your systemic inflammation, ferritin coming down from 142 to 87 might not be 'iron stores depleted', it might be 'inflammation-driven ferritin elevation has resolved'.
Pull iron, TIBC, transferrin saturation. If TSAT is fine and iron is fine, you're just seeing normalized ferritin.
16 posts
^ this is exactly right. Also pull hs-CRP. If CRP dropped alongside ferritin, the 'inflammation resolution' hypothesis is basically confirmed.
14 posts
TSAT was 34% (in range), serum iron 98. hs-CRP actually went 2.2 -> 1.1 over the same window. So this is exactly the story you're describing. Whoa.
51 posts
12 posts
That's wild that CRP tanked that hard. Makes sense though, BPC is supposed to be anti-inflammatory so if you're actually less inflamed your body doesn't need to keep ferritin elevated as a buffer. Kinda makes me wonder if people chasing high ferritin are actually just chronically inflamed and don't realize it. Anyway this is way better than the "you're bleeding internally" narrative everyone jumps to first.