Many Malaysian women with hair fall are told to "check your iron". The number that matters is serum ferritin, the blood test for your iron stores. Four studies below show what ferritin tells you, where the evidence is strong, where it is split, and what to do with your result.
Why iron and ferritin come up with hair fall
Trost, Bergfeld, and Calogeras call iron deficiency the world's most common nutritional deficiency. In women before menopause, the most common causes of iron deficiency anaemia are menstrual blood loss and pregnancy. Haemoglobin screens for iron deficiency, and serum ferritin confirms it. Their review notes that ferritin also rises with infection, inflammation, and cancer, so a normal number during an illness hides low stores, and other tests such as transferrin saturation and serum iron help in that case.
The Cleveland Clinic team screens both men and women with hair loss for iron deficiency, and they treat it, because in their practice hair loss treatment works better once low iron is corrected. Iron deficiency anaemia always needs treatment. Too much iron causes iron overload, so iron pills are a doctor's call, not a guess.
What studies of women with shedding found
In Beijing, Cheng and colleagues compared 193 people with telogen effluvium, 104 women with female pattern hair loss, and 183 healthy people. Ferritin was significantly lower in the telogen effluvium group than in both other groups, and lower ferritin came with higher odds of telogen effluvium.
In Chennai, Thamotharan and colleagues studied 50 women with telogen effluvium and 50 healthy women. Mean ferritin was 24.30 ng/mL in the shedding group and 44.78 ng/mL in the controls. Fourteen of the 50 women with shedding, 28 percent, had ferritin below 15 ng/mL, and none of the controls did.
Where the evidence is split
Olsen and colleagues at Duke studied 381 women with female pattern hair loss or chronic telogen effluvium and 76 women without hair loss. With ferritin at or below 15 as the cut-off, iron deficiency was found in 12.4 percent of premenopausal women with pattern hair loss, 12.1 percent with chronic shedding, and 29.8 percent of controls. Iron deficiency was common in all women, and it was not more common in the hair loss groups.
So the honest reading is this: low ferritin is common in women, it clusters with acute shedding in two of these studies, and it does not explain pattern thinning on its own. A ferritin test is a cheap, sensible step, and it is one piece of the picture, not the whole answer.
What to do with your result
Ask your doctor for a full blood count and serum ferritin, and mention heavy periods, a recent pregnancy, or a vegetarian diet. If your iron is low, your doctor finds the cause and treats it. Thinning at the crown or along the parting points to female pattern hair loss, which is driven by androgens, so it needs more than iron.
Where Folli-Activ fits
Folli-Activ contains no iron, and it was not the product in any of these studies. It is a 10-in-1 oral formula that works on the other parts of the picture: saw palmetto, pumpkin seed oil, and nettle root for the androgen side covered in our saw palmetto note, curcumin with piperine and EGCG for follicle inflammation, biotin for hair keratin work, plus reishi, royal jelly, and aloe vera. Fix low iron with your doctor and support the follicle side at the same time.
Each bottle holds 90 capsules. On this site, 1 bottle is RM169, 3 bottles are RM447, and 6 bottles are RM699 with free shipping. Go to the cart to see your total with delivery.
Sources
- Trost LB, Bergfeld WF, Calogeras E. 2006. The diagnosis and treatment of iron deficiency and its potential relationship to hair loss. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16635664/
- Olsen EA, Reed KB, Cacchio PB, Caudill L. 2010. Iron deficiency in female pattern hair loss, chronic telogen effluvium, and control groups. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20947203/
- Cheng T, Fang H, Wang Y, Wang Y, Yang Z, Wu R, Yang D. 2021. The diagnostic value of serum ferritin for telogen effluvium: a cross-sectional comparative study. Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7882421/
- Thamotharan, Harikumar, Sundaram, Swaminathan, Rangarajan. 2025. Assessment of serum ferritin levels in female patients with telogen effluvium. Cureus. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12839778/