Hi CJ!

"Gasoline" may not be the right analogy, but as more studies are published,
the effects of iron in the pre sense of inflammatory diseases such as HCV
seems pretty clear. There appears to be a significant association between the
degree of iron stores in the liver and the degree of damage inflicted with
chronic HCV, presumably because iron enhances the oxidative stress associated
with the disease.

[Side note: it sure seems to be getting harder and harder to access trial
results via the web. I kept running into the same handful of sites that only
allow access to the articles with a paid subscription. Pisses me off
muchly...]

This study results that show a major reduction in ALT with long-term iron
reduction therapy - with concomitant reduction in the risk for HCC.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v882v4581l85l257/

This study shows an unintended result: iron depletion therapy was used to see
if anti-viral therapy would be improved among a cohort of non-responders.
While iron depletion did not improve SVR rates, it did dramatically reduce
ALT.

http://grande.nal.usda.gov/ibids/index.php?mode2=detail&origin=ibids_references&
therow=56145

This study incidentally showed a normalization of ALT with the use of iron
depletion therapy.

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/61/24/8697

This study shows the when HCV patients on hemodialysis have iron supplements
(to replace iron "lost" during dialysis) they have significantly higher ALT.
(Note we can only see the synopsis of this article without paying for the
rest).

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1440-1797.2005.00474.x?journa
lCode=nep

You can find lots more digests and even full articles (if you look hard
enough!) that pretty much show the same results, and at the least, rationalize
a lower degree of liver damage as offshoot of iron depletion. There's more
than enough evidence to convince me that non-responders that are showing any
significant liver damage should consider some form of dietary iron reduction
if not an outright iron depletion strategy. And, certainly, those folks should
have their iron load determined through the appropriate test procedure (which,
fwiw, is more than just measuring serum ferritin!)

Cheers

/greyhackles