IRON DEFICIENCY AND
OVERLOAD

In Shakespeare’s The Twelfth Night, the story is told of a young woman who became severely
depressed because she was in love with somebody and could not tell anyone about it, not even the
beloved himself. She is described as suffering from a ‘‘green and yellow melancholy,’’ a green
sickness resulting from the teenager having fallen in love. It is a fact that iron deficiency
commonly occurs after a few menstrual periods and imparts a green color to the complexion,
while the yellow is no doubt due to jaundice and liver disease that will often cause a person to
become depressed.