It can be argued that these two factors—alcohol, which tends to decrease hepcidin expression and physiological regulation, which tends to compensate for high iron stores by increasing hepcidin expression, act on various regulatory pathways and this interaction finally establishes some sort of balance; an analogous situation has been documented in treated and untreated haemochromatosis patients [52–54]. Here, HAMP is linked to hereditary hemochromatosis.