Iron deficiency is associated with CRC risk (Fig. 1) [53] and may benefit disease progression as it hampers immune cell functions, thus compromising tumor surveillance, cytokine production, oxidative defense, response to treatment, and the expression/activation of cancer-associated genes (i.e. HIF, VEGF, NRF2) [16, 24, 54–58]. Here, VEGFA is linked to neoplasm.