As the most common type of anemia, iron-deficiency anemia has attracted more and more attention. With the change of nutrition and health needs and the enhancement of safety awareness, there has been increasing interest in the research and development of oral iron supplements with good iron supplementation effect, easy absorption, small side effects and high safety. This paper reviews recent progress in the development and research of iron supplements. In this paper, the raw material source, structure, action mechanism, preparation, application, and digestion and absorption mechanism of iron protein succinate are reviewed, and future prospects of polypeptide-iron complexes and iron protein succinate are discussed. We anticipate that this review will provide a theoretical basis for the research and development of iron supplements.