53 replies to this topic

[niner]

Another paper by the same author:

Brewer, George J. "The risks of copper toxicity contributing to cognitive decline in the aging population and to Alzheimer's disease." Journal of the American College of Nutrition 28.3 (2009): 238-242.

We established that AD was a new disease, just beginning to make an appearance 100 years ago. And we established that it only exists in developed countries. Now think about copper plumbing which has had an explosive growth over the past century in developed countries, particularly over the last 50-60 years. 80% of U.S. homes have copper plumbing, which was unheard of 100 years ago, and can’t be afforded in developing countries. Then there is the epidemiologic evidence involving the Japanese, which comes close to a smoking gun for the copper hypothesis. Japan, a developed country, does not use copper plumbing because of fear of copper poisoning. And they have almost no AD! Yet when Japanese migrate to Hawaii, where copper plumbing is used, they get AD like everyone else.

I'm considering a reverse osmosis water purification system for a drinking water tap, when I next own a home.

Wow. All the more reason to plumb with PEX, which is much cheaper and is easier to install. Retrofitting a house from Cu to PEX is not easy. I know, because I did it at my house (for performance reasons rather than health reasons). The system is still copper from the street to the distribution manifold. In new construction, it should be common these days to see PEX from the street to the faucet. Fortunately, copper is fairly easy to remove- for example, the Brita water filter people say that their pitchers reduce copper levels, although they don't specify the extent of the reduction. RO filters take everything out, including the ions you might want to keep in. That might be a reasonable tradeoff, in order to lose things like Cu, Hg, Pb, and Al. You could always supplement Mg and Li.

[hav]

Another paper by the same author:

Brewer, George J. "The risks of copper toxicity contributing to cognitive decline in the aging population and to Alzheimer's disease." Journal of the American College of Nutrition 28.3 (2009): 238-242.

We established that AD was a new disease, just beginning to make an appearance 100 years ago. And we established that it only exists in developed countries. Now think about copper plumbing which has had an explosive growth over the past century in developed countries, particularly over the last 50-60 years. 80% of U.S. homes have copper plumbing, which was unheard of 100 years ago, and can’t be afforded in developing countries. Then there is the epidemiologic evidence involving the Japanese, which comes close to a smoking gun for the copper hypothesis. Japan, a developed country, does not use copper plumbing because of fear of copper poisoning. And they have almost no AD! Yet when Japanese migrate to Hawaii, where copper plumbing is used, they get AD like everyone else.

I'm considering a reverse osmosis water purification system for a drinking water tap, when I next own a home.

Wow. All the more reason to plumb with PEX, which is much cheaper and is easier to install. Retrofitting a house from Cu to PEX is not easy. I know, because I did it at my house (for performance reasons rather than health reasons). The system is still copper from the street to the distribution manifold. In new construction, it should be common these days to see PEX from the street to the faucet. Fortunately, copper is fairly easy to remove- for example, the Brita water filter people say that their pitchers reduce copper levels, although they don't specify the extent of the reduction. RO filters take everything out, including the ions you might want to keep in. That might be a reasonable tradeoff, in order to lose things like Cu, Hg, Pb, and Al. You could always supplement Mg and Li.

Found this report from a small TV station in MO who tested a new Brita filter in 2001 and found it removed 99% of the copper in their test water sample...

http://www.kfvs12.co...tering-pitchers

Unfortunately they didn't do follow up with testing as the filter aged so there's no indication how long that level of performance holds up.

Curiously, the water department showed up a few weeks ago looking for a water sample from my sink to be taken at the crack of dawn before any other use that day, specifically to test for copper leaching. I'm going to have to see if I can get a copy of their test results.

Howard

[nameless]

Fortunately, copper is fairly easy to remove- for example, the Brita water filter people say that their pitchers reduce copper levels, although they don't specify the extent of the reduction.

Huh, good to know.

I've been using a Brita water filter (pitcher type) for the past couple of years, after being cheap and not wanting to pay for bottled water. That, and my bottled water was tasting like plastic too much.

I never really knew it removed any copper though.

[timar]

Unfortunately they didn't do follow up with testing as the filter aged so there's no indication how long that level of performance holds up.

The German consumer test magazine Öko-Test, however, did: http://www.geobiolog...mg/Oekotest.pdf

Being German , they did a very thorough test. To summarize, they filtered two liters of water, which had been adulterated with copper and other contaminants in a controlled manner, each day for 28 days, and analyzed a sample from each run. The filter capacity for copper decreased from 98% at day one to 92% at day 28. The capacity for lead remained constant at 100% and that for organochlorides went from 100% to 90%. There where no molds detectable in the filter. On the downside, it leached between 30 and 50 mcg/l silver (which is thought to be pretty benign though).

Edited by timar, 12 September 2013 - 01:55 PM.

[blood]

The filter capacity for copper decreased from 98% at day one to 92% at day 28.

What concentration of copper was used?

[timar]

The upper limit allowed by the German drinking water ordinance, which is 2mg/l for copper.

Edited by timar, 14 September 2013 - 05:51 PM.

[blood]

On the Doulton website, there is a page which shows results from a test which established a reduction in copper from 9.7 mg/L to 0.01 mg/L using the Doulton "UltraCarb" filter:
http://doultonusa.co...tridge_test.htm

However, this reseller of water filters claims that only reverse osmosis, RO, can be trusted for copper removal:
http://www.psifilter...ride-and-copper

Copper removal with cartridge filtration.

Generally not possible with a non Reverse Osmosis system.

Carbon cartridges will do amazing things in the first 50 litres or so and this is called the Holiday period. We have test results on the Matrikx CR1 that removed the copper content of water from 2.93 ppm to un-detectable but do not use such results as the test water was taken in the first few litres through a new cartridge which is in the Holiday period, after this period the cartridge will not continue to remove the copper and other non target substances.

Carbon cartridges are extremely good at removing substances like Chlorine, pesticides, lead and chemicals but not copper or fluoride.
One example of this is the Doulton Ultracarb which is a very good filter, we contacted Fairey Industrial Ceramics LTD as we had noticed several companies that advertised that the Doulton Ultracarb cartridge removed copper which did not appear on their manufacturers specification sheet. They did not confirm that their cartridge removed copper but referred us on to a company in Hong Kong and they forwarded this test sheet click here for Hong Kong test results, we asked further questions about how the test was conducted and over what period length and how many litres, suddenly no further correspondence could be obtained from the Hong Kong testing lab. We know that the Ultracarb won't remove copper except for the holiday period and we believe the Hong Kong test was conducted in the holiday period which means the results are misleading. Further correspondence with the manufacturer confirmed they did not rate their cartridge for copper removal.

There have been many Water Filter Companies prosecuted over the years for using specification sheets obtained using test results conducted in the first few litres through a filter cartridge (holiday period) and we expect that many more will be prosecuted soon and so they should be. The reason they are prosecuted is because the specifications supplied are misleading and not representative of what the customer expects for the service life of the cartridge.

Does anyone have any experience with water distillation? Sellers of counter top distillation units claim they are even better than RO units (at removing heavy metals including copper). The downside appears to be that you can't produce clean water instantly; it takes several hours to distill a few litres of clean water. The sellers of water distillers (that I have stumbled across via google) seem very sleazy, and the units would appear to be absurdly overpriced. Is there a reputable manufacturer of water distillation units - a company that has done tests to back up its claims on water purification?

Edited by blood, 15 September 2013 - 07:58 AM.

[Darryl]

Zinc supplementation will reduce copper levels, but at the cost of lower circulating superoxide dismutase, and copper deficiency with overuse. Its perhaps no coincidence that Alzheimer's patients are zinc deficient when compared to age matched controls.

For persistently high copper, at present there's also the option of finding a sympathetic doctor who will write a prescription for selective copper chelator Syprine (trientine), which has a bunch of side effects - investigational compound tetrathiomolybdate seems to have a better risk profile.

[niner]

Zinc supplementation will reduce copper levels, but at the cost of lower circulating superoxide dismutase, and copper deficiency with overuse. Its perhaps no coincidence that Alzheimer's patients are zinc deficient when compared to age matched controls.

For persistently high copper, at present there's also the option of finding a sympathetic doctor who will write a prescription for selective copper chelator Syprine (trientine), which has a bunch of side effects - investigational compound tetrathiomolybdate seems to have a better risk profile.

It looks like it takes a lot of Zinc to reduce copper levels. In the first paper, they were using 50mg/d Zinc, which is a pretty big dose. Here's a paper where children (age 6-8) got up to 15mg/d supplemental Zinc, along with 10-15mg dietary zinc, and even sensitive measures of copper status showed no difference.

[LaViidaLocaa]

I follow my daily intake through CRON-O-meter and, if lacking in micronutrients, I sometimes tike Source Naturals Life Force Multiple Without Iron. However, my recent blood test showed an iron deficiency, probably because I rarely eat red meat (I prefer chicken and fish and an occasional liver). Is it safe to take an iron supplement to restore my deficiency, or will the above mentioned risks of iron outweigh the benefits?

[timar]

What exactly did your blood test show? I'd take an iron supplement only if ferritin was below 50 ng/ml.

[LaViidaLocaa]

What exactly did your blood test show? I'd take an iron supplement only if ferritin was below 50 ng/ml.

These are the related values:
Iron: 44 mcg/dl (deficient)
Transferrine (IFCC): 258 mg/dl (normal)
Transferrine saturation coefficient: 17% (too low)
Ferritin: 64 mcg/l (normal

My doc advised me to take a supplement, but I shouldn't then? Personally, I feel fine. Not tired at all, or anything. Maybe I'll just continue to eat healthy and monitor my energy levels and possibly wait until a next blood test before I start taking a supplement then?

[timar]

Of course I can't advice against anything your doctor says, but I stand to what I wrote above. As long as the ferritin level (which reflects the body's iron stores) is above 50 mcg/l and there are no symptoms of iron deficiency, I would not take any iron supplement. Lowish free iron levels are actually a good thing to have, because free iron is strongly pro-oxidative and involved in several age-related pathologies.

However, with a ferritin level below 100 mcg/l, I would make a point to regularly eat some iron-rich food, including moderate amounts of meat, if you are not a vegetarian. An optimum level would be somewhere between 100 and 150, I suppose.

Edited by timar, 01 April 2014 - 03:55 PM.

[LaViidaLocaa]

Okay, thanks for the information! I'm not a vegetarian, no. Like I said, I prefer chicken and an occasional liver over red meat, but I don't mind eating it once in a while
I will do so, then, instead of jumping into an unnecessary and possibly harmful supplement.

[Dorian Grey]

I believe "optimal" ferritin levels involve a combination of factors... Higher ferritin is associated with transient or chronic elevation of free/serum iron, which generate hydroxyl radicals and lipid peroxidation of susceptible fats and fatty acids (polyunsaturated oils & PUFA's). Vitamin-E as the bodies primary lipid antioxidant is what keeps free iron from turning susceptible fats rancid.

If your diet is high in polyunsaturated fats and you're gobbling down fish oil, while at the same time spooked by the anti-Vitamin-E hysteria and not supplementing E (the most common vitamin deficiency @ 93%), the lower end of the healthy range for ferritin might be wise.

Another thing to consider might be the fact that stored iron tends to go only one direction in adult males and post menopausal females over time, and that direction is UP! A relatively young man who doesn't sweat his ferritin rising into triple digits through diet or supplementation may wake up a couple decades down the road and find iron has accumulated to unhealthy levels. As bloodletting (donation or phlebotomy) is the only efficient method of lowering iron, I would hope you don't mind getting the jab, as blood loss will become your fountain of youth if/once iron levels become unreasonably high.

[LaViidaLocaa]

Hmm, nice analysis! I do not take a high-dose vitamin E supplement, but do track it (as I do with my other micros as well) and do not appear to be deficient. I take 3g of fish oil almost daily, unless I eat fatty fish, but I try to keep my PUFA's lower than my MUFA's and SFA's as I read that PUFA's -except omega 3- weren't too healthy when their intake is too high.

[osris]

What does anyone make of this? "Copper May Protect Against Alzheimer’s Researchers at The Birchall Centre at Keele University in the UK released research in February that provided “unequivocal” evidence that copper protects the human brain against damage from beta amyloid. They also said it’s “highly unlikely” that copper is responsible for the formation of brain plaques. In the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers suggest that low levels of copper in the diet may effect how plaques form in the brain. The research team came to this conclusion by testing how beta amyloid and copper interact in the laboratory in experiments that simulated how the human brain works. Researchers behind both claims say further evidence is needed to confirm which theory is correct." https://www.healthli...zheimers-081913

[Dorian Grey]

As with iron, it's certainly important to avoid deficiencies.  Whether blind supplementation is wise is another matter.  If your home has copper plumbing for instance, you may already be supplementing copper without knowing this is occurring.  

 

Acu-Cell has an interesting comment on copper from their experience with mineral analysis:  https://acu-cell.com/crcu.html

 

"Copper on the other hand is elevated in the majority of patients, which creates a chronic copper / chromium conflict ratio-wise in these individuals"

 

"Of thousands of patients tested since the mid 1970s from different continents around the world, nearly 90% exhibited a chemical profile that in addition to their own unique chemistry, contained an underlying pattern that reflected the impact of elevated copper levels on various opposing nutrients"

 

Bottom line.  Yes, copper is a good & useful trace min, but deficiencies are rare and excess common.  Blind supplementation is probably unwise.  If you've got a true deficiency, I'd try to increase dietary copper before I'd start popping copper pills.  

Edited by Dorian Grey, 20 November 2019 - 05:50 PM.

[osris]

What would be your recommendation of a safe dosage for copper in a multimineral?

[Dorian Grey]

The only mineral I'd ever supplement is magnesium (the most commonly deficient in many diets), and perhaps low level zinc if dietary sources were low (vegan).  

 

Trace minerals in particular are rarely ever deficient, but imbalances tend to occur.  

 

Acu-Cell has a lot of good info on this.  https://acu-cell.com/mr.html

 

https://acu-cell.com/crcu.html?page=0

 

Hair analysis the only way to determine the trace imbalances, so unless you're going to have this done, I'd avoid trace mineral supplementation entirely.  

Edited by Dorian Grey, 21 November 2019 - 04:58 PM.

[Benko]

Why not just enter your diet into a nutrition website eg chronometer and see which micronutrients you are not consuming sufficient?

[drgs]

I do some weight training. I took zinc supplements + L-Carnosine, a known chelator for minerals, for a couple of years.

The result? Patellar tendinitis of the right knee and right triceps (my left side was fine for some reason), herniated disc, hemorrhoids and sudden onset of grey hair, all within 2 years. I was 31 at the time.

 

[Dorian Grey]

I do some weight training. I took zinc supplements + L-Carnosine, a known chelator for minerals, for a couple of years.

The result? Patellar tendinitis of the right knee and right triceps (my left side was fine for some reason), herniated disc, hemorrhoids and sudden onset of grey hair, all within 2 years. I was 31 at the time.

 

Blind supplementation of trace minerals always a risky endeavor.  Without careful monitoring, the potential risks & possible reward ratio is quite poor.  Your experience illustrates this well, so thanks for this valuable input.  

 

Transition metals like copper & iron are particularly dangerous, as the pro-oxidant potential can wreak havoc at the cellular level with DNA; hydroxyl radicals the most destructive force occurring within the cell for both nuclear & mitochondrial DNA.  60%- 70% of cellular DNA damage is caused by hydroxyl radicals.  Avoid/reduce this if you can!  

Edited by Dorian Grey, 25 November 2019 - 06:37 PM.