There are many different causes of copper deficiency. Some are more well recognized by the establishment. But even then, they are not well recognized by doctors. Some are well recognized in the science, but not well recognized by the establishment. Some are not well recognized by the science but are only hinted at in the science. Some I cannot find at all in the science, but I can put two and two together and can see causes of action on how copper could be blocked by some nutrients. This is potentially a very large field of study. The biggest list of things that block copper that I found from others is 10. I know there are at least 40 things that block copper, going to show the greater breadth of my studies on copper.
One man asked me to order my list in terms of which blocks copper the most. I don’t know if the science is that good yet to even know the answer to that. To answer that, you would first have to know which things to look at, and to my knowledge, the size of my list is the first of its kind. Further complicating the answer, if you look at one thing, such as “iron” that blocks copper, it would be a sliding scale, depending on how much iron is involved. I tend to believe that if a thing, such as Vitamin C, blocks copper, and if you take many milligrams of the substance, then it could block copper more, but it does not always work like that. Vitamin C has an indirect copper blocking effect that starts around 1500 mg, as that much can lower ceruloplasmin, a copper-binding and transport protein. For fluoride, it takes 2 mg of copper to bind to 1 mg of fluoride, as we will see.
Further complicating the matter, you would have to compare across the list. Furthermore, drug-induced copper deficiency is not the type of thing that is generally investigated nor listed among the side effects, because the medical establishment has a view that copper deficiency is rare. So they are not looking at it.
One way to get to the question is to compare a drug’s listed side effects and compare that to the general symptoms of copper deficiency. If many symptoms match, it could presumably be because it blocks copper. There are so many symptoms of copper deficiency, as we saw, that it may be likely that most drugs tend to deplete copper, as a general rule. As another general rule, most drugs do not contain copper. As another general rule, the body treats most drugs as toxins. As a further general rule, copper tends to get used up as it detoxifies things.
Chapter 22: Typical Medical Literature Reports
The Medical Establishment rarely diagnoses mild, chronic, copper deficiency. They often recognize only acute, or “frank”, or severe copper deficiency, and by then, it’s often too late because the nerve damage is so severe, it might be beyond repair. So, once again, you can’t trust doctors to recognize and prescribe copper. And copper is not a prescription medicine, nor should it be. You have to look out for yourself.
Causes of Severe Copper deficiency are often reported to be:
1. Infants fed cow’s milk only, which is too low in copper.
2. People fed parenteral nutrition. This is the medical term for infusing a specialized form of food into a vein (intravenously).
3. People who have had gastric bypass surgery, because they absorb fewer nutrients.
4. People taking too much zinc supplements, such as over 50 mg, or using a denture cream high in zinc.
Those are “medically recognized” causes of extreme copper deficiency.
There are many more possible causes of chronic moderate copper deficiency such as the average diet.
What I find interesting, is that the medical establishment seems to know this, yet copper is not added to fortify cow’s milk, nor is it added to fortify denture cream containing zinc. Furthermore, many multi-mineral supplements are now being marketed as “no copper”, presumably because of the undue fear of copper toxicity.
Medical doctors tend to fail to recognize copper deficiency as a cause of many diseases that are known to be from copper deficiency.
Why? It is not their job, nor in much of their training, to know about vitamins and minerals, nor prescribe them.
While many diseases are now said to be medically and undisputedly related to copper deficiency, doctors and the media are still not advising people to take copper for heart disease, or diabetes, or just about anything.