https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body
An excerpt from the list at Wikipedia:
—– Major Minerals —–
Oxygen 43 kilos = 65% of your body’s mass.
Carbon 16,000 g = 16 kilo
Hydrogen 7000 g
Nitrogen 1800 g
Calcium 1000 g or 1 kilo
Phosphorus 780 g
Potassium 140 g
Sulfur 140 g
Sodium 100 g
Chlorine 95,000 mg or 95 grams
Magnesium 19,000 mg or 19 g
—– Trace Minerals —–
Iron 4,200 mg –lowers copper
Fluorine 2600 mg –lowers copper, nerve toxin
Zinc 2300 mg –lowers copper
Bromine 260 mg –nerve toxin
Lead 120 mg –lowers copper, nerve toxin
Copper 72 mg
Aluminium 60 mg –nerve toxin
Iodine 20 mg
Boron 18 mg
Note, this is not the complete list.
About the major minerals: The medical establishment would have you believe that oxygen, comprising 65% of your body, is a poison. They use terms like “oxidative damage”. Show me the control group deprived of oxygen. Dead in minutes.
Sci-fi fiction says we are a “carbon” based life form. Maybe we are an oxygen-based life form. We have nearly three times as much oxygen as carbon.
The average person has 1 million mg (a kilo, 2.2 pounds) of calcium in their bodies. Taking calcium supplements appears silly in that context. The body appears to know how to get it and hold onto it.
We also have plenty of phosphorus in our bodies, 780 g or 780,000 mg. That’s over a pound, as there are 454 grams/pound. We likely do not need to supplement. We also get about 43 mg of phosphorus in a typical 250 ml coke. Often health advocates warn about this much phosphorous. I find that silly, in context, unless someone is drinking several liters of coke in a day. The sugar will harm you more than the phosphorous.
Sulfur is widely regarded as super toxic. Yet we have about a third of a pound of sulfur in our bodies. It often smells like rotten eggs. And yet, MSM Sulfur and DMSO Sulfur are touted as wonderful supplements. We take MSM Sulfur which appears to be safer.
Sodium and Chlorine make up “salt”. If they were combined, we would have about 2/3rds of a pound of salt in our bodies. Chlorine is needed to make hydrochloric acid in the stomach to aid digestion. I have heard others say copper helps the body retain salt. Salt is a major mineral, needed for hydration, it helps the body hold on to water. Dehydration and adrenal insufficiency have the same symptoms, both are a lack of salt and copper.
About the trace minerals:
Iron and Fluorine and Zinc, the top three on the trace minerals list, all block copper. Lead also blocks copper.
Fluorine, Bromine, and Lead are all toxins, neurotoxins, and are all above the list of copper, a key nerve healer. In other words, the average person has three neurotoxins in far greater quantities than copper, the nerve healer. That could explain quite a few problems.
Fluoride is detoxed by iodine, boron, copper, calcium, tamarind, leafy greens, turmeric, and likely also sulfur and silica.
Bromine is detoxed by iodine and salt. If you start a high iodine program of 50 mg iodine, you may need more salt to get through bromine detox.
Lead is detoxed by zinc. Lead, zinc, and silver are found bound together in the earth as “galena” a type of silver ore.
Some believe that iron (because it blocks copper) is also a neurotoxin, or at least, acts as one. That would place 4 neurotoxins in the list that are above copper in the list! Thus, blaming copper for supposedly “neurotoxic” activity, rather than those other four known neurotoxins, is not right. It is especially not right, in light of the list of ways that copper helps the nerves and brain.
In that list, at least 4 are known nerve toxins, and they should not be in the body at all: Fluorine, Bromine, Lead, and Aluminum.
Zinc is not a neurotoxin, but all five microminerals on the list, listed above copper, are all blocking copper: iron (if in excess), fluorine, zinc, bromine, lead. This is the situation for the average person! So, unless you took extra steps to detox each of these, they are likely problems. Furthermore, just because you have an “average” amount like other people, does not mean these are not problems for you.
The “average” American has 4200 milligrams of iron in the body and only 72 mg of copper. While iron can block copper, this might not be as bad as it sounds. About 3500 mg of that iron is already a part of red blood cells, where it belongs. Some might be in the bone marrow, making new blood cells. Only excess iron would be bad, and copper helps to prevent that, presuming you are no longer having any signs of copper deficiency.
As I was writing this book, I had the chance to speak with Morley Robins. He explained that iron is usually measured by the blood, but the cells can contain ten times as much iron. And if iron in the cells is high, blood iron is low. And if iron in the cells is low, iron in the blood is high. It’s like this with copper as well, so blood tests may accurately test the blood, but they are not accurate indicators of what is in the body.
The “average” American has 2600 milligrams of fluoride in the body and only 72 milligrams of copper. This is 36 times more fluoride than copper. This is very bad. Why?
Because Fluoride blocks Copper. Conversely, the good news is that Copper Detoxes Fluoride. Because they bind together. Which process wins? We need over twice the weight of copper to bind fluoride. At that ratio, they block each other. That is the ratio needed to make a copper/fluoride molecule. So we need at least twice as much copper as fluoride, or more, to detox the fluoride, not 1/36th of it.
Fortunately, Iodine and Boron can also detox fluoride, but clearly, the average person does not get nearly enough of those, either. Note, they are at the bottom of the list, with the smallest amounts in the body.
Remember a few chapters above, that fluoride blocks copper by 10%? That was in people with skeletal fluorosis, compared to “average” people who have 2600 mg fluoride, and only 72 mg of copper, with the average person having mild or sub-clinical skeletal fluorosis. So, they are comparing very heavily fluoridated people, with heavily fluoridated people to get that 10% block of copper by fluoride. But fluoride might be a lot worse. Why?
There is no control group of people without fluoride!
There is no control group of people who have taken “high copper” at over 20 mg for a few years. Except for me and my wife!
There is no control group of people who have not been exposed to fluoride, and who have taken high copper regularly for health. Unfortunately, my wife and I have both been exposed to fluoride.
So we really do not know how badly fluoride affects copper levels, it is likely far worse than the 10% that the study suggests.
On the other hand, maybe it’s not that bad, either. If most fluoride is not actively creating harm to nerves, then where is it? Most of the fluoride is probably in the bones, as fluoride does get attracted to calcium.
This has several implications.
But first, a study on the lack of effects of copper at 10 mg over 90 days:
Lack of effects of copper gluconate supplementation Pratt et al (1985)
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/42/4/681/4691570
“A double-blind study was done giving 10 mg of copper/day as copper gluconate or placebo capsules for 12 wk. The seven subjects receiving copper gluconate had no change in the level of copper in the serum, urine, or hair. There was also no change in the levels of zinc or magnesium. There was also no significant change in levels of hematocrit, triglyceride, SGOT, GGT, LDH, cholesterol, or alkaline phosphatase. The side effects of nausea, diarrhea, and heartburn were the same in the subjects receiving copper gluconate and subjects receiving placebo capsules.”
In short-term studies, over about 2-3 months, people who take copper at 10-20 mg do not hold on to very much copper. Rather, they excrete almost all of it. Well, 90 days of 10 mg of copper is only 900 mg of copper. This is not enough to detox 2600 mg of fluoride, the fluoride burden of the average person. We actually need twice as much copper, by weight, by mg, as fluoride, to create a molecule of 1 copper atom to 2 fluoride atoms because fluoride is so light. Even the very high 20 mg is only 1800 mg of copper over 3 months, which is still only about 1/3 as much copper as needed to detox the fluoride.
Maybe a person needs to get past most of the fluoride detox, in order to get most of the benefits of copper?
Maybe copper, since it is easily excreted, is a perfect detoxer for fluoride?
Maybe a person with a copper deficiency disease, needs even more copper, both to get past fluoride detox, and iron detox, and get enough to cure their copper deficiency. This would take time, and would likely require people to slowly ramp up copper intake, to get past the nausea problem, and initial stages of fluoride detox. And/or it would require a topical copper application to get past the problem of nausea in the stomach.
I would naturally assume that the body can hold at least as much of a vital nutrient as it could hold a toxin, and do that without damage, and thus, that a healthy body could get copper levels up to, and over 2600 mg, instead of the usual 72 milligrams.
The iodine doctors, Abraham, Brownstein, and Flechas, have already made a similar argument. They postulate that the body can hold up to thousands of milligrams of iodine, rather than just 30 mg or so when the body is fully saturated. I assume the same thing could happen with copper, as well.
In fact, there is evidence that human bodies can hold over several thousand milligrams of copper, as some people who take a copper chelating agent, excrete over 2000 mg of copper in the urine in one single day.
Disorders of metal metabolism
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5764069/
“Urinary excretion of 1000 to 2000 mg copper within 24 hours after oral administration of 1 g penicillamine is diagnostic [6].”
See? People can hold up to 2000 mg of copper, or more! The usual is 72 mg to 150 mg of copper.
That is evidence that most people are woefully copper deficient, only having 72 mg of copper in the body.
Every cell in the human body wants both iodine and copper.
Admittedly, the 2000 mg of copper excreted is usually diagnostic of Wilson’s Disease. I will examine Wilson’s Disease in a chapter later.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_(nutrient)#Essential_chemical_elements_for_humans