I have tried whole food Vitamin C, while taking plenty of copper, and it simply does not work. I still get headaches.
At least 25 people in our “Copper Revolution” Facebook forum have reported the same thing. Whole Food Vitamin C does not reduce headaches while taking copper. But Ascorbic acid works just fine.
Some people with severe copper deficiency cannot tolerate Vitamin C or even fruits. But usually, within a week of supplementing with copper, they can tolerate Ascorbic Acid.
That’s the bottom line. We have to do what works. The rest is just theory and noise. Continue to read the theory:
There is very little research on what high copper does in the human body. We have Olivares, who studied that up to 20 mg of copper in drinking water caused no liver damage: https://revealingfraud.com/2022/02/health/the-copper-revolution-ch-10-copper-at-10-mg-to-20-mg-does-not-harm-the-liver-olivares/
A new discovery is that of Rademacher, who, in the 1800’s, used up to 260 mg of copper oxide to cure people.
Copper was used as a cure-all in 1841 by Johann Gottfried Rademacher. It was listed as a “universal medicinal product” that can “eliminate most forms of disease”. He used amounts from 32 mg black copper oxide to 260 mg copper oxide, in doses no larger than 65 mg.
https://de.zxc.wiki/wiki/Johann_Gottfried_Rademacher
I found an English translation or transliteration of Rademacher, on copper.
The rest of what we know about what copper does, at levels from 20 mg to 100 mg is mostly from our experience, and the reported experience from our members.
This brings me to the discussion of Whole Food Vitamin C vs. Ascorbic Acid.
I do not care about which one is better for people not taking a lot of copper. I do take a lot of copper, and I advocate taking plenty of copper, and I care about which is better for us, when we are trying to optimize copper levels.
My point is that people who are not familiar with taking high copper, might have no experience to draw from to know which is better for those who are taking high copper.
My experience in trying to take copper without Vitamin C leads to bleeding and headaches, which are classic signs of low Vitamin C or scurvy.
https://www.healthline.com/health/scurvy
I get micro bleeds in several areas. The tops of my knuckles, bleeding gums, nosebleeds, and in my bowels. And I get headaches. It usually takes me about 5 days without Vitamin C to get the headache, while on copper, so I don’t do that.
Why do we need Vitamin C with high copper? Several reasons, most of them having to do with the synergy between them.
Both of these (and zinc) are needed simply to make collagen. Without one of the building blocks of collagen production, collagen will break down.
Vitamin C and Collagen:
Efficacy of Vitamin C Supplementation on Collagen Synthesis and Oxidative Stress After Musculoskeletal Injuries: A Systematic Review
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6204628/
“Vitamin C has an essential role in connective tissue healing, being a cofactor for prolyl hydroxylase and lysyl hydroxylase.22,28 These enzymes catalyze the hydroxylation of proline and lysine residues of procollagen, promoting the proper folding of the stable collagen triple-helix conformation.”
Copper and Collagen:
Copper and the synthesis of elastin and collagen
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6110524/
There are numerous other things that require both copper and Vitamin C:
Wound healing, Stopping bleeding, Curing Ulcers, Detoxing, Boosting Immunity, Preventing Neurodegeneration, Acting as an anti inflammatory, Lowering Histamine, and many more.
Furthermore, Vitamin C is one of several reducers that help convert copper 2 into copper 1 so that it can enter the cell more easily. Other reducers include niacin, iodine, ceruloplasmin, and other antioxidants. (Antioxidants are, by definition, reducers). Copper is a component of many antioxidant enzymes (reducers) in the body.
So the fact that both Vitamin C and copper are both required for many things, leads us to believe that providing one can lead to the deficiency of the other. It’s not so much that one blocks the other, rather, it’s that one needs the other.
Those who take excessive copper, without any Vitamin C, can get bleeding and bruising and headaches. (Vitamin C deficiency)
Those who take excessive Vitamin C, without any copper, can get more gray hair, and reduced collagen production (wrinkles) (copper deficiency).
I wondered if copper could block, or use up, Vitamin C based on my reading of an anecdotal report on the history of scurvy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy#19th_century
” In fact, the West Indian limes were significantly lower in Vitamin C than the previous lemons and further were not served fresh but rather as lime juice, which had been exposed to light and air, and piped through copper tubing, all of which significantly reduced the Vitamin C. Indeed, a 1918 animal experiment using representative samples of the Navy and Merchant Marine’s lime juice showed that it had virtually no antiscorbutic power at all.”
In other words, lime juice cooked and run through copper pipes did not cure scurvy, and was somehow deactivated. Lime is acidic, which can leech a lot of copper from the pipes.
So, why are some reasons why whole food Vitamin C might not work?
Whole food vitamin C appears to be wrongly named. It is a processed food. It is food that has been turned into powder. It has had the fiber and water removed.
There are other powdered foods, and I avoid them all: whey protein powder. Amino acid isolates. Green drink powders.
Leafy greens are natural diuretics and chelators. This means they bind minerals and dehydrate the body, because minerals are needed for hydration. Plants have many substances that do this: chlorophyll, alpha lipoic acid, oxalates, fiber, and more.
This is both good and bad. Many minerals and metals are toxic: mercury, aluminum, lead, arsenic, cadmium, nickel, etc. Removing the bad minerals is good.
Headaches are often from low hydration. Perhaps Whole Food C is demineralizing and leads to dehydration, and thus cannot cure a headache.
Even this whole food Vitamin C advocate admits, “Copper is necessary for vitamin C activity. And so on. Mineral deficiencies can cause vitamin deficiencies, and vice versa.” From: https://www.justlivewell.com/whole-food-vitamins-ascorbic-acid-is-not-vitamin-c/
Bioflavonoids are substances found with Vitamin C that are said to help keep Vitamin C in the body longer. But maybe this is because it makes the Vitamin C unavailable for use.
Bioflavonoids chelate or “bind to” copper.
Iron and copper chelation by flavonoids: an electrospray mass spectrometry study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12459155/
https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/dietary-factors/phytochemicals/flavonoids “Although the metal-chelating activities of flavonoids may be beneficial in pathological conditions of iron or copper excess, it is not known whether flavonoids or their metabolites function as effective metal chelators in vivo (26).”
Whole Food C is supposed to be a “source of copper”. That’s vague. How much?
Nutritional Information for Whole food Vit C:
From Dr. Axe for 100 grams of Camu Camu
0.4 grams protein
0.2 grams fat
2145 milligrams vitamin C (3575 percent DV)
2.1 milligrams manganese (106 percent DV)
0.2 milligrams copper (10 percent DV)
0.5 milligrams iron (3 percent DV)
12.4 milligrams magnesium (3 percent DV)
15.7 milligrams calcium (2 percent DV)
83.8 milligrams potassium (2 percent DV)
0.4 milligrams zinc (2 percent DV)
https://draxe.com/nutrition/camu-camu/#Nutrition_Facts
The average “pill” of “Whole Food C” contains 100 mg vitamin C, which would contain 1/21th of 0.2 mg copper, which is 0.009 mg of copper per 100 mg Whole Food C. That is 1/100th of the RDA, which, itself, is an insignificant amount of copper. So Whole Food C is not a good source of copper, it’s a horribly low source of copper.
That Whole Food C comes in 100 mg doses might also be part of the problem why it does not work. It’s just too little Vitamin C. We need 1000 mg Ascorbic Acid.
Finally, Whole Food C costs about 15 times more expensive than Ascorbic Acid, which can cost as little as 6 to 7 cents per 1000 mg.
See also:
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