Monday, July 18, 2011

Glad I have copper in my supplement

Copper is one of the minerals you don't hear much about. However it is important to have it in your diet/supplement. If your multi has zinc in it, but no copper then stop taking it! Zinc and copper interact together so you need to take both of them.

Reading a 1998 review paper. Turns out that lack of copper can cause / exasperate:
  • Heart disease
  • Osteoporosis   
  • More copper is needed when females (and likely males) loose weight 
  • Reduction in the bodies tolerance for glucose (type two diabetes)
Two rather important issues in the Western world !

It also turns out that we are overestimating copper levels in our diet, thus our actual intakes are lower than nutritionists / dietitians estimate. This is ontop of a diet that is typically low in copper anyway.

Also on the up side beer contains an unknown substance which increases the absorption of copper. So given that beer is higher in B vitamins than wine, and a pint has the same antioxidant level as a glass or red wine this is a great reason to take your supplements with a [small] beer.

So in the future I think we will be hearing a lot more about this mineral.

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