 So I've been trying to figure out the interactions between copper and certain nutrients, vitamin C, vitamin D, magnesium, and zinc. What I've found is that balance is critical over deficiencies and that excess copper in the body is one of the reasons I might not be feeling so good recovering from my liver damage. With all the meat I've been eating, you would assume my zinc intake is so high that the possibility of a copper excess or toxicity, you know, it's just not possible. However, my blood work has shown otherwise with copper being over the maximum limit and my zinc was almost near deficiency. And I couldn't find legitimate guidance on this backed by case studies or at least no one suggested it to me, so I dug a little further. Importance of nutrient balance. Mineral and vitamin ratios in states of metabolic dysfunction can be unpredictable and extreme. So my liver damage and the constant detoxing likely puts a great demand on the amount of zinc required. So, you know, a normal, even eating two or three pounds of meat on the carnivore diet might not have been enough zinc in my specific context. Now I did a little bit of research and the main things I found were studies on Wilson's disease, which is a hereditary probably environmental disorder of copper metabolism producing abnormally high levels of non-seruroplasmin-bound copper. Now, seruroplasmin is a very complex protein. It's involved in the metabolism of many other nutrients. Some of those we mentioned earlier, magnesium, vitamin D, and especially iron. Both my copper and seruroplasmin levels were elevated on my blood work. And if you start looking up the symptoms of that, the copper toxicity, it can really tie together with similar symptoms of liver damage. So, you know, is it really hereditary or is it because people aren't getting a balanced diet now? Now, I've done in-depth videos on every mineral you would want to know about and I have spoken before about the importance of hammer mineral analysis in determining, you know, what your approximate mineral levels in your body are, which isn't always 100% accurate. That's why I got the blood work, too. But after looking at that blood work, it was pretty obvious I needed to supplement zinc because it did not show up on the hammer mineral test. The human body stores 2.5 grams of zinc. That's for men, women's a little less, and it depends on your body size. So, zinc tissue saturation, how much zinc your body can store is 2.5 grams. So, hypothetically, you would need to take that much zinc over a moderate period of time to say that you can't be deficient. But how does copper play into that? You know, if you have excess copper stores, is the zinc actually being replenished? Or is it just chelating the copper out? Now, zinc supplements are typically 15 milligrams and that's 15 milligrams is not the elementally available amount of zinc. Typically, that's less than half of the advertised amount. So even taking 10 of your typical zinc capsules per day, that's 10 pills, it would take over a month to reach tissue saturation. Doesn't seem safe to take that much, but there are studies that have experimented with higher doses, and it's interesting because, you know, the amount of zinc you can physically get from meat on a daily basis, you know, people can say, oh, you're gonna get 40, 50 milligrams of zinc from red meat if you eat two pounds of red meat a day. You might not absorb half of it. So, realistically, saying that your body is absorbing any more than 15 milligrams of zinc per day from food sources would be would be just not possible. Moving on to this study, which is the sole reason I'm making this video for you guys today because the takeaway from this is very significant and important. Oral Zinc in Wilson's disease. In 1961, Shawink, good to have a better name, described the antagonistic influence of Zinc, Shawink, Zinc, hey, it makes sense, on the reabsor... I'm losing my mind, guys. In 1961, Shawink described the antagonistic influence of Zinc on the resorption of copper in the gastrointestinal tract in two patients with Wilson's disease. When the patients took oral Zinc sulfate, three times 200 milligrams a day, corresponding to 240 milligrams of Zinc per day, crazy. The copper balance reached equilibrium through increased fecal excretion. Shawink assumed that Zinc directly interfered with copper resorption at the intestinal wall and this was subsequently proved. We have studied the influence of oral Zinc sulfate on copper metabolism in a patient with Wilson's disease by radiocopper loading tests. Since we're obviously reading the study, I'm not going to post it up with the rest of my script. When first seen at this hospital in June 1977 at the age of 16, patient was diagnosed with Wilson's disease on the basis of rigidity, dystonia, micrographia, dysarthria, Kaiser-Fleischer rings. I mean, you guys can look all that stuff up. And the following laboratory data. Serum ceruleoplasmin, 9 milligrams per deciliter. Normal is 25 to 43. Serum copper is 50 Tg deciliter. I don't know what Tg stands for. Normal is 80 to 140. So his serum copper and ceruleoplasmin were low. But urine copper was 350 grams over 24 hours and normal is 5 to 25. So extreme excretion of urine. The parloral radiocopper loading test was typical for Wilson's disease. The patient was then treated with a low copper diet and oral Zinc sulfate given before meals. And it's like 1.6 milligrams of copper corresponding to 200 milligrams of Zinc. So like hundreds of times the amount of zinc then copper on the diet. The parloral radiocopper loading pattern suggested reduced copper resorption. After Zinc had been given for three months, the neurological status of the patient was unchanged. The serum ceruleoplasmin was then 4.5 milligrams per deciliter. Serum copper, 35 micrograms deciliter. Urine copper 100. This is a little messed up. But the point is that all of those copper markers lower drastically after three months of Zinc supplementation at this dose. However, since the neurological symptoms did not improve, they tried a chelation therapy for a few months where they gave him something else to keep pushing copper out of the body. Then Zinc sulfate was reintroduced in March 1978. Clinical improvement became evident in April, which is one month later. Rigidity decreased, micrographia became less pronounced, and dysarthria ameliorated. So all of the symptoms got better. The pool of accumulated copper fell further. In June, the clinical improvement was even more evident and the Kaiser Fleischer rings were less marked. Ceruleoplasmin concentration was now 2 milligrams per deciliter. No toxic side effects were noted, so Zinc sulfate supplements have been continued with further clinical improvement. Now the significant takeaway from this study is the absolutely insane high amount of copper that the human body is able to store in toxic levels. It took six months of over 200 milligrams of elementally available Zinc in the patient's diet to significantly reduce the accumulated copper. That'd be like eating 10 to 15 pounds of meat per day worth of Zinc even more. Also important, there were no negative side effects of those crazy high Zinc doses. However, I would assume taking that much Zinc is going to heavily reduce other mineral levels, especially iron, sulfur, and calcium, and then you're going to have interactions with things like magnesium too. Reducing iron and sulfur would actually benefit most people, but eventually I think the calcium levels might get too low. And I would be curious in that study if they gave the patient the other minerals that he might be deficient in, in addition to like B vitamins or stuff that he needs for regular metabolic function. I think his symptoms would have improved greatly, but it's very difficult in states of disease where you need to give the body pretty much every single nutrient with the exception of a few that you might be excessive in. Yeah, I've been taking Zinc for a few weeks now in higher doses. I guess I felt a little better, no crazy differences, but I will get blood work in another month or two and then maybe see if there has been a big impact or if it's just, you know, another part of the liver detox process and trying to keep things balanced. Anyway, thank you guys for joining me. If you're curious about how to apply this in your own personal life, yeah, you could definitely get a hair mineral analysis, which we did a video on, and then you can also go get blood work. I usually use walkinlab.com or you can ask your doctor to get you blood work on all your mineral levels and then try to look and see, you know, what type of regularities there are, but sometimes the hair mineral analysis, it's tough unless you're, you know, frequently using like newly grown hair and also that you're like not supplementing anything for a period of time before the hair mineral analysis. So double checking the blood work in comparison, the mineral levels in your blood can help, but again, those also might not be 100% accurate. So another big part of this is taking certain supplements and seeing how you respond. The biggest aspect of that is, you know, if you take something in a reasonably high dose, and you feel worse, or you don't feel better, then you might want to try something else. Like in the case of this patient, I'm sure he felt better on a daily basis taking the high zinc dose, but just try to pay attention to your body. So if you guys do want any supplement, including zinc, we have it available on organsupplements.com. The most affordable minimal ingredient supplements on there. You know, if you guys go on Amazon or whatever to try to buy a supplement that only has, you know, the base ingredients, zinc, and the capsule, you're going to pay like two to three times the price. So you guys want to help support a small business so I don't completely lose my mind, organsupplements.com. But that's going to be it for today. So as usual, if you guys can drop a like on the video, leave a comment down below. Make sure to subscribe and check that notification bell, and hey, maybe eventually I'll be able to hire a nice pretty little assistant to follow me around with a camera. So I don't have to lose my mind getting dressed and filming these videos after doing 10 hours straight of manual labor and wanting to blow my brain. All right, I'll stop complaining for today. I'll see you guys in the next video.