Copper, Another Cause of Alzheimer's

August 28, 2017 

 ReferencesDr. WeilJ. Biological and Inorganic ChemistryFront Aging NeurosciJr Nutr Health AgingPro National Acad Sci., NeurologyEuro Biophy Jr


 We have established that iron is a problem in Alzheimer's Disease (AD). That's clear. But are there other links? What else has changed in Western Society? One example is clean water, delivered through sterile pipes made of.........copper. That is new in the last 100 years. 


Was AD rare 100 years ago? Yes. In 1900 it wasn't even mentioned in Osler's compendium of medical diseases. That was at a time we had over 3 million folks over age 60, and at today's rate of AD, there should have been 36,000 cases in the USA, enough to have been noticed and commented on by Osler. So, it's new and it's common. 


Sparks and Schreurs published an article in 2003 looking at free inorganic copper added to rabbits drinking water at a concentration of 0.12 parts per million caused AD like pathology in their brains and damaged their memory. The EPA allows 1.3 ppm of free copper in our water. That's allegedly safe. Singh confirmed the exact same results in a mouse model of AD in 2014. The key here is the difference of "free" copper, loose in your blood and lightly bound to albumin and organic copper, tightly bound and regulated attached to a protein called ceruloplasmin. The free copper is a problem.


 Squitti showed that free copper is elevated in AD, but not in vascular dementia and its ratio of free copper to bound copper predicts the range of dysfunction. Free copper comes from copper pipes. Organic copper comes from food. Don't confuse the two, they are different in their biological behavior. Organic copper is bound to proteins, carefully guarded and processed. Free copper is not bound and is not in the protection system of the body. 


 Where do we get "free" copper from. Our plumbing. 90% of American homes have copper pipes in them. The use of copper took off after WWII as did the incidence of AD. It should be noted, the Japanese were hesitant to use copper and didn't use copper in internal plumbing. They have had MUCH less AD. When Japanese move to Hawaii, they lose that advantage and develop AD just like everyone else


What does copper do in the brain? It appears to be part of the APP and APOe protein pathology. It certainly causes oxidative stress on brain cells. It may be simpler than that. The APOe 2 gene has 2 binding sites for copper, the APOe3 gene has 1, and the APOe 4 gene (the bad one) has no binding sites for copper. 


 Here is the proposed sequence for copper 


      1. You live in a home with copper piping. 

      2. Your brain copper rises as you get too much in your water 

      3. Your copper removal system kicks into gear, the APP system works on copper like it does on iron. 

      4. You have an APOe 3 gene (lousy with only one binding site) or worse, an APOe4 with no binding sites - so you can't get rid of it at all 

       5. Your brain churns and churns, trying to get rid of copper with the APP protein, and it just can't do it because you have too much copper in relationship to your APOe risk. 

       6. You overwhelm your brain cells. They die. You slow down. You can't change your genes. You can change your water. Brewer studied several hundred American homes for copper levels. He found that about a third had copper levels above 0.1 (damages rabbits and mice), about a third had levels below 0.01 and a third were in-between.. Your pipes are killing your brain. 


 www.What Will Work for me. I've been startled by checking zinc and copper levels for the last year. I have had two or three couples whom I have seen who have normal zinc and copper ratios. To a person, they have all had normal zinc copper ratios. (Remember, zinc and copper work like a teeter-totter. As copper goes up, zinc goes down and vice versa.) Healthy brains have more zinc than copper. Everyone else has low zinc and very high copper. When I went to Burma last spring and asked about AD at a nursing home we visited, I was met with curiosity and confusion. They had never heard of it. Thirty residents over 70 should have had some dementia. Their water source: a single iron pipe, outside in the courtyard. Hmmm. For now, I'm taking zinc every day. I'm thinking about how to get my water checked. 


 Pop Quiz

  1. Copper works on the same channels in your brain as iron causing formation of amyloid protein plaques? T or F                        Answer: That, my friend, is true.
  2. Copper is tightly regulated by nature with a protein called ceruloplasmin where it is safely sheltered. T or F                                                                                               Answer: That's what we measure and presume.
  3. Alzheimer's patients have high levels of "free copper" relative to bound ceruloplasmin copper. T or F                                                                                                    Answer: See the pattern we are building?     True
  4. What percent of American homes have copper pipes, and what percent have levels of copper enough to create plaques in brains (in rabbits - 0.1 ppm)?                        Answer: 90% and 30%
  5. Zinc levels balance copper, so one strategy to soften copper's damage is to take zinc. T or F Answer: True. Get your serum zinc higher than your copper
 

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