Over the past few weeks we’ve been discussing the fat soluble and water soluble vitamins. This week, we’re going to shift gears and start discussing minerals.

To recap let’s review the difference between a vitamin and mineral.  A vitamin is any compound that contains carbon and therefore is organic.  There are two classes of vitamins…fat soluble A, D, E and K or water soluble, B and C.

Minerals on the other hand do not contain carbon and are what we call inorganic.  There are macro- minerals and micro-minerals.  Macro-minerals are calcium, chloride, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and sodium.  Micro-minerals are:  chromium, iron, copper, zinc, iodine, manganese, molybdenum, selenium and iron.

There are many factors that can decrease the absorption of vitamins and minerals which include:  alcohol, caffeine, antibiotics, stress, corticosteroids, aspirin, diuretics, oral contraceptives, sugar and tobacco.  Therefore if your lifestyle includes any of these factors and you are not well there could be a good chance that you are not absorbing your essential nutrients.  You will learn over the next few weeks the critical affect that each of the vitamins and mineral have over the health of your body.

This week we will be discussing Copper

Copper is found throughout the body, particularly in the brain, liver and muscles.  Copper is used to help treat arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, fatigue, anemia and allergies.

What it Does: Copper performs many functions throughout the body we will be listing just a few examples

• Needed to form hemoglobin which carries oxygen throughout the body
• Helps with respiration
• Helps to form collagen within the bones
• Needed to convert the inactive thyroid hormone to the active form
• Helps with inflammation by regulating histamine levels
• Lowers cholesterol
• Anti-diabetic
• Needed to get iron out of the liver

Absorbing and Utilizing Copper:

• An adequate intake of protein and fresh veggies is needed to help copper be absorbed in the body.
• Access manganese and zinc will interfere with the absorption of copper

Found In: beets, pumpkin, flax seeds, green peas, raspberries, mangos, sweet potato, almonds

It’s important to mention that copper can produce toxicity in high doses.  Therefore, it is best not to supplement copper unless you know for sure that you have low levels based upon lab testing.

Another important point to state is that high fructose corn syrup which is found in many products that have a shelf life interferes with the absorption of copper.  Therefore, make sure to read your labels!

Resource:  The Power of Nutrient Dense Food by Pattie Weller, C.C.N

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 at 10:13 am and is filed under Nutrition Tips, Weight Managment, minerals, vitamins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.