From your lip colour to your dress, shoes, and water bottles, copper is everywhere! It’s time to put some inside your body too!
Copper, recognized for more than 100 years as a normal constituent of blood, has been established as an essential micronutrient only in recent years. Its role is centric to many vital tissue functions that make it essential for normal health and wellness. Most of the copper in the body is in the tissues, the highest being in the brain, heart, and kidney.
Know Your Nutrient:
- Copper is required for growth, maintenance, and brain development in infancy and throughout life.
- It is essential for bone strength; red and white cell maturation and iron transport.
- Copper is a crucial component of several essential enzymes that play an important role in cholesterol and glucose metabolism, thus important in the generation of energy.
- It supports healthy immune responses.
- It helps in the maintenance of healthy skin, connective tissue, and wound healing.
Deficiency of copper is rare, however, there is decreased copper absorption in patients with malabsorption diseases like celiac disease or due to gastrointestinal surgery. Symptoms include anaemia, weakness, bone loss, difficulty in walking, pale skin and premature greying of hair, and frequent illness. Menke’s disease is a genetic copper deficiency syndrome seen in infants.
Copper toxicity occurs by excessive supplementation from copper salts used in agriculture rather than from direct food sources. Wilson’s Disease is caused by copper toxicity resulting in abnormal accumulation of copper in the tissues.
Copper friendly foods:
Cereals and Legumes: Cereals, legumes, and dried beans.
Nut and Seeds: cashew nuts, sesame, and sunflower seeds.
Meat and its products: organ meats (liver, kidney, muscle meats)
Seafood: salmon and oysters
Miscellaneous: chocolate, dried prunes, and tofu.
In general fruits, vegetables and milk are poor sources.
Although Copper may not yet be that popular micronutrient on your mind, make sure you get enough of it, and you will definitely agree it ain’t any lesser in its mettle!!
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