How Copper Helps Burn Fat & Why Your Copper Levels May Be Low

Do you feel like you have difficulty losing weight? Did you know that your low copper levels may be causing this? Does everyone else around you get away with eating more but you can’t?

This video we’re talking about how copper affects your ability to burn fat.

Researchers at John Hopkins university (one of the most important medical schools in the US) have found that low copper levels have been linked to fatter fat cells.

Another team of researchers from UC Berkeley determined this is apparently because it helps to physically move the fats out of fat cells.

This explains why a symptom of low copper can be feeling cold more often, because you can’t use your body fat for energy.

In fact, the amount of copper in the diet of cows affects the amount of fat in the final meat.

In fact, when pigs were given more copper, because the copper helped convert the fat on their body into energy, this energy caused them to actually grow better and have more muscle.

This explains why a symptom of low copper is muscle weakness.

Why is this a problem?

Ever since the beginning of the 1900s when we started using artificial fertilisers, the concentrations of minerals in our vegetables have been decreasing.

Why?

Because the artificial fertilisers only ever replace 3 elements.

In the case of the mineral copper, some studies have found levels to have decreased by 80%!

Whereas for other minerals like calcium the figures may be closer to 17%

So how do we know we're low?

And how can we ensure we get enough?

So how do we know we’re low and how can we ensure we get enough?

It’s difficult to know if you’re low because the symptoms are not specific and overlap with lots of other conditions

For example, fatigue can be caused by low copper levels.

Muscle weakness can be caused by low copper.

Difficulty maintaining body temperature (in other words feeling cold more often) can be caused by low copper.

Even frequent infections can be caused by low copper.

All of these symptoms can also be explained by lots of other conditions so it’s hard to tell from symptoms alone.

So let’s get a blood test, right?

Well, unfortunately it’s actually difficult to detect if you’re low in copper.

Researchers now think that by doing blood tests for the immune system, it might be possible to detect low copper.

This is still ongoing work though and there currently aren’t easily accessible ways of reliably testing copper status for the average consumer.

Ok so if we can’t test low copper, maybe we can just make sure we get enough copper from food?

The thing about minerals from food is that it partly will depend on the soil that grew the food you’re eating.

Like we mentioned in the last video, copper content of food is dependent on copper levels in the soil to a large degree.

We looked at the foods highest in copper to see how it would be possible to get enough copper through food.

So we tested the food that is meant to be highest in copper: Ox liver.

The nutritional data tables said that the levels of copper in Ox liver are 9.76 milligrams per 100grams.

When we got the results back, we were pretty shocked to see that the Ox liver that we bought from an organic butchers had only 0.54mg per 100grams.

That’s about 20 times less copper than we were expecting.

Then we thought, ok maybe the soils are terrible, maybe if we look at marine sources of copper in foods, then these should be consistent?

After all, instead of getting the copper from soil, the copper levels in fish should depend on the copper levels in the sea, which should be pretty consistent across the ocean right?

It’s constantly getting mixed.

So we thought, let’s test the copper content of squid, a food that should have a pretty decent amount of copper.

The nutritional data tables say squid should have 1.89mg per 100grams.

This means just 100 grams of squid should really help our copper levels.

We tested 4 different squids, some frozen, some we cooked ourselves and some we bought from the stores.

Once again we were shocked by the results, one sample of squid had less than 0.06mg per 100 grams, that means it was at least 31 times less than what the nutrition data tables say.

Ok, but what about the highest result we got?

Even that had about 0.3mg per 100 grams, this means it’s about 6 times lower than the nutritional data tables.

We honestly don’t know why even marine sources are lower in copper nowadays but it’s quite concerning.

So it’s hard to know who is getting enough copper for their fat burning, because even if you’re looking at the nutritional data tables that tell you how much copper is in the food you’re eating, these may be dramatically overestimating the amount of copper in your food.

Low copper levels linked to fatter fat cells - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181011090507.htm

Copper helps to move fat out of fat cells - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160606200439.htm
https://news.berkeley.edu/2016/06/10/copper-essential-for-burning-fat-researchers-find

Amount of copper in the diet of cows affects the amount of fat in the final meat - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160606200439.htm

Copper helps pigs burn more fat, grow better and have more muscle - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200327141522.htm

Amount of copper in vegetables has decreased by 80%, whereas for calcium it's around 17% - https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/44/1/article-p15.xml

Symptoms of low copper - https://www.msdmanuals.com/en-gb/home/disorders-of-nutrition/minerals/copper-deficiency
https://www.healthline.com/health/copper-deficiency#symptoms

Difficult to detect low copper, looking at markers of the immune system may help - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12010579/

Copper content of Ox liver - https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169451/nutrients

Copper content of squid - https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/174223/nutrients

Copper content of the food samples we sent off for testing (Ox liver and different types of squid) - https://thinkpharmhealth.com/pages/nutritional-analysis-of-copper-in-squid-and-ox-liver

There are 8 different forms of copper permitted on the UK market: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7cb030ed915d6822361ecb/Full_listing_of_permitted_vitamins___minerals__supplements___Jan_2012__DH_FINAL.pdf