CopperToxic.com

"Many of the most prevalent metabolic dysfunctions of our time
are related in some way to a copper imbalance." ~ Dr. Paul Eck

Copper Toxicity is a build up of stored bio-unavailable copper in the body that at high levels affects many of the most common physical and mental conditions we're seeing today.  Copper is an essential mineral in the human body and in bio-available form plays many important roles. However at high unbound levels, a simultaneous toxicity/deficiency condition is created. Copper becomes toxic when it accumulates in the body's tissues in excessive amounts (Pfeiffer, 1975; 1987), while also becoming more and more bio-unavailable which then impairs and in many cases reverses its beneficial attributes. A high level of unbound copper becomes a powerful reactive toxin to both the body and mind, leading to a number of symptoms including brain fog, chronic fatigue and adrenal burnout, hypothyroid, depression, panic attacks, and at later stages is linked to the numbing of emotions, paranoia, hallucinations, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, even cancer. Copper toxicity is a major factor in many of today's most prevalent conditions, and should at least be an essential route of investigation for any of the above mentioned symptoms. 

Rates of copper toxicity have been steadily increasing over the past half century due to increasing exposure to various estrogens, certain birth control methods, high copper diets, stress, copper piping, and many other environmental, dietary, and lifestyle factors.  Copper toxicity goes vastly unrecognized however due to an over-reliance on using blood to measure copper status, along with the myriad of articles being written that blindly promote the idea of copper deficiency without making the key connection that most copper deficiency (and associated symptoms) is the result of excess copper exposure. In essence, the higher the degree of copper accumulation, the higher the degree of bioavailable deficiency. There is also a widespread denial of copper toxicity (perhaps the most far reaching yet misunderstood health epidemic of our time) which only further suppresses those affected from finding real answers.

"Virtually all MDs, including psychiatrists, still have not heard of this health problem. They practice medicine and psychiatry with an incredible lack of awareness that such a serious health problem even exists. They claim to be practicing “evidence based medicine”, yet they are practicing without the most basic evidence – real laboratory data showing the presence of excess (toxic) copper that has a profound effect on both the physical and mental health of the vast majority of their patients. Ever since Carl Pfeiffer, MD, PhD first wrote about the devastating health effects of copper toxicity in 1975, it has been a challenge for him and others among us to get the message out to the public and health professionals. Until medical doctors and other “health” care practitioners begin to study the mind/body’s mineral system especially as it is reflected in HTMAs, the medical / mineral disconnect will remain.  Without HTMA data, medical doctors will not recognize the epidemic nature of the copper toxicity problem. Today, the time is ripe for getting the copper toxicity message out to the public."    ~ Dr. Malter, Ph.D.

Copper toxicity may sometimes be referred to as hypercupremia, though it is a misleading term since hypercupremia literally translates to mean 'high copper concentration in the blood' even though blood levels are almost entirely irrelevant in assessing copper toxicity. Symptoms of copper toxicity can very much exist even when blood levels are normal or low. Another erroneously used term being used recently, copper dysregulation, while it eludes to the body's inability to regulate copper due to low ceruloplasmin, is a narrow-minded view that fails to address the bigger picture of why we have this epidemic in the first place, not to mention completely ignoring copper’s proven toxic attributes at high levels. Copper toxicity, as research has shown since the 1970s, is far more than just a dysregulation issue that can be ‘fixed’ by regulating ceruloplasmin.  Our modern epidemic of copper toxicity is largely the result of ever increasing exposure to copper with each new generation over the past half century, a concept of paramount importance that is trivialized by using the term ‘dysregulation’.​ Copper toxicity, in the context of this site, differs somewhat from Pyroluria (a genetic condition in which the individual produces excess kryptopyrrole which in turn causes B6 and zinc deficiency).  Copper toxicity, though sharing some similarities with Wilson's Disease, is different in that the latter is an inherited & rare genetic disorder which, like copper toxicity, causes copper to collect in the liver, brain and other body tissues, but has a more dire prognosis than copper toxicity, and for which a different treatment approach is required.