- 15mg
- Zinc (Citrate, Succinate)
- 2mg
- Copper (Citrate)
Microcrystalline cellulose, silicon dioxide and sodium stearyl fumarate. Capsule: hypromellose.
Format
Veggie Caps
100 Vcaps
Dosage
Take one capsule daily with food, or as directed by a qualified health care practitioner. Take a few hours before or after taking other medications.
Important Information
Contains no wheat, corn, gluten, peanuts, sesame seeds, mustard, soy, dairy, eggs or any animal by product.
- Provides extra antioxidant support.
- Balanced Formula.
- Ideal for correcting deficiencies.
- Supports immune function.
- 100% vegetarian.
Related Videos
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Zinc and copper are essential minerals critical to health and commonly deficient in Western diets. An ongoing study tracking the nutritional intake of Americans found that 75% of older American adults were found to be failing to reach the RDA for zinc, and none of them achieved even the minimum recommended intake for copper. Yet while the importance of zinc is widely recognized, copper's crucial role in our health has often been discounted. An overemphasis on zinc has resulted in widespread, unbalanced zinc supplementation. And that has serious implications for your long-term health.
Zinc and copper are so similar in their atomic structure that they can actually compete with one another, not only for absorption, but also for utilization in the body's biochemical pathways. When your intake of zinc is too high relative to your copper intake, the excess zinc actually interferes with the activity of enzymes, which depend on copper for their biological function, by stepping in to copper's proper binding sites in the enzymes.When copper is not properly incorporated into these enzymes, they can't fulfill their biochemical duties.
A high intake of zinc, without a balancing increase in copper intake, can therefore lead to a secondary, functional copper deficiency by competing for absorption and interfering with its metabolism. Research suggests that an excessive ratio of zinc to copper has a negative impact on cardiovascular and skeletal health.
Both animal and human evidence suggests that, for optimal utilization of both minerals, the balance between zinc and copper should be about ten-to-one. But it's common for supplements containing these nutrients to include too much zinc, and little or no copper, with the result that many - perhaps most - zinc supplements and multivitamin multivitamin and multimineral formulas contain potentially harmful zinc imbalances.
This isn't just a theoretical concern. In a series of human studies, putting volunteers on a diet and supplement regimen in which the ratio between zinc and copper was 23.5-to-one (and sometimes lower) - common zinc-to-copper ratios, found in many multivitamins on health food store shelves - resulted in wide-ranging metabolic disturbances, including reduced levels of the copper-based antioxidants enzymes cytosolic superoxide dismutase and ceruloplasmin, increased total and LDL ("bad") cholesterol, anemia, reductions in the body's levels of enkephalins (natural pain-killing molecules), and cardiac dysfunction (including rhythm disturbances and even heart attacks!).
At the extreme, out-of control zinc supplementation impairs immune function, despite the fact that an adequate intake of zinc is necessary for normal immune function. This is especially galling, considering that the most common reason for zinc supplementation is to support healthy immunity. One reason for this may be copper's important role in immune function: one of the classic signs of 'simple' copper deficiency is depressed levels of important white blood cells (leukocytes and neutrophils).
Over the long term, it seems that other problems linked to long-term, subclinical 'simple' copper deficiency - such as impaired bone metabolism, poor glucose metabolism, arthritis, neurological dysfunction, and increased levels of Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGE) - would also manifest from a functional copper deficiency created by excessive zinc intake, leading top copper researcher Dr. Leslie M. Klevay to warn of the "hazards of zinc supplements." The problem, of course, is not zinc supplements - but excessive or unbalanced zinc supplementation.
Excessive Zinc and Prostate Health
The most ironic twist in the tale of overemphasis on zinc has only recently appeared. Many men take zinc supplements to support the health of their prostates, because the prostate has the highest levels of this mineral of any organ of the body, and most studies have found that low levels of zinc in the prostate are associated with benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH). But a large new study, which tracked the health habits of nearly 50 000 American male health professionals for 14 years, found that extreme zinc oversupplementation is associated with a more than doubled risk of developing unhealthy prostate cells, especially if continued for more than 10 years.
This doesn't mean that men concerned about Prostate Health should stop making sure that their zinc intake is adequate: there was no association of zinc supplement use and unhealthy prostate cells in men with more reasonable intakes of the mineral. But it does mean that the targets that we should aim for are the kinds of intakes typical of a healthy diet - meaning a supplement designed for sustainable, long-term use should not contain more than about 11 milligrams of zinc.
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