Why Am I Getting Anxiety And Is Copper Related To It?

Recently a study was published titled "Decreased zinc and increased copper in individuals with anxiety". It was conducted at the Research Institute, Pfeiffer Treatment Center of Warrenville, Illinois, and published by Nutrition and Metabolic Insights in 2011. [2] [2a]

It had some very interesting findings that are likely the underlying cause of anxiety for many people. They used Inductively Coupled Plasma-mass Spectrometry (ICP) to measure trace minerals in the serum of 38 individuals with chronic anxiety and 16 in a control group without anxiety symptoms. What they found were low levels of zinc or a low level of zinc relative to copper. The net effect is that the copper to zinc ratio was very high in those with anxiety. Copper, as those of you familiar with my blogs, has been linked to anxiety along with MANY other health conditions.

Copper tends to antagonize zinc which is to say that it blocks it from working properly and it is thought to have an antagonistic strength around 6 to 1. So even if zinc is normal in the body, if copper is high you would need up to six times the normal level of zinc to function properly in general.

The study was interesting from my perspective because while they nailed the link between copper and anxiety they messed up the treatment terribly. For the anxiety they "treated with zinc and antioxidant supplements, according to individual parameters, and their symptoms improved significantly." The reason they did this was that "raising zinc levels is a more functional factor than lowering copper levels." This is reductionist logic that is doomed to simply treat the symptom and not the cause and the anxiety will come back.

A logical solution would be to get rid of the abnormally excessive copper!

Simply giving more zinc will create other imbalances in the bodies delicate chemistry and would likely be unsustainable therapy regardless. Minerals like iron and phosphorus and vitamins like B12 and D will be adversely affected by increasing zinc in the body. This is similar to the issue of estrogen dominance. Modern medicine will simply give more progesterone to try to come up to raise the progesterone to the level of high estrogen instead of lowering the estrogen which would actually be a fix.

If you are struggling with anxiety the first step in assessing your copper to zinc ratio is to get a hair tissue mineral analysis. However a word of caution. You must ensure the practitioner is experienced with the interpretation of copper. Far too many well meaning practioners simply look at the results and just prescribe zinc instead of working on the overall big picture that will include reducing the high levels of copper. Also be aware that if the first test results show a low or normal level of copper it doesn't mean for sure that you don't have high copper, it just might not be actively showing and you need to assess other factors to see if that might be the case such as mercury levels. Nutritional correction and therapy is highly effective when done correctly but also quite complex. It is highly suggested you work with someone trained in Nutritional Balancing such as myself.  Here is some more information on this incredibly important topic  THE PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF COPPER - IT'S TIME FOR THE FROG TO JUMP OUT OF THE POT  and  Copper Toxicity