measuring copper status
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does copper deficiency always result in greying of the hair?
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bump/bump
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No. Glycation can cause gray hair too, and is likely the major cause especially in aging people. Copper deficiency can cause a host of symptoms. Many of which can be far more unpleasant than simply gray hair. Neurological issues, balance and coordination problems, low libido, high LH despite low T, high SHBG, low dopamine, etc.
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You need ceruloplasmin too, not just copper from food sources. High free copper can be toxic and bad. To keep your ceruloplasmin up you need vitamin A and thyroid.
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I know gray hair doesn’t automatically mean copper deficiency. But does copper deficiency automatically mean gray hair?
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@winters2 google ai says no in case you didn’t already ask: https://www.google.com/search?q=does+copper+deficiency+automatically+mean+gray+hair%3F&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
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@yerrag Yeah that sounds good. You can inhibit glycation with really low PUFA intake and good thyroid function. I just think most people don't because they never think about such things. I think the mainstream view is glycation is caused by sugar (lol). Copper probably indirectly helps with it's activation of the respiratory enzyme.
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@Mulloch94 instead of eating shrimp, I ate a shrimplike small crustacean that is common in Southeast Asia. A fermented paste is made from it which is used in many dishes in the region. The crustacean (acetes sibogae) is called alamang, and the fermented paste is called bagoong in the Philippines. It is called belacan in Malaysia and Singapore.
I experimented eating it regularly for a year, eating a leafy green dish using bagoong as an accompaniment, for a year. However, it has a strong odor that other cultures would need to develop a taste for, especially when eaten as is. But it's fresh form is delectable, especially when made into an omelet.
As copper is hard to supplement, eating copper rich foods such as shrimp is recommended by Peat. But I don't like shrimp that is cultured and not wild caught from the sea as I don't like that antibiotics are used. But wild caught shrimp has no antibiotics and taste a whole lot better, being sweeter and more flavorful. But because it is so hard nowadays to find in the wet market, I can't eat wild caught shrimp as often as I'd like to. So in its place I settled for alamang or bagoong.
After a year of eating it (not daily but more like a quarter of the time), I tested my serum ceruloplasminlevels. It had gone up from 21 to 32, where the reference range is 18-34).
I still have pepper hair, meaning black and white. I'm normothyroid, have no blood sugar problems after I fixed my hypoglycemia around 8 years ago, enough so that I can go on a 3-day dry fast easily. I don't need to walk so much nor work out at all, eat 3 full carb-laden meals a day, and still have regular weight and build, my BMI being 23.1 usually. In short, my metabolism is above average to excellent. So what remains to be the missing pieces are more exposure to red light and perhaps to lower glycation.
Will have to do them both. I have my red lights already, but have yet to use them consistently. I also have a carbon bath, but only got to use it once. Should do both therapies soon, and monitor my hair color. But it is number 3 in my list of health projects. I hope I can do away with #1 and #2 in short order.
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@yerrag Are you taking vitamin E, that can help with glycation as well. I think it would be technically possible to take too much thyroid or increase metabolism too much to the point oxidation actually becomes bad. A lot of people have this binary idea that they should lower reduction and increase oxidation. Generally this is true, but when something like vitamin E or vitamin C is low, maybe even normal healthy levels of oxidation could otherwise cause problems.
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@Mulloch94 true about the importance of balance. while I have vitamin E, it's not something I take. daily but only when I would need it therapeutically. I think that keeping PUFA intake low and free iron low with the help of histidine in a progesterone rich setting enabled by good mitochondrial respiration should keep the oxidative stresses of peroxidation chain reactions minimal, and ensuring enough collagen and sulfur intake gives me enough reserves of glutathione for intracellular protection from oxidative stresses, while antioxidants such as albumin and uric acid, to name a few, protects me from extracellular oxidative stresses.
I could be wrong though, but in the times I. take vitamin E regularly, it is hard for me to detect any improvement. Which led me to just keep a bottle or two of vitamin E in reserve.
