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Transcript
- 03:46 Copper Toxicity Symptoms and Conditions
- 07:55 Tests for Determining Copper Toxicity
- 13:42 Complexity of Diagnosing Copper Dysregulation
- 20:36 Fixing Copper Dysregulation
- 31:29 A Liver Healthy Diet
- 33:09 More About Copper Supplementation
- 36:21 Effective Forms of Copper Supplements
- 38:26 Zinc and Zinc Supplementation
- 41:25 Copper and Hormones
- 48:27 MTHFR and Copper
- 53:01 Contact Morley Robbins
Wendy Myers: Hello everyone. My name is Wendy Myers. You are listening to the Live to 110 Podcast. This is my dog, Jezebel for you guys who are watching the video. I thought she just might make a little cam appearance today. She’s my little pet Pomeranian.
But today, we are going to be talking about copper disregulation on the podcast. This is part two of a two-part podcast. I did this podcast with Morley Robbins who’s our guest today. It was such an interesting subject and I had so many questions that it ended up being two hours. So we split this podcast up into two parts. So be sure before you listen to this podcast, part two, listen to part one of copper dysregulation.
Morley Robbins believes that most health issue stem from copper dysregulation in the body, which is basically caused by adrenal fatigue. We’re going to be going over many, many aspects of how this happens, why it happens and how you can correct it.
But first, I have to do the disclaimer, please keep in mind that this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult your health care practitioner before engaging in any treatments today that we suggest on this show.
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Our guest today is Morley Robbins. He is the founder of the Magnesium Advocacy Group, which can be found at GotMag.org. Mr. Robbins has a mainstream medical industry background. Morley was a hospital executive and consultant for 32 years, but left to become a wellness coach and health practitioner. Mr. Robbins has completed the Wellness Coach’s Training Certificate as well as the Institute for Integrative Nutrition Training. He also has a BA in Biology and an MBA in Healthcare Administration.
Morley is an expert on minerals. We talked on a previous podcast about magnesium. Obviously, he loves magnesium. His website is called the Magnesium Advocacy Group, but copper is a very important mineral as well. So now, for today’s podcast on copper disregulation, part two.
Wendy Myers: Let’s talk about copper toxicity now, the flipside. Can you explain what are the symptoms and health conditions specifically related to copper toxicity?
Morley Robbins: It’s a great question at the risk of confusing folks. I think that what’s masked in all copper toxicity are three deficiencies. Copper toxicity will by its very nature lead to a zinc deficiency because there’s an appropriate balance between zinc and copper in the body. And when there’s too much copper, there will be a relative deficiency of zinc. That will affect digestion, that will affect immune response, that will affect a lot of skin issues that are from too little zinc relative to the amount of copper in the body. So that’s the first deficiency.
The second deficiency is that in fact, the copper toxicity creates copper deficiency because of the lack of the protein, ceruloplasm. So there’s high levels of unusable copper and very, very low levels of usable copper all for the lack of that protein. And so that metabolic deficiency of copper then leads to iron deficiency.
The reason why I’m bringing this up is that people fixate on the copper toxicity and the issues of depression or ADD. The real mechanism behind leaky gut is excess copper. It punches a hole in the tissue. That’s how destructive it can be.
There’s a lack of science where leaky gut came from, mostly, it probably came from the antibiotics that people took because they had some immune imbalance caused by the mineral imbalance that preceded it. But the point is the condition to believe that there’s copper toxicity when in fact I think it’s hiding and masking some very important deficiencies, zinc, copper and iron in the body.
Some people have all there, some just have one. That’s the amazing thing. Why does one person express their copper issue with just one dimension versus all three, zinc, copper and iron being out? I can’t explain that. But I think the copper toxicity is also a state of – a lot of people get into what’s called a ‘wired and tired’ state where their mind can’t shut down, but they’re exhausted in their body. That’s probably the most notable that people have from copper toxicity. It’s just that wired and tired feeling.
Liver congestion, people are always talking about doing a liver detox. People may have heard the expression ‘liver shiners’. They’ve got these dark circles under their eyes. Well, that’s actually a result of a build-up of bio-unavailable copper and iron in the liver and it expresses itself as those dark circles under the eyes. Again, that’s from too much unbound copper that’s preventing the liver to produce the protein that it needs.
Does that make sense?
Wendy Myers: Yes, absolutely.
Wendy Myers: And so what test do you do to determine copper toxicity because it’s not so simple. It’s very complex. It’s not as simple as a hair mineral analysis or just any one blood test? What specific tests do you use if someone is copper toxic.
Morley Robbins: It’s a combination of the hair test with the blood test. We look at the zinc-to-copper ratio. I look at the absolute level of copper and look at the absolute production of ceruloplasm.
I also take into account to what extent is iron an issue. And then my intake form is designed to – there’s a way to discern what copper enzymes aren’t working. That gives me a sense of to what extent am I dealing with a toxicity issue versus a deficiency issue or both. And that’s the dilemma, people can manifest both. They may have toxicity in their brain and deficiency in the body or it may be the inverse of that.
And one of the things that I failed to mention that I think is important particularly for some of the younger listeners is that one of the most important jobs of their mom in the last trimester – and this is in a perfect world, but one of the most important jobs of the mom is to infuse the fetus’ liver with 10 to 20 times more copper and iron than they’re going to carry as an adult.
That’s the mom’s job because the breast milk of the human doesn’t have a lot of copper and iron in it. This is true of all mammals. It’s not just humans. The breast milk of mammals does not have a lot of copper and iron and so the body bulks up the liver.
And then what’s supposed to happen in a perfect world is the baby pops out on their birthday and the adrenals wake up and say, “Hey, let’s start making some of that ceruloplasm thing and start moving this copper and iron out so that the tissues in the brain and the liver and the kidney and all over can start to grow” because copper and iron are really important for growth issues.
That’s in a perfect world.
Wendy Myers: I just want to side note, when I was pregnant, I cannot stop eating goose liver pate or foie gras. I could not stop eating because my body just naturally craved it. And unfortunately in California (this happened after my pregnancy), Arnold Schwarzenegger outlawed the production of foie gras in California.
Morley Robbins: That’s a lot of copper that was going in. So that’s in a perfect world. In the real world, most moms are stress cadets. They tap into the adrenals of their infants. The placenta is a major organ for minerals. And second only to the liver, the placenta is the highest concentration of copper in a woman’s body.
And so mom is stressed out, tapping into the adrenals of the baby, on the baby’s birthday, it pop out and they look more like Benjamin Buttons. They don’t have the adrenal juice to signal the liver to say, “It’s okay to make that ceruloplasm.” And so they start off life with this [inaudible 00:11:31] of copper and iron that doesn’t get moved out as efficiently as it should because it needs to be moving out on that first year of life. That’s one of the key metabolic tasks of the infant in the first year of life, to be moving the copper and iron out so that the body can’t grow properly.
When that can’t happen, it’s very disruptive. And I think what we’re witnessing now is this uptake of jaundice, uptake of all sorts of digestive issues, kids that are being given proton pump inhibitors as infants. Are you serious? And all that’s because of excess copper overwhelming the zinc that’s needed to make the stomach acid.
And so there’s all sorts of metabolic dysregulation that goes back to our mom, their role as being the mineral transfer from the placenta to the baby, a lot of this imbalance there is taking place.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I agree. I test a lot of babies and some of them are born with adrenal fatigue issues.
Morley Robbins: Sure, absolutely because they’re wiped out. Their moms are wiped out. How can you expect – one of the great lies of society is that babies are born perfect. No, apples don’t fall far from trees. So if the mom is a mess, how can you possibly expect the baby to be okay?
Wendy Myers: Yeah, it’s interesting also, the correlation when I test the mothers and their children, their tests are very, very similar. And it happens over and over and over. They both have really high copper or really high other mineral level. It’s very interesting.
Morley Robbins: And what I’m doing, I do that myself. And when I do that test, I always have the mom compare the mineral profiles to their children and they’re shocked. They’re like, “Oh, my gosh! They’re just a mini-me.” I say, “That’s exactly right.”
Wendy Myers: Yeah! Because the baby cannot get minerals the mom doesn’t have and it gets the heavy metal and chemical sensitivity the mother has as well.
Morley Robbins: That’s right, ding-ding-ding.
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Wendy Myers: And so let’s talk about the complex issue of diagnosing copper dysregulation because it’s not as simple as going to your doctor and getting a copper blood test. If it’s high or low, then that determines whether you have copper deficiency or toxicity, it doesn’t work that way.
We touched on a little bit with each corresponding deficiency and toxicity of copper. Can you talk a little bit about – just give us a whole overview of how complex it is to diagnose so to speak someone that has copper dysregulation.
Morley Robbins: You know what? It’s tricky because there’s symptoms that surface from what would be trained to call ‘hormone imbalance’, but you and I know it is zinc and copper imbalance because it takes copper to make the enzyme to make estrogen and it takes zinc to work to make progesterone. There’s also a dynamics around. People have been conditioned that their hormone imbalanced is caused by hormones when in fact, it’s caused by an imbalance of zinc and copper.
And then there are some classic signs of just pure copper dysregulation like the inability to lose weight or having low blood sugar or chronic UTI’s or craving carbohydrates or acne or having a inventive mind or high blood pressure or headaches, especially migraines. Migraine and histamine intolerance and zinc, copper, B6 are all basically the same thing. Migraine are really traced back to histamine intolerance – sensitivities to chronic yeast issues, ADD.
One of the things that people have to be aware of is that if they are vegetarian or vegan, they’re going to have a greater likelihood of having copper issues just because of the nature of the food. Animal food has more zinc in it, so it’s more of a zinc copper balance. Vegetable food doesn’t have the zinc. So you’re getting a much higher concentration of copper, which is going to lead to more imbalance.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. I mean, there’s a little bit in pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, but how many of those can you eat. You can’t eat enough and it’s not the bioavailable form that’s more desirable by the body.
Morley Robbins: Exactly. So I think the key is that – it sounds a little bit unbelievable, but the vast majority of people’s problems are going to trace their way back to copper dysregulation and what got them there was some stressor that is altered in the breakdown of the production of ceruloplasm in the liver. That sounds really simplistic, but the more I study, the more I’m like, “Oh, my gosh!” That’s really what it is.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I mean that’s why women are so sick. They’re all stressing out. Our bodies are just not meant for modern life. And people, they have to slow down. They have to say no. They have to take their activities. They can’t exercise six days a week and these horrible fast food diets create all these stressors. People just have to get back to a more simple lifestyle. It’s extremely hard for people to do especially health professionals like myself.
Morley Robbins: Well, it’s true. We live in a Starbucks-crazed world. What does coffee do? It brings in a lot of copper, which stimulates us beyond belief. So we live in a hyper-stimulated, hyper-sympathetic environment where we think it’s normal to drive to work eating our breakfast, listening to the news, checking our emails while putting on our eye make-up. That’s considered normal.
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Morley Robbins: That’s not normal. It’s very fatiguing for the body.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, hunter/gatherers worked a 17-hour work week. Seventeen hours, they didn’t work that much. And the rest of the times, they spent relaxing with their families, et cetera. So our bodies are just not cut out for 40 to 60 hour work weeks eating stimulants all day long.
Morley Robbins: And what we’re craving are the foods that are typically – when copper is available in the body, we don’t have the cravings that we typically have. You don’t have the cravings for sugar and caffeine. You just don’t need them because the body is naturally producing energy.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, a lot of my clients that are having trouble losing weight or they’re gaining weight really easily, their will power so to speak out of control, they can’t stop stuffing their face with sugar and carbs. I’ve been there before myself. Biology will always trump will power. You’re not weak, you just don’t have the minerals your body needs to function. So naturally, you’re going to crave energy-inducing substances like sugar, processed grains, cookies, crackers, et cetera, and coffee and other stimulants or drugs even, stimulating drugs to get you to feel better.
Everyone just wants to feel better and the body will biologically naturally drive people to behaviors that make them feel better.
Morley Robbins: Right! The body is designed for homeostasis. It’s a fancy word for balance. And when you feed the body the nutrients that it needs, the minerals, amino acids and the essential fatty acids, it knows exactly what to do.
And the prime part of the body that basically runs the body is called the hypothalamus. It’s a very mineral-rich part of the brain, but the two most important minerals are magnesium and copper. It’s no accident that they need that.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. And so listeners, any of you who are interested in finding out if you have copper dysregulation, both Morley and myself, there’s a handful of other practitioners (not that many us) do hair mineral analysis and blood testing to figure out copper dysregulation in the body because like I said, it’s not as simple as just doing one blood test or maybe two to make that determination. You have to use a blood test, hair mineral analysis and look at people’s symptoms in addition to make that determination.
Wendy Myers: And so now that you’ve established that you have copper toxicity, copper dysregulation, copper deficiency, how do you fix it? That’s what people want to know, “How do I fix this mess?” So what kind of program do you put your clients on as far as foods or supplementation?
Morley Robbins: Oh, I don’t. They’re screwed. Once they’ve got it, they’ve got it for life. That’s too bad. I just diagnose them, then I just leave them, you know?
Wendy Myers: [laughing]
Morley Robbins: That’s the tricky part. When I first got into this earlier this year – actually, it was like February of this year. So I’m not even a year into this. It feels like the longest year of my life, trying to know more about copper. When I got in, I bought the “copper is bad” and I was bulking people up on with zinc.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I was too.
Morley Robbins: And then, oh, my God, creating all sorts of copper deficiency. It took me three or four months to figure that out. My focus is not to worry about the copper (really, I don’t even worry about it), but I focus on the liver and making sure that people are not doing those four things that are so bad for the liver production of ceruloplasm – making sure that they’re not taking vitamin D, making sure that they’re not eating ascorbic acid or high fructose corn syrup and making sure that they are bringing their stress patterns back into balance.
And one of the things that I do for every client that I work with is recommend emotional freedom technique to make sure that they are letting go of their emotions because the unresolved emotions are what trigger mineral loss and the state of helplessness and hopelessness is the most damaging of all. People have these wiring patterns from traumatic events and they don’t let go of them, but EFT will help them let go of them.
So I really encourage people to do that as a way to bring that stress profile down and allow the magnesium to restore its full…
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I find that incredibly interesting. It’s one of my New Year’s resolution actually, find an EFT practitioner and engage in that and do some releasing. That’s very important, emotional detox.
Morley Robbins: It really is. The reason why people struggle with it is it’s too simple, but it really works.
So I start there. Then I make sure that they’re getting good sources of retinol in their diet. It’s either cod liver oil and making sure that they’re eating a very rich diet of essential fatty – I’m just giving them fat-soluble proteins. And making sure that the intake of whole food vitamin C is significant, about 500 mg. to 800 mg. a day and that they are taking a B complex, which is very important.
The B’s are really key to the liver production, particularly B2 and biotin are very, very important. There’s a very key role that B2 plays in helping to balance copper and iron in the liver. So I’m not entirely sure what riboflavin does, but I just go with the literature.
And making sure that they’ve got a good source of boron that they’re getting because boron plays a role in ceruloplasm production.
Wendy Myers: I always tell my clients to eat prunes. They’re very high in boron.
Morley Robbins: Yeah. No, that’s a great source of them. I think on occasion, like maybe once a year, to do a liver detox although I think people tend to overdo their detoxes. I think there’s a major reaction that [inaudible 00:25:00], “I’ve got to do a liver detox” when in fact, the liver’s job is to detox. That’s what it’s designed to do. And I think there’s a lot of manual overrides for a naturally functioning organ. But I think the key is making sure that they are properly supporting the liver.
The other thing I’m reading more about is homeopathic intervention. And apparently, there’s a homeopathic called cuprum metallicum and that that helps individuals who are having copper issues. I’ve not done a lot of work with it. I’m just reading about it now. But I would certainly throw that out there because that’s another possibility.
I know with clients who are having difficulty with magnesium where there’s almost like a resistance to magnesium, I encourage them to do a homeopathic mag-phos, magnesium phosphorica. It has a magical effect of re-inviting magnesium back into the body.
So cuprum metallicum may be another key agent in helping the body to re-create itself to proper copper regulation.
Wendy Myers: Do you like herbs like milk thistle extract like Silymarin.
Morley Robbins: Well, sure. But I think everything in moderation. I think what people tend to do is they don’t trust their liver and so they’re constantly bombarding it. But in fact, our ancestors might have a problem and they might take that milk thistle for a finite period of time, but not every day because then the body loses its sensitivity to that very powerful and important herb.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. And so are there any other substances that you like to support the liver and support healthy copper metabolism?
Morley Robbins: Well, the other part of it that I really begin to work with is I think the image that I would create is I think at the center of a key triangle is copper bound to ceruloplasm. Let’s call it the center of this triangle. And I think the three-quarters of the triangle have optimal levels of magnesium, sulfur and iodine. It turned out that iodine played a very key role in preparing the amino acids that are very important for ceruloplasm function. Sulfur plays a very important role in helping to keep copper in proper balance. And magnesium plays a very important role in obviously warding off stress, but also in helping to produce ceruloplasm.
So I don’t have a go-to formula just yet, but that’s where I’m going to focus in the coming years, really, the optimal levels of magnesium, iodine and sulfur to support the liver function, to support the overall production of proper regulation of copper and ceruloplasm in the body.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, so let’s talk about copper supplementation because naturally, if someone has a deficiency, they likely needed to supplement with copper. But again, this is a delicate situation. Can you just explain a little bit about your theory and your method behind copper supplementation?
Morley Robbins: Well, the big dividing line certainly in the hair testing world is the slow versus the fast. The fast oxidizer has a metabolic need for copper that’s very different and distinct from the slow oxidizer. So that’s sort of a no-brainer. Very often, you see a fast oxidizer and you see if they have low copper, it’s a very quick step to recommend it and then you’ll feel better.
Wendy Myers: And listeners, if you have no idea what we’re talking about, on a hair mineral analysis, people are either a slow metabolizer or oxidizer or fast metabolizer or oxidizer.
Morley Robbins: Right. And it has to do with the electrolyte patterns. But the important point is that copper in a fast oxidizer is really very beneficial.
I think there’s inconsistency in how practitioners view copper and slow oxidizer. Many practitioners are very cautious about it almost to the point of saying, “Avoid it like the plague.” But yet you have someone like Dietrich Klinghardt who feels very strongly that the body needs that copper in order to restore its metabolism. And I think that’s what I’m suggesting with the homeopathic, to introduce the energy of the copper in order to reawaken the body’s ability to work with it.
I don’t always use copper supplementation for slow oxidizers, but I certainly encourage them to get it in their diet and get food-based forms of it. I’m still trying to work through what the implications are and what I really focus on is not so much copper supplementation as, “Is the liver supporting its proper jobs of allowing the production of ceruloplasm?” and making sure that the liver is doing its work.
I think the function is so overlooked that we tend to obsess on the mineral when in fact, the production of that protein is really what’s key. And I think in a slow oxidizer, you can recommend the copper, but you want to make sure that their liver is able to properly support its presence in the body. I think that’s the key.
Wendy Myers: And so when you say you recommend your clients eat foods that are copper rich, we talked a little bit about liver, so what kind of foods over and above liver (the lamb liver, chicken liver, beef liver, et cetera), what kind of other foods do you like them to be eating?
Morley Robbins: Pumpkin seeds are really good, very rich source. But it’s also got good sources of magnesium and zinc too, which is nice to have that balance. People love chocolate – but not cocoa, but cacao. It’s a great source of copper (again, in moderation).
I don’t dissuade people from having nuts and the seeds, which are usually very rich in copper like sunflower seeds or cashews or almonds, pecans, they’re very rich in copper. But I think people need to understand that I really do think there’s a difference in how that copper manifests in the body from a vegetable source versus from an animal source.
The only thing I think is key is making sure that there’s things like good fat-soluble vitamins from butter or from cod liver oil or sources like that to enable the proper production of liver function to support the mineral.
So again, it isn’t so much focusing on the minerals as much as focusing on the body’s ability to work with that mineral. It’s very different than a lot of the other minerals I think.
Wendy Myers: And so as far as supplementation, like say someone is deemed to be copper deficient and they need to take copper, what is the fine line? Can you supplement too much copper and then promote more copper toxicity?
Morley Robbins: Yeah, I think it is possible. And that’s why I’m not as quick to supplement with copper as I am to get people to really significantly increase their intake of vitamin C (which has some copper in it), really focus on retinol (which is going to allow the production of ceruloplasm), make sure that they are supporting liver function and seeing how the body responds to food-based forms of it before I would start pushing a copper supplement.
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Morley Robbins: I think you’ve got to be careful about overwhelming the body. But yet, then we’ve got someone like Leslie Klevay who’s very clear that the human body needs supplemental copper. He’s quick to say food-based forms are good, but he’s also very comfortable saying that people can benefit from supplemental copper. I don’t have enough conviction yet around the fast versus the slow. What I don’t want to do is create more disruption and that’s why I tend to be very conservative and see how people respond and follow-up hair test and blood test before I start to address more aggressive patterns.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, because too much copper can really drive the adrenal glands. It can really put that foot on that gas pedal and push.
Morley Robbins: Yeah, yeah. Exactly! And they may not be ready for that.
Wendy Myers: Many people are already in adrenal fatigue and it can exacerbate it if it’s too much for that client.
Morley Robbins: The thing is there are 30 essential minerals. There are 15 that get examined on the hair test and they all have very important roles in the body. Many of them are relatively easy to restore. I think for whatever reason, copper is the most complicated to restore because of its connection with so many of the minerals and its essential role in the metabolism of the human body. It very easily goes into this door, this state of too much and too little and I think it’s very challenging for the average person to size up their situation and solve it.
And I was a huge advocate of democratizing health and getting people to figure their situation out, but copper is one aspect that I think requires some guidance and ongoing support to make sure they’re not going to do more harm than good.
Wendy Myers: So when you do supplement copper, what forms do you like to give or what brand?
Morley Robbins: Well, after the whole food vitamin C and the liver, probably I turn to either Standard Process. They have a copper liver chelate, which is a very effective form.
Wendy Myers: And that’s extracted from actual livers, correct?
Morley Robbins: Uh-huh, exactly. And another option would be – Trace Minerals has a great product. It’s actually called zinc and it has 50 mg. of zinc and 2 mg. of copper and 10 mg. of magnesium, 3 mg. of boron. It’s a great combo product.
Wendy Myers: Is that with the Albion Minerals?
Morley Robbins: No, I think it’s Trace Minerals out of Salt Lake City.
Wendy Myers: Oh, okay. Yeah, it is a different company.
Morley Robbins: And then the other is Solgar. They have a combo zinc copper.
I think it’s important that people not isolate copper away from zinc. I think more often, the vast majority of the cases, people need both. The question would be what’s the concentration? I think there are some wonderful ways to get copper and I always tend to focus on the food-based forms before going to supplements.
Wendy Myers: And so the Trace Minerals, those are ionic minerals, right? They’re suspended in liquid.
Morley Robbins: Yup, yup.
Wendy Myers: Yup. Okay. So do you think those are as effective as chelated minerals, et cetera?
Morley Robbins: Oh, yeah, sure.
Wendy Myers: They just work different?
Morley Robbins: Yeah, ionic means it’s immediately available for transaction, it’s there. Chelation means that it’s got to be broken down, but it’s a recognized amino acid, but still requires a metabolic step.
Wendy Myers: And so let’s talk a little bit about zinc and how if you supplement with too much zinc, this can cause some issues with copper disregulation as well.
Morley Robbins: Yeah, that’s a whole other topic, but I think people again are being conditioned that “zinc is good, copper is bad and you can’t get enough zinc” and I think people are finding that they are creating a lot of issues.
I mean, there’s no question there is this zinc deficiency. Why would we have half of America on proton pump inhibitors if people had enough zinc? So when we’re under stress, what do we lose? Magnesium, zinc and B vitamins. How do you make hydrochloric acid? Hmmm… magnesium, zinc, B1 and B6. Interesting.
So the thing is zinc is important, but this mono-mineral supplementation routine that we tend to fall prey to is very dangerous. I don’t think we were designed to be isolating specific minerals, per se. I think that’s where we can create as much harm as good when we start to dwell on one side over the other.
But we know that there are people like those that have – they need zinc and B6 because of – what it’s caused by is too much copper. But the point is there are situations where you do need to up the zinc. But when I’m in a situation like that, I will only have the client take it for maybe six weeks, eight weeks max. And then we test to see how are they responding to it.
This idea that I’m going to take zinc for the rest of my life, no, I don’t think that’s advisable. I don’t think the body needs that kind of ongoing support.
Wendy Myers: And I think as long as you’re eating red meat on a regular basis, a couple of times a week, once you’ve re-established your stores of zinc with a little bit of supplementation if you need it, that eating and red meat and liver and other things can keep you replenished.
Morley Robbins: Yeah, exactly. The biochemical make-up of each person is very different because of the familiar patterns, the stressors that I’ve been under, the foods that they’ve been eating. We have very different compositions inside and you have to be very mindful of that. And I think you and I know that (as well as anyone who does hair tests) sees this very dramatic [inaudible 00:41:15] from client to client to client about how their mineral patterns gets expressed and that that affects metabolic activity.
Wendy Myers: And so let’s talk a little bit about how copper relates to hormone function because I think a lot of people don’t realize that copper levels are tied to estrogens in the body. So is it possible to have low estrogen and also have copper disregulation? But let’s first just talk about how copper relates to estrogen levels in the body.
Morley Robbins: The hormones get made from the enzymes. They don’t come from Mars. An enzyme is a vitamin, an amino acid and a mineral. I don’t know the exact name of the enzyme, it makes estrogen, but there is one, but the mineral that makes that happen is copper.
And so there’s a very high correlation between copper and estrogen and we are being flooded with animal products where the animals have been coursed with estrogen for growth purposes like taking chickens that produce full-blown breast tissue within six weeks. It’s a little kind of frightening when you think about it. That comes from those hormones. But you can’t do that without copper.
It turns out that estrogen is actually an antioxidant. And so I think part of the connection is that ceruloplasm that we were talking about earlier is also an antioxidant. Why is that important? Well, an antioxidant is preventing oxidation. What causes oxidation? Copper and iron and a few other elements in the body. And so you want to bind up those agents of oxidation.
So when the body can’t make the ceruloplasm, I think one of the back-up mechanisms is to rely on estrogen as a way to bring up the copper. The body knows inherently that it’s under attack. It recognizes copper is a very significant player in the body. This goes back to years and years of programming. So it’s going to do something. If you can’t make the ceruloplasm, it’s got to do something to tie up the copper. And I think that one of the things that has happened in modern society was this increased production of estrogen to try to use up that copper to capture it and to prevent it from its oxidating qualities.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, that’s why a lot of women that have copper IUDs and long-term use of birth control pills have pretty serious copper issues as a result.
Morley Robbins: They have copper issues and they also have pretty serious hormone issues. There are three elements that tend to run together in the body (and this comes out in the hair test). I call them the – my mind just went blank. What do I call them? Oh, the three bandidos because they rob you of your health and they are calcium, copper and estrogen. And most people who have high calcium or high copper or high estrogen will have the other two. They just have this really close metabolic relationship with the body.
The connection between copper and estrogen is pretty clear. I don’t have a good explanation for why the calcium is going to be high in that situation, but the point is it’s very disruptive to the body to have excess estrogen, to have excess copper and to have excess calcium. It will [inaudible 00:45:53] your health.
Wendy Myers: Oh! Yeah, and let’s not forget bio-identical hormones as well.
Morley Robbins: Exactly! Yeah, and so now people are finding themselves with this exogenous form of hormone, which will disrupt mineral status. I see it all the time. It’s thought that they can either eat the hormone or rub it on their skin and that’s just another way of eating it and not have it be disruptive to the body. It doesn’t make sense.
I recognize that a lot of people out there get benefit from progesterone creams. Well, what that really means is they’re zinc deficiency and they’ll probably get a lot more benefit out of having more oils in their diet, having a better balance between their zinc and copper and allowing the body to naturally make the progesterone than to be flooding the body with a synthetic form that the body doesn’t really recognize.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, because zinc is a precursor to making progesterone.
Morley Robbins: Exactly.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. And so that’s what I encourage a lot of my clients. If they’re on bio-identical hormones, eventually wean off. I don’t want anyone getting off their medications right away. And of course, we want to do that in conjunction with their physician. There’s something to be said for relieving really uncomfortable symptoms with medications like this until natural means, mineral supplementation balancing can work their magic and completely eliminate the symptoms forever like doing a program like mine, Mineral Power or like the program that you offer as well. I think that it’s extremely important to just correct the underlying imbalances other than just flood the body with external hormones that don’t work very well.
Morley Robbins: Yeah, the interesting this is you and I sound like [inaudible 00:47:52] in the modern world because we’re not pushing bioidentical hormones. Jonathan Wright is very proud of the fact that he was instrumental in the creation of bioidentical hormones. I think he did a major disservice to society with what he did.
Now, I think he’s a pretty cool guy. I think he’s done a lot of really good things for society with all his nutritional research, but that was not one of them. Bioidentical hormones was a step in the wrong direction as far as I’m concerned.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I agree with you.
Wendy Myers: Well, Morley, thank you so much. Is there anything else that you want to add about copper disregulation that perhaps we didn’t touch on?
Morley Robbins: The only other one that I would mention – and it’s sort of like dropping a bomb at the end of the conversation – a lot of people are becoming well-versed in MTHFR and the whole dynamic of transcription errors and snips and what they’re being conditioned to believe that it’s a gene mutation. Maybe this is a topic for a follow-up conversation, but what I encourage people to understand is that the whole methylation process, which is the underpinning of MTHFR, the methylation process requires between 150 to 200 methyl transferase enzymes. And what is a methyl transferase enzyme doing? It’s turning a gene on or turning a gene off. It’s essentially what it is. It’s like a light switch. It turns it on, it turns it off. And it requires a methyl group to do that.
Well, I’ve only studied ten of these methyl transferase enzymes like COMT or HNMT and there are many, many others. But the ten that I’ve studied, the MT stands for methyl transferase. And in every case, copper is essential in the functioning of that methyl transferase enzyme. The whole creation of MTHFR requires copper.
What I would encourage the listeners or your clients to be aware of is that there’s a lot of psychodrama out there about MTHFR. But the foundation of it is missing minerals. Be very mindful of the fact that copper is missing, zinc is missing, magnesium is missing, B vitamins are missing, there are other essential minerals that might be missing (particularly molybdenum or manganese or chromium or whatever), but don’t suddenly thing that you have a gene mutation when in fact you probably have a mineral deficiency, particularly a copper deficiency that’s at the very root of all that methyl transferase activity.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. And I think people think they have a life sentence or something when they’re diagnosed with MTHFR mutation or other kind of snip or gene copying error when in fact, to copy genes, you have to have minerals present and heavy metals and chemicals can interfere in that copying or transfer as well of the gene. So it’s not a life sentence. You can do a program like this and heal those gene mutations, those gene copying errors.
Morley Robbins: Well, part of my research focus for 2015 is going to be looking at the enzymes that put the nucleotide proteins on the DNA. So there are only four – G, A, T, C and there’s an enzyme for each one of them. I’m willing to bet that copper is somewhere in the mix of those nucleotide protein enzymes. That’s just a theory on my part, but I could be completely mistaken, but I have a feeling that there’s a fundamental flaw in how those nucleotide enzymes are working because of missing minerals. That’s going to take some digging on my part.
Wendy Myers: Well, I would love to do a podcast on that too.
Morley Robbins: Yeah!
Wendy Myers: Well, Morley, thank you so much for coming on the show. That was just so interesting. I hope that any of you guys out there who are listening who are current clients of either Morley or I, I hope that clears up a lot of confusion, perhaps it’s created more questions about the copper disregulation issue. We’ll happily welcome your questions. If you have more questions you want answered, we can perhaps do a follow-up show. Is there anything else you’d like to add, Morley?
Morley Robbins: No, I’m feeling pretty good right now.
Wendy Myers: Alright, great!
Morley Robbins: Thank you for the opportunity to share my insights.
Wendy Myers: And so why don’t you tell us a little bit about your upcoming book, The Starved Heart and how magnesium feeds it?
Morley Robbins: Yeah, I got four chapters done, six to go. My goal is by the grace of God, get it done in 2015. It’s basically letting people know that much of the vast majority of what’s behind heart disease is missing minerals, not the least of which is magnesium. It’s very easily lost to stress as we’ve said.
The heart is actually a muscle. Muscles love energy. Energy is spelled MgATP and obviously, copper is in there as well, but I’m going to probably put the spotlight on the magnesium. The goal is just to further sharpen people’s awareness of where is all these heart disease coming from? Well, it’s coming from inside their heart muscle that are not being fed properly. That’s really what it comes down to. That’s the focus of the book.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I’m very much looking forward to that. I love talking to you. I love reading your website. What is your website name again?
Morley Robbins: The Magnesium Advocacy Group.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, what is the exact URL? That’s what I was trying to think of.
Morley Robbins: I think it’s facebook.com/groups/magnesiumadvocacy.
Wendy Myers: Okay. And what about your website?
Morley Robbins: Oh, the website is GotMag.org.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, that’s what it is, GotMag.
Morley Robbins: Yeah, GotMag.org.
Wendy Myers: Yes. And I love your Facebook group. Listeners, I absolutely encourage you to join the Magnesium Advocacy Group on Facebook. I can’t say it, I can’t pronounce it. It’s an amazing group. It’s got 20,000 members. I learn in the group. I think there’s a lot of amazing health practitioners in the group. It’s very, very active.
Morley is in that group. You can ask him questions, get involved and learn more about hair mineral analysis and the importance of minerals in your health. So I encourage you to join as well.
Morley, thank you so much for being on the show. Is there anything else you want listeners to know about you or where they can find you?
Morley Robbins: They can certainly reach out to me on Facebook. They can reach me, email us, [email protected]. If people want to give me a call, it’s 847-922-8061.
Wendy, I’ve learned that if I give people lots of different ways to reach me, they’re like, “Oh, my God! I don’t know if I want to…” So I love to give out my phone number because most people won’t call me. [Inaudible 00:55:49] and I’ll get flooded with calls.
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Morley Robbins: I want people to know I’ve never met a question I didn’t enjoy. I will be there to help them. It’s my delight to have this revival. It’s like a renaissance for me. I’m living a life of vitality. I’ve never had so much fun in my life. I’m happy to be able to ease – there’s a lot of suffering out there as you know. I’m happy to be able to help alleviate some of that. So it’s a real honor to do this.
Wendy Myers: Oh, thank you so much, Morley. I really appreciate you being on the show and sharing your vast amount of knowledge and depth of knowledge to the listeners out there. So again, thank you for coming on the show.
Morley Robbins: You bet! Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Wendy Myers: Hey, everybody, thank you so much for listening. If you want to learn all about detoxification, the Modern Paleo diet and all about how to heal your health conditions naturally, go check out my website, myersdetox.com. You can learn more about my healing and detox program called Mineral Power at MineralPower.com. Say bye bye, Jezebel. Bye bye. She had a wonderful time on the show today, so thank you for having us.
And thank you for listening. If you liked the podcast, please give me a review on iTunes. I’d appreciate that so much. And again, thank you for listening to the Live to 110 Podcast.
