Can copper serum test be unreliable?

[Ippodrom47]

Hi everyone! I've been on a low vitamin A detox diet for several months due to severe overdose and carotenemia in the past. I've been eating eggs (ditched them recently), some seeds/nuts, some chicken/turkey/beef (not too much due to hemochromatosis), bananas and grains, including buckwheat. And I means lots of buckwheat, almost with every meal. Buckwheat with rice, buckwheat with seeds, plain buckwheat - you name it. That went on for several months in a row. I think I could easily average around 500-1000 grams of cooked buckwheat on some days.
I can't understand why I have extreme fatigue, agitation, anxiety, overheating after eating, which are not due to blood sugar fluctuations as I can recognize those. The only thing that comes to mind is copper overdose. I did a blood test 3 hours after breakfast (3 bananas, then after a while - rice/buckwheat porridge/a handful of pumpkin seeds/sunflower seeds, water), the results are below:

Iron - 21.6 (reference 12.5 - 32.2)
TIBC - 54.8 (44.7 - 76.1)
Copper - 18.4 (10.99 - 21.98)
Zinc - 17.3 (11.1 - 19.5)

I did it after breakfast deliberately in order to catch a high reading, but those are all normal, albeit close to the high end.

 

[KurtisL]

Look up Wilson's disease diagnostic criteria, copper blood test is only a small part of it and is often times within range when in toxicity
Those symptoms + hemochromatosis can also be signs of copper deficiency

 

[ww3not4me]

Hi everyone! I've been on a low vitamin A detox diet for several months due to severe overdose and carotenemia in the past. I've been eating eggs (ditched them recently), some seeds/nuts, some chicken/turkey/beef (not too much due to hemochromatosis), bananas and grains, including buckwheat. And I means lots of buckwheat, almost with every meal. Buckwheat with rice, buckwheat with seeds, plain buckwheat - you name it. That went on for several months in a row. I think I could easily average around 500-1000 grams of cooked buckwheat on some days.
I can't understand why I have extreme fatigue, agitation, anxiety, overheating after eating, which are not due to blood sugar fluctuations as I can recognize those. The only thing that comes to mind is copper overdose. I did a blood test 3 hours after breakfast (3 bananas, then after a while - rice/buckwheat porridge/a handful of pumpkin seeds/sunflower seeds, water), the results are below:

Iron - 21.6 (reference 12.5 - 32.2)
TIBC - 54.8 (44.7 - 76.1)
Copper - 18.4 (10.99 - 21.98)
Zinc - 17.3 (11.1 - 19.5)

I did it after breakfast deliberately in order to catch a high reading, but those are all normal, albeit close to the high end.

Why are you eating a kilogram of buckwheat per day? That seems like a lot! That 707gr of carbohydrates from Buckwheat alone! That is way too many carbs in a day for anyone not riding the Tour De France. 3 bananas at one meal? That is way too much! Your not a silver back ape or a spider monkey!

What are your triglycerides like?

I bet if you lowered your carbs to not more than 100grams per day you would feel better. That would mean getting protein and saturated fats up.

How was your diagnosis of hemochromatosis made?

 

[ww3not4me]

Effects of some carbohydrates on iron absorption - PubMed

Two experiments were performed to examine the effects of various carbohydrates (fructose, lactose, corn starch, wheat starch and potato starch) on the utilization of iron, on Fe-depleted rats. These received a single meal that contained the test carbohydrate at a 60% level, labelled with 59Fe...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Not only can carbs especialy fructose increase iron absorption but a lot of grains in America most are fortified with iron and b-vitamins. Add in a ton of fruit to all that fortified grain and you have a recipe for disaster.

 

[Ippodrom47]

How was your diagnosis of hemochromatosis made?

Hi! I have a single c282y mutation, my mom is compound heterozygous. My transferrin saturation gets above 50% if I start eating even small amounts of red meat every day. I can't eat high vit-A foods as I react badly to them. I'm not from America, so the grains I'm eating are not enriched.

However, even on that restrictive diet my copper intake can be as high as 250-300% RDA on most days. If I add some avocados and potatoes, it would be sky-high.

Look up Wilson's disease diagnostic criteria, copper blood test is only a small part of it and is often times within range when in toxicity
Those symptoms + hemochromatosis can also be signs of copper deficiency

Thanks! Should I get my ceruloplasmin level checked as well?

 

[Ippodrom47]

Hi everyone! got my new results back. It was not on an empty stomach, though, but around 4 hours after eating (bananas, some rice with beef and seeds, water).

Total copper: 13.00 (range 10.99-21.98) ummol/L (which is 82.59 ug/dL)

Ceruloplasmin: 168 (range 200-600) mg/L

I calculated free copper:

82.59 - 16.8x3 = 32,19 (google says range is 10-15μg/dL)

Free copper percentage = 39%, which is quite a lot.

Should I get tested for the Wilson's decease? Can low ceruloplasmin be caused by a high copper diet?

 

[Peatness]

Diagnosis of copper deficiency

www.bmj.com

From the article

Four tests of copper status generally are available: caeruloplasmin in plasma and copper in liver, plasma and urine [4]. Although these tests are useful in the diagnosis of Menkes’ and Wilson’s diseases, consideration here will be restricted to the general, adult population. Copper in human plasma or serum does not always change in depletion [5 6]. Serum copper generally exceeds plasma copper when measurements are made on the same samples of blood[7]. Urinary copper is useless in this context because copper is excreted mainly via bile and the gastrointestinal tract[7] and urinary copper is unaffected by months of experimental, copper depletion [5].

This article might be helpful

Effect of a different caeruloplasmin assay method on the relationship between serum copper and caeruloplasmin | Postgraduate Medical Journal

My 2 Cents About Copper Worth A Million Bucks

Copper is needed, but only in small amounts, and I'll explain why. It's important to read this article because you may unknowingly get too from a supplement y

suzycohen.com

From this article
Long story short, copper deficiency is sometimes at the heart of resistant iron-deficiency anemia. An “RBC copper” blood test can reveal this. I am a stickler about your test being RBC (or even WBC) because a common mistake is often made by physicians. They often measure “serum” or “plasma” levels. Who cares what is out there? Neither the serum nor the plasma portion of your blood contains any clotting factors or red blood cells. Evaluating copper in the plasma or serum doesn’t give you an indication of what’s inside the cell, where the clotting factors are. That’s what you NEED to know. If you’re spending money on your lab test, you have to do it properly, insist if you have to. Blame it on me if you want to, I’ve got your back!