Copper Supplementation Increased Brown Spots Number

[Kunstruct]

I have started supplementing with copper 1mg up to 2mg every other day.
After only 7 doses new clearly defined dark brown spots have appeared on my face and skin, all in all I only had around 7 before on my whole body, small and clearly defined. I now clearly see a new one on the left side of my nose, one not so clear on my forehead.

Why is this happening and why so quickly, if I am not mistaken I have read others have noticed this too.

At the same time I also took a bit of Zinc, like 10mg which usually renders me quite sleepy and with slight apathy, with a bit of copper things are not as bad in these few days which I have tried zinc and copper at different hours and not each day.

Hasn't even Ray Peat noticed this on himself too at some point with copper? That quickly brown spots increased. Not sure bout his dosage, I see people sometimes post high copper dosages on the forum but not really mention of brown spots.

 

[redsun]

I have started supplementing with copper 1mg up to 2mg every other day.
After only 7 doses new clearly defined dark brown spots have appeared on my face and skin, all in all I only had around 7 before on my whole body, small and clearly defined. I now clearly see a new one on the left side of my nose, one not so clear on my forehead.

Why is this happening and why so quickly, if I am not mistaken I have read others have noticed this too.

At the same time I also took a bit of Zinc, like 10mg which usually renders me quite sleepy and with slight apathy, with a bit of copper things are not as bad in these few days which I have tried zinc and copper at different hours and not each day.

Hasn't even Ray Peat noticed this on himself too at some point with copper? That quickly brown spots increased. Not sure bout his dosage, I see people sometimes post high copper dosages on the forum but not really mention of brown spots.

Well it is no surprise you would get brown spots when a copper enzyme (tyrosinase) makes melanin. I also get spots from tyrosine. Tyrosinase is the enzyme responsible for melanin. Some people don't seem to be prone to getting these brown spots but if you are things like tyrosine, copper can easily cause more to pop up. I would immediately stop copper unless you want more of those.

Zinc can blocks NMDA receptors and noradrenaline explaining your symptoms.

 

[ecstatichamster]

Copper and zinc supplementation is risky. Why not depend upon foods to get what you need.

 

[Lucas]

Hum I am supplementing L-tyrosine and copper and getting these spots too.

The problem is I feel amazingly better whit 500 mg of L-tyrosine and can’t live without it. My stress response is a lot better with tyrosine, the world doesn’t stress me anymore.

But at same time my Mother had skin cancer and I think I need to stop l-tyrosine.

 

[Kunstruct]

Copper and zinc supplementation is risky. Why not depend upon foods to get what you need.

Mussels and shrimps affect me pretty hard, unpleasant. They give me serious issues so I quit them and things are better.
Chocolate well, I could do that but then I will start having other issues with chocolate starting to inhibit absorption of all minerals.
I have done for quite a while chocolate and I was feeling better from it really as in generally better, acutely year, some nice sugars and nice taste without question for me.

 

[Kunstruct]

Well it is no surprise you would get brown spots when a copper enzyme (tyrosinase) makes melanin. I also get spots from tyrosine. Tyrosinase is the enzyme responsible for melanin. Some people don't seem to be prone to getting these brown spots but if you are things like tyrosine, copper can easily cause more to pop up. I would immediately stop copper unless you want more of those.

Zinc can blocks NMDA receptors and noradrenaline explaining your symptoms.

Very interesting, I have supplemented Tyrosine some months ago up to 1 gram per day or per but did not experienced any new brown spot of any kind.
I have definitely not been on tyrosine supplementation, neither phenylalanine these months.

 

[Kunstruct]

Hum I am supplementing L-tyrosine and copper and getting these spots too.

The problem is I feel amazingly better whit 500 mg of L-tyrosine and can’t live without it. My stress response is a lot better with tyrosine, the world doesn’t stress me anymore.

But at same time my Mother had skin cancer and I think I need to stop l-tyrosine.

How are your spots looking like? Mine look flat, small and defined, not fuzzy or partially darkening of the skin in patches.

 

[Lucas]

How are your spots looking like? Mine look flat, small and defined, not fuzzy or partially darkening of the skin in patches.

They are dark and symmetrical. Like this:

 

[Dave Clark]

Are we sure these spots are not lipofuscin? They don't look like it on the pictures, but brown spots could be lipofuscin.

 

[Kunstruct]

They are dark and symmetrical. Like this:

Interesting, mine look only as pigmentation not as slight excrescence like the big spot in your photo. They appear flat not as something on the skin, but rather the skin color
changing. Mike look similar to freckles I would say .

I am not sure if many people are able to make this distinction, but I see people with many brown spots that are not only pigmentation but rather like there
is thin excrescence there too, very hard to notice correctly unless doing seeing that upscaled a lot like your photo for example.

I have added one of the clearer images where the cracks of the skin can also be seen.

 

[schultz]

Copper and zinc supplementation is risky. Why not depend upon foods to get what you need.

+1

Liver, gelatin and fruit have copper. Steak, milk and oysters have zinc.

 

[Kingpinguin]

I have started supplementing with copper 1mg up to 2mg every other day.
After only 7 doses new clearly defined dark brown spots have appeared on my face and skin, all in all I only had around 7 before on my whole body, small and clearly defined. I now clearly see a new one on the left side of my nose, one not so clear on my forehead.

Why is this happening and why so quickly, if I am not mistaken I have read others have noticed this too.

At the same time I also took a bit of Zinc, like 10mg which usually renders me quite sleepy and with slight apathy, with a bit of copper things are not as bad in these few days which I have tried zinc and copper at different hours and not each day.

Hasn't even Ray Peat noticed this on himself too at some point with copper? That quickly brown spots increased. Not sure bout his dosage, I see people sometimes post high copper dosages on the forum but not really mention of brown spots.

It’s possible since it has to do with melanin but unlikely related imo. Never seen a study showing a link. Personally I’ve supplemented copper daily for 2 years now and havent gotten any new spots. Dosage been all between 2mg all the way up to 14mg in a single day. But usually 2-4mg. Studies shown 10mg pey day for 2 months only transiently elevated liver enzymes which returned to normal after stopping. The upper limit is mainly set do avoid liver damage in regards to copper. No other symptoms ate connected with excessive copper. High ceruloplasmin though can cause mental problems it seems like ocd and psychosis.

 

[Kunstruct]

Again I am talking about brown small pigmentation spots in my case not excrescence on the skin as brown tissue as some other people have, like Lucas shown.

On the other hand I know people supplementing with copper around 3mg every other day, so that is more than my quantity and for much longer time and not one single dark spot pigmentation showed up on them, they even consume gelatin every other day and even liver. No tyrosine supplementation for these persons I know.

I would not straight up make a rule that copper supplementation directly does that when there are clear cases where it does not and so far who except me has even claimed this brown small pigmentation spots appear after copper supplementation? Was it Ray Peat or not?
People might want to make the distinction between something freckle-like and something that is like a slight of overgrown brown tissue.

I know some guys on the forum like the more reproof type of comments, but I was asking what could be the real cause since it is clearly how with some it is not happening at all, so maybe who knows what are the exact mechanisms behind it would be interesting to know.

 

[Jing]

It’s possible since it has to do with melanin but unlikely related imo. Never seen a study showing a link. Personally I’ve supplemented copper daily for 2 years now and havent gotten any new spots. Dosage been all between 2mg all the way up to 14mg in a single day. But usually 2-4mg. Studies shown 10mg pey day for 2 months only transiently elevated liver enzymes which returned to normal after stopping. The upper limit is mainly set do avoid liver damage in regards to copper. No other symptoms ate connected with excessive copper. High ceruloplasmin though can cause mental problems it seems like ocd and psychosis.

What are you taking copper for? What do you notice with 14mg?

 

[postman]

Maybe the copper is replacing iron in tissue, mobilizing the iron into the bloodstrem and around the body, and it's reacting with PUFAs in your blood? And forming lipofuscin. I don't know much about these kinds of things.

"A deficiency of copper causes our tissues to retain an excess of iron"

 

[Kingpinguin]

What are you taking copper for? What do you notice with 14mg?

I used to have low ceruloplasmin from heavy zinc use. Id ended up with all the symptoms and searched many years for reason and cure. My symptoms was extreme fatigue, anxiety, low libido and most pronounce bad joints, joint cracking and pop almost every couple of minutes, also severe restless legs. Eventually I started to notice that symptoms became worse everytime I took zinc supplement specially between 30-100mg dosage. Was very stupid of me. I suffered so much for many years. Eventually I made the connection. I bought copper and read so much about it specially its role in healthy joints. My joints felt destroyed at age 24. And my life was a misery. Once I started taking copper I noticed a little improvement within the first week. After a month I could really tell it was working. I went did ceruloplasmin test when I started out. My ceruloplasmin was 15 with range was 15-45. So it was just on range to be under acceptable and any result under 20 could apparently be suspected as wilsons disease where you have a dysfunction of ceruloplasmin production. I didnt have wilsons disease. I had just tanked my copper so much using zinc. Took me 6 Months of copper supplementation of 4-10mg per day to get my ceruloplasmin to 36. All symptoms gone. I still have very minor joint issues still improving to this day. Back when I used 14mg I did not notice anything special except improvements in my symptoms. But thats not strange since I likely was so severly low in copper stores. Still to this day I now take 2mg copper everyday. I think modern diet today generally lacks it. I eat liver now aswell buy I’m also heavy meat eater with high zinc from diet. I’ve tried zinc today and honestly it makes me feel ***t just 2 days in I throw away the bottle I can tell symptoms are returning if I use it. I can eat 50mg zinc from meat and get no symptoms but even 10-20mg from supplements make me crap. Since then I have also found out the combination of retinol and copper being the best fastest way to restore both copper and ceruloplasmin. You need copper to make ceruloplasmin in the liver but this wont happen without adequate retinol. Retinol helps keep copper away from organs and liver out in the blood as ceruloplasmin. And copper/ceruloplasmin helps keep iron from tissue build up. It helps iron to load on transferrin receptor and transport it around where its needed. This system is soooo inportant for your health and metabolism it cant be understated. Zinc is a very dangerous mineral to play with. I think imo its much more risky to play with than with copper. People say copper depletes zinc. I have never seen a single study on this. Theres no evidence for it only that minerals can block absorption. But that goes for any mineral. Zinc actually reduces ceruloplasmin and copper. Maybe through using up retinol levels. I know zinc and retinol has some sort of relationship. So if your supplementing zinc I’m sure you would need both retinol and copper to avoid bad effects. Even then I’m not sure. I think this area with these minerals are under studied. Very complex relationships.

 

[Kingpinguin]

Maybe the copper is replacing iron in tissue, mobilizing the iron into the bloodstrem and around the body, and it's reacting with PUFAs in your blood? And forming lipofuscin. I don't know much about these kinds of things.

"A deficiency of copper causes our tissues to retain an excess of iron"

copper been proven to increase serum iron so if you already have high serum iron then copper might raise it too high causing an oxidative enviroment in the blood.

 

[Kingpinguin]

What are you taking copper for? What do you notice with 14mg?

Im starting to suspect that zinc actually lowers retinol. Zinc is needed to degrade retinol. Getting to much zinc probably increases this degradation process eventually making a person retinol deficient. This in turn stops the body from using copper properly making ceruloplasmin. So instead copper gets stored away in the liver and eventually other ograns. This dysfunction causes iron to start accumilating in liver then eventually spilling over to other sensitive organs and tissues like the nigra striatum of the brain, joints and testicles. Causing symptoms of iron overload, parkinsonism, restless leg syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis etc. Google zinc and arthritis you get many recent articles blaming zinc as a cause for arthritis. The mechanism how is not really clear but I suspect the above mechanism.

 

[Jing]

I used to have low ceruloplasmin from heavy zinc use. Id ended up with all the symptoms and searched many years for reason and cure. My symptoms was extreme fatigue, anxiety, low libido and most pronounce bad joints, joint cracking and pop almost every couple of minutes, also severe restless legs. Eventually I started to notice that symptoms became worse everytime I took zinc supplement specially between 30-100mg dosage. Was very stupid of me. I suffered so much for many years. Eventually I made the connection. I bought copper and read so much about it specially its role in healthy joints. My joints felt destroyed at age 24. And my life was a misery. Once I started taking copper I noticed a little improvement within the first week. After a month I could really tell it was working. I went did ceruloplasmin test when I started out. My ceruloplasmin was 15 with range was 15-45. So it was just on range to be under acceptable and any result under 20 could apparently be suspected as wilsons disease where you have a dysfunction of ceruloplasmin production. I didnt have wilsons disease. I had just tanked my copper so much using zinc. Took me 6 Months of copper supplementation of 4-10mg per day to get my ceruloplasmin to 36. All symptoms gone. I still have very minor joint issues still improving to this day. Back when I used 14mg I did not notice anything special except improvements in my symptoms. But thats not strange since I likely was so severly low in copper stores. Still to this day I now take 2mg copper everyday. I think modern diet today generally lacks it. I eat liver now aswell buy I’m also heavy meat eater with high zinc from diet. I’ve tried zinc today and honestly it makes me feel ***t just 2 days in I throw away the bottle I can tell symptoms are returning if I use it. I can eat 50mg zinc from meat and get no symptoms but even 10-20mg from supplements make me crap. Since then I have also found out the combination of retinol and copper being the best fastest way to restore both copper and ceruloplasmin. You need copper to make ceruloplasmin in the liver but this wont happen without adequate retinol. Retinol helps keep copper away from organs and liver out in the blood as ceruloplasmin. And copper/ceruloplasmin helps keep iron from tissue build up. It helps iron to load on transferrin receptor and transport it around where its needed. This system is soooo inportant for your health and metabolism it cant be understated. Zinc is a very dangerous mineral to play with. I think imo its much more risky to play with than with copper. People say copper depletes zinc. I have never seen a single study on this. Theres no evidence for it only that minerals can block absorption. But that goes for any mineral. Zinc actually reduces ceruloplasmin and copper. Maybe through using up retinol levels. I know zinc and retinol has some sort of relationship. So if your supplementing zinc I’m sure you would need both retinol and copper to avoid bad effects. Even then I’m not sure. I think this area with these minerals are under studied. Very complex relationships.

Interesting I have some of those symptoms.

 

[Kingpinguin]

Interesting I have some of those symptoms.

Do you have rls, joint issues? If you are unsure go get blood test done. Test for ceruloplasmin, transferrin and serum iron. Imo if these all three are low end range. Specially ceruloplasmin. Also if you know you have history of using high doses of zinc it could be an indicator. You could also try get a strong retinol supplement. I used thorne 25 000 IU per pill. And yeah any copper supplement 4-8mg per day would be enough to show effects fairly soon. Should feel different within a month of daily use.