Copper, Magnesium, Zinc Levels Tied to Mortality

French researchers have identified links between levels of three metals in the body and the risk of death from cancer or heart disease.

Dr. Nathalie Leone of the Lille Pasteur Institute and colleagues found men with high copper levels had an increased risk of dying over an 18-year period, while high magnesium levels were associated with reduced mortality risk. Low zinc levels seem to add to the effect of the other two elements.

However, the researchers note, it remains unclear whether these metals are actually responsible for these effects or simply markers for cancer or heart disease.

Zinc, copper and magnesium play a number of key roles in the body, for example in the immune response, inflammation and oxidative stress, Leone and her colleagues write in the research journal Epidemiology. To investigate the relationship between body levels of these elements and mortality, the researchers followed 4,035 men aged 30 to 60 for 18 years. During follow-up, 339 men died, including 176 from cancer and 56 from heart disease.

Men with the highest copper levels at the study's outset had a 50 percent increased risk of death from any cause, and a 40 percent greater risk of dying from cancer, compared to men with the lowest levels.

On the other hand, those with the highest magnesium levels had a 40 percent to 50 percent reduced risk of death compared to those with the lowest levels.

Low zinc levels along with high copper levels boosted mortality risk further; men with this combination were 2.6 times more likely to die during the follow-up period than those with low levels of both zinc and copper. Low zinc values combined with low magnesium levels contributed to an increased mortality risk.

High copper levels were tied to older age, smoking and high cholesterol, Leone and her team note, while lower magnesium levels were linked to older age, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Copper can contribute to the formation of damaging free radicals in the body, the researchers note, while low magnesium may also contribute to inflammation.

Low zinc levels may impair immune function, while zinc also shields the body from free radicals. "In this way, decreased zinc and either increased copper or decreased magnesium might synergistically enhance oxidative damage and the inflammatory response," Leone and her team write. "Further studies are needed to confirm the interactions between serum zinc and serum copper or serum magnesium and their potential contribution to the prediction of all-cause, cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality in clinical practice," they conclude.

Epidemiology, May 2006., Reuters-Health

The Robert Cathey Research Source

See our full line of Magnesium supplements

by Roger Scott Cathey
http://www.navi.net/~rsc/mgcl2_txt.html Updated June 17, 2003
For pertinent links on the subject of this web page, see: http://mgwater.com/

Because of an increased interest in the topic of minerals I am resending my essay on some important minerals and the paper by Dr. Raul Vergini, M.D., of Italy. I will only note in preface, that my views on calcium supplementation have drastically changed. I now do not believe there is so great a need for supplemental calcium, as the body does not absorb it very well, and when it does, there seems to be evidence that the body seeks to rid itself of it, and this manifests as plaques, micro-calcium crystals in the breast fatty tissues or the prostate, and other pre-cancerous lesions or dysplasias, later to play dangerous parts in carcinogenesis in an appreciable amount of all cancers.

The body maintains calcium levels in the blood to a very strict level that rarely varies by more than hundredths or thousandths of a percent. Instead, there is evidence that the body prefers to make it's calcium from absorbable atoms or molecular elements like magnesium or silica and potassium, as per the researches of C.L. Kervran as found in Biological Transmutations, pp 63, 68, 78, and many other places. Systemic calcium is essential, but if the body prefers to create it by means of biological transmutation of magnesium into calcium (probably by means of what we may term a nucleonic enzyme), then buying 50:50 supplements (with equal parts magnesium and calcium) is spending too much by half. Even the much lauded "coral calcium" has a lot of magnesium and other salts, which for all we know is what really does the trick. It bears more research, to be sure. rsc

RCRS Email Update 18 July 1997

In view of the importance of magnesium to normal functioning of the enzyme systems and related physiological operations in cancer as well as normal health, I am re-forwarding an interesting article sent to me by an internet associate, found below after the references. Thus goes the exponential relay-cascade of information on the internet.

Let me just briefly lay out the rationale for a three mineral accentuation in cancer therapy: the enzyme degradation of the pericellular coating of cancer depends upon the activity of amylase to attack the sialic-acid side chain bearing carbohydrates which give the cancer cell it's strong electro-negative charge which repulses the white blood cells as well as various chemotherapeutic radicals. Calcium ions are specific to the activation of amylase[1]; magnesium ions, besides being involved in hundreds of enzyme processes, activates trypsinogen to trypsin[2], which along with carboxypeptidase and chymotrypsin, sequentially break down the protein backbone of the cancer membrane [3]; chromium-3+ is essential for the fullest activity the protease trypsin, and also for the proper function of the pancreatic endocrine secretion or insulin, which regulates blood sugar but also insures the delivery and concentration of the amino-acids into cellular systems [4]. These amino-acids of course are the basis of protein-enzyme synthesis, both in the pancreas as well as in the cell. And finally, as both a co-factor or co-enzyme and specific anti-neoplastic cytotoxin, the hydrogen cyanide of nitrilosides acts both as a preserver of the enzyme pathways involving cysteine and glutathione[5], but as an accelerator of proteolytic action[6]. The cytotoxic function of nitrilosides in cancer is reviewed in several papers on our web site [7]. Calcium, magnesium and chromium are key in successful nitriloside (Laetrile) and immuno-enzyme cancer therapy.

It is also interesting to note the anti-allergic, anti-anaphylactic properties of magnesium noted by Dr. Vergini of Dr.s Delbet's and Neveu's work. Similarly, Dr. Alice Bernheim found calcium effective to the same end. Indeed, her clinical use was most impressive, relieving symptoms in 80% of patients using calcium, vitamin D and hydrochloric acid to aid it's absorption[8].

There are many other protocols of course involved in the succesful enzyme treatment of cancer, and the regimen is individualistic and requires expert monitoring and guidance.

References

[1] Dixon, M., Webb, E.C., Thorne, C.J.R., and Tipton, K.F., Enzymes, Academic Press, New York, 1979.
[2] Northrop, J.H., Crystalline Enzymes, New York: Columbia University Press, New York, 1939.
[3] Krebs, E.T. Jr., and Bartlett, C.L., The Pregnancy Toxemias, Medical Record, 162(10):1-12, 1949 also: http://www.europa.com/~rsc/krebs49b.htm and for relevant comments on the protein structure of the cancer pericellular coating, see the commentary and footnotes in Regelson's article, Have we Found the "Definitive Cancer Biomarker"?, Cancer 76(8):1299-1301; as well as Acevedo, et al., Human Chorionic Gonadotropin-Beta Subunit Gene Expression in Cultured Human Fetal and Cancer Cells of Different Types and Origins, Cancer 76(8):1467-75
[4] Saner,G., Chromium in Nutrition and Disease, Alan Liss, Inc. New York, 1980, p. 16 re: chromium facilitated insulin-amino-acid delivery; p.17, re: optimal action of trypsin with chromium.
[5] Harrison, D.C., The Catalytic Action of Traces of Iron on the Oxidation of Cysteine and Glutathione, Biochemical Journal, 18:1009-1022, 1924.
[6] Mendel, L.B. and Blood, A.F., Some Peculiarities of the Proteolytic Activity of Papain: The Acceleration of Proteolysis by HCN, J.Biol.Chem, Vol. 8:177-213, 1910.
[7] http://www.europa.com/~rsc/krebs3.htm http://www.europa.com/~rsc/gurchot.htm
[8] Bernheim, A., A Calcium Regimen in Allergy, Annals of Allergy 22:449-459, September, 1964.; See also Nutrition and Vitamin Therapy, by Michael Lesser, M.D., Bantam Books, 1981, p.110.