# Copper Pipe / Alzheimer's Disease Link Being Studied



## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

*The Risks of Copper Toxicity Contributing to Cognitive Decline in the Aging Population and to Alzheimer's Disease*

George J. Brewer, MD, MACN Departments of Human Genetics and Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School

In this brief review I advance the hypothesis that copper toxicity is the major cause of the epidemic of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease engulfing our aging population. This epidemic is recent, exploding in the last 50-60 years. The disease was virtually unknown 100 years ago. And it involves only developed countries that use copper plumbing. Something in our environment associated with development is poisoning the minds of our aged. The epidemic is associated with the use of copper plumbing, and the taking of copper in multi-mineral supplements. Food copper (organic copper) is processed by the liver and is transported and sequestered in a safe manner. Inorganic copper, such as that in drinking water and copper supplements, largely bypasses the liver and enters the free copper pool of the blood directly. This copper is potentially toxic because it may penetrate the blood/brain barrier. I review a web of animal and human data that tightens the noose around the hypothesis that copper toxicity is causing the epidemic of Alzeimer's disease and loss of cognition in our aging population.

Key teaching points

Free copper is the 5-15% of copper in the blood that is loosely bound and potentially toxic.

Inorganic copper, such as copper in drinking water and supplements, enters the free copper pool directly, whereas organic copper in food is first processed by the liver.

Trace amounts of copper in drinking water greatly exacerbated the disease in Alzheimer's disease animal models.

Alzheimer's disease patients have an increased free copper level in the blood.

Normal people in the highest quintile of copper intake, who also ate a high fat diet, lost cognition at over three times the normal rate.

In this brief review, I wish to call attention to a major risk factor for damaging cognition that has crept up on developed societies without us being aware of it. That risk is copper toxicity from drinking water due to the widespread use of copper plumbing, and from copper in vitamin/mineral supplements that so many people take.

*Background and Description of Subject

Brief Review of Alzheimer's Disease and the Potential Role of Copper*
Alzheimer's Disease (AD), a type of dementia, is epidemic in the U.S. and other developed countries. It is estimated 10% of people in their 60s, 20% in their 70s, and 30% in their 80s have AD in the U.S. Some say our population is growing older, so naturally we have more AD, a disease of aging. But the facts are different and they are indeed startling. A careful review by Waldman and Lamb (1), shows that almost all populations have had some aged people, and that prior to about 100 years ago, none developed clinical AD, or AD pathology in the brain. Further, the epidemic of AD has occurred only in developed countries. The aged of India, African countries, etc. are spared this disease. When we look at this epidemiologic picture, we should b e shocked! We have allowed something in our environment associated with development as a society to steal the minds and many useful years of our elderly, at a terrible cost to families and the health care system. As a people we should be outraged, frightened, and frantically searching for what it is in the environment that is causing this terrible onslaught. But we are passively letting this happen. There is not much activity in this area. Most efforts are aimed at treating aspects of the disease that are unlikely to be primarily causative......

........First, all the molecules involved with AD brain pathology bind copper. This is true of the beta amyloid [2,3] that forms the amyloid plaques, the amyloid (precursor protein [4,5] from which the beta amyloid is cleared, and the beta secretase enzyme [6] which does the cleaving. It is also true of the tau protein [7] which forms the neurofibrillary tangies, characteristic of the AD brain. Next, two risk factors for AD, apolipoprotein E4 (Apo E4) and homocysteine, both interact with copper. ApoE4 has no cysteines in a certain location in the molecule that binds copper if a cysteine is present. ApoE2, protective against AD, has two cysteines in that location, while ApoE3, neutral with respect to AD, has one cysteine. Thus the copper binding capability of the specific ApoE allele relates to risk for AD. As homocysteine levels in blood increases, the risk of AD increases [8], as well as the risk for atherosclerotic disease. Copper mediates oxidation of low density lipoprotein by homocysteine, and oxidized low density lipoproteins are toxic to nuerones [9].

The copper in the body that causes damage is the “free” copper. The copper in the blood is in two pools, one covalently bound to ceruloplasmin (cp) which is “safe” copper, and the other rather loosely bound to albumin and small molecules in the blood, called “free” copper, because it is readily available for exchange. The free copper makes up about 5-15% of the total serum copper in the general population. The free copper is the potentially toxic copper. For example, the free copper pool is greatly expanded in Wilson's disease, an inherited disease of copper accumulation and copper toxicity.

It turns out, as reported by Squitti and colleagues [10] in Italy, that AD patients have elevated free copper levels. We have recently confirmed these findings (unpublished observations). Further, the Squitti group have shown that measures of cognition in AD patients correlate negatively with free copper levels [11], and free copper levels are predictors of the rate of decline in cognition [12].

*Animal model studies have provided a powerful piece of evidence linking AD brain damage to copper toxicity. Sparks and Schreurs [13] found that adding as little as 0.12 parts per million (ppm) of copper to the distilled drinking water of their AD rabbit model greatly enhanced amyloid plaque deposition in the brains and cognitive decline in the rabbits. This copper concentration is less than one tenth of the copper concentration (1.3 ppm) allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in human drinking water! *This rabbit model work was criticized because the rabbit AD model is much less used in AD research then mouse models. However, the Sparks group have now shown similar findings from addition of trace amount of copper to drinking water in the mouse model of AD, as well as other models [14]....... http://www.jacn.org/content/28/3/238.full


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## rocksteady (Oct 8, 2008)

It's a sham made up by the pex lobby. 










Paul


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## Titan Plumbing (Oct 8, 2009)

So, it's not fluoride after all?


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## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

Was the test done in california? Everything in california causes health problems :laughing:


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## Titan Plumbing (Oct 8, 2009)

I will say this is very interesting. There definitely has to be a central link to something within our society...the article is correct about the explosion in the last 50-60 years.


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## ToUtahNow (Jul 19, 2008)

This report has been around for a couple of years now. It is pretty much regarded as junk science by most I've talked to. To me it seems like he is looking for a grant to increase his study.

Mark


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## U666A (Dec 11, 2010)

Ahh crap!

I've gone cross-eyed!

An Interesting read, but so are King and Koontz IMHO...


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

ToUtahNow said:


> This report has been around for a couple of years now. It is pretty much regarded as junk science by most I've talked to. To me it seems like he is looking for a grant to increase his study.
> 
> Mark


Oh That's Good To Know.... 

I was worried that my clutch would start slipping....


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## plbgbiz (Aug 27, 2010)

I wonder if they accurately considered our increased ability to identify Alzheimer's in the last 50 years as opposed to the last 200.


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

plbgbiz said:


> I wonder if they accurately considered our increased ability to identify Alzheimer's in the last 50 years as opposed to the last 200.


I hate it when I identify it in one of my customers... :laughing:


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## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

Of course Alzheimer was almost nonexistant 100 years ago. The average white male died at the age of 50.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

*something is gonna kill you*

wether it be drinking water with copper...or lead in it, 

or in california you breathe toxic fumes in the air

or sit out in the sun and get too much solar radaition and get skin cancer

Eat raido-active tuna fish from near the fukyoumamma nuculear power plant in japan,

Eat oil toxic shrimp from off the lousianna gulf shore....


eat too much junk food from mcdonalds.....and get high colorestol


something has got to, and will kill you someday

so please ......try to get over it


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## surfdog (Oct 20, 2011)

ive done houses for doctors and cancer survivors who has said they want no metal piping then filter the pex or cpvc system


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## [email protected] (Apr 10, 2011)

U know,... Those epoxy guys think they have the right solution. Anybody have thoughts on potable epoxy lining? I still can't talk about it for another year; in public.


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## ToUtahNow (Jul 19, 2008)

[email protected] said:


> U know,... Those epoxy guys think they have the right solution. Anybody have thoughts on potable epoxy lining? I still can't talk about it for another year; in public.


I've seen too many epoxy jobs fail to get too excited about it. Add to that you need to have them come back out anytime you work on the system and I'd say no thank you.

Mark


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## bikefitter0 (Nov 22, 2011)

what are we talking about


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

bikefitter0 said:


> what are we talking about


You would have to actually read the thread to know....:laughing:


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## Plumbus (Aug 4, 2008)

Conflicting evidence:
_"Meanwhile, copper has also been getting a lot of attention from Alzheimer’s researchers. Over the past decade, the role of copper in Alzheimer’s disease has also been extensively explored, yet two conclusions are being drawn which only serve to cloud our understanding. The continuing exploration of the interesting relationship between copper and Alzheimer’s disease will hopefully yield an important breakthrough in the near future._
_Two recent studies, one by Exley and another by Jiang, both seem to point to the conclusion that copper reduces plaque build-up in the brain. This plaque is more specifically a clumping of the amyloid beta, a peptide present in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. An earlier study from the Department of Psychiatry at the Saarland University Medical Center found lower levels of copper in post-mortem Alzheimer’s patients. Another study, by Bayer and Multhaup, found a positive correlation between copper levels and scores on an Alzheimer’s specific cognitive processing test. All these data might suggest that there is a relationship between copper deficiency and Alzheimer’s disease, but it is too soon to jump to that conclusion._
_While the above studies seem to point to copper as a possible light at the end of the dark tunnel of Alzheimer’s Disease, there is a school of thought among other scientists that claims copper may be the cause of this darkness, not its remedy. The University of Rochester Medical Center’s research team describes how copper damages LRP, or low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein. LRP seems to be responsible for removing amyloid beta from the brain. If copper damages the LRP molecules, the result is the build up of amyloid beta plaque in the brain. Zlokovic performed a study testing the effects of copper on mice. The results are as follows: After ten weeks, the rats that were given water with copper had twice as much copper in their brains’ blood vessel cells and one third more amyloid beta than that of the control group. A  similar study in 2003 on rabbits yielded strikingly similar results."_


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

> *While drinking water is the most obvious source of copper in our diet, because of copper pipes, the substance is also quite common in red meat, nuts, shellfish, and many fruits and vegetables.*






So with that statement above... 


What do humans ingest more of in a 24 hour period.


3-5 meals a day on average.


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## DesertOkie (Jul 15, 2011)

DUNBAR PLUMBING said:


> So with that statement above...
> 
> 
> What do humans ingest more of in a 24 hour period.
> ...


That's why I only eat chocolate and drink beer from bottles.
Safety first I say.


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## incarnatopnh (Feb 1, 2011)

My uncle has alzheimers. He has actually been part of a few studies at U of R. None on copper though. If that were true we would all make a fortune on repipes. Although I'd just be happy with a cure. I have watched him, a proud navy man and firefighter, fall to an empty shell. Very sad.


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## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

Welp looks like we will have to use pex with plastic fittings from now on :laughing:


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## Mississippiplum (Sep 30, 2011)

incarnatopnh said:


> My uncle has alzheimers. He has actually been part of a few studies at U of R. None on copper though. If that were true we would all make a fortune on repipes. Although I'd just be happy with a cure. I have watched him, a proud navy man and firefighter, fall to an empty shell. Very sad.


I have several family members with that condition too, makes me so sad and depressed to see them like that. I try to help them all I can.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

*modern living will kill you*

my mother died of alzehimers back in 96...
and it was pretty rough, and she could have gone on 
even till today.....I feel that we got lucky she went fast

we are simply living longer now than we did 60 years ago
...how about modern living ... could we blame it too..??

So what about this stuff we see every day when we 
throw out a water heater.... ever wonder what health 
problems people might be having from batheing in magnezium 
waste bi-products.......??

?

.


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## bikefitter0 (Nov 22, 2011)

redwood, my remark was joke about alzheimers, may be you shouldn't be drinking the water.


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## jeffreyplumber (Dec 7, 2009)

Theres a lot of talk about cooking in Aluminum causing Alzheimers too. 
I dont worry about copper or aluminum.
There has been many changes in modern health Here are some of the changes Ive noticed in my life 

Child obesity is rapant now. Who ever heard of a kid alergic to peanuts? Today its widespread. Basic alergy's every bodys alergic to something. Kids with A.D.D. Cancer How many people get cancer?
Some jerk from the plastic industry must be causing a copper scare LOL


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## BROOKLYN\PLUMB (May 21, 2010)

I think Teflon is the problem its found in plumbing and the pots and pans


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