What is Your Free Copper Percentage?
With hormonal, behavioral & mental misalignments on the rise, I find the Free Copper Percentage (FCP) to be an important evaluation of the inner oxidative health of a person.
FCP is an indicator of the amount of copper that is not bound to the protein ceruloplasmin. When copper is not bound to its carrier proteins, it acts like an oxidative element (which essentially ages us & stresses us on a cellular level).
If the bile & liver aren’t working well to excrete it from the body, it gets transported to tissues for storage since it cannot stay circulating in the blood. This directly can affect the brain, liver, reproductive organs, adrenals, thyroid & much more.
How Does One Get High Free Copper?
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Lowered Adrenal Activity
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Impaired Liver Function
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Sludgy Bile & Gallstones
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Environmental Exposure: organic pesticides, pool water, copper pipes
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Vegetarian/Vegan Diets: avocados, chocolate, nuts/seeds, spirulina, mushrooms, leafy greens,
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Organ Meats, Lobster, Oysters
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Supplements
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Pyrolle Disorder
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Micronutrient Deficiencies
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Birth Control
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Inheriting From Mother
Common Symptoms of High Free Copper Percentage
● anxiety
● tired & wired
● easily upset and emotional
● mood swings
● mania/depression
● anger and violence
● mental illnesses (bi-polar, ADHD, schizophrenia, depression)
● concentration & memory problems
● strong self-criticism
● headache/migraine
● tiredness and exhaustion
● insomnia
● poor immune response
● skin problems
● hair loss
● yeast infection
● high estrogen (bloating, low libido, PMT)
● joint aches and pains
Testing For Free Copper Percentage
The minimum testing requirements from a standard bloodwork perspective are copper serum, zinc, & ceruloplasmin. I also personally recommend a full iron panel & evaluating additional micronutrients. You can see my Add On Vitamin Panel & Comprehensive Panel here, which includes the copper evaluation basics.
With these measurements, FCP can be calculated, which commonly explains why those struggling are having such symptoms.
Lowing this FCP to a healthy place (8-15%) is a multifaceted task. Detoxing this additional stored copper needs to happen at a gentle pace in order to avoid copper “dumping” symptoms (which is pretty much all the symptoms listed above).
Detoxing an overload is one thing, it’s another to make sure copper is getting into the cells & is not actually a bioavailability issue at a cellular level. Again, we can tell how this is happening by looking at an intracellular micronutrient panel & comparing it to extracellular blood work & the Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis.
If this is something you think you might be struggling with & would like support, click the button above to see my process of looking at the full status of the health of your body.
