Importance of Zinc/Copper Balance

In this episode Dr. Troy Spurrill, Owner of  Synapse Center for Health and Healing, Dr. Joshua Wallert, Lead Practitioner, and Marque Gant, Clinic Director have a conversation about importance of zinc/copper balance.

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Speaker 0: Welcome to the Synapse SNPS podcast where we explore the power of health and healing. On this podcast, we will be talking with health experts, professionals and leaders about hot topics in the world of health, whether it's tools to help you flourish. Successful stories to inspire or tips to optimize your health. Snaps is here to help you take the first steps towards living your best life.

Speaker 1: Welcome to Synapse Snips. This is Doctor. Troy with Dr. Josh and Marquis. And today, we're gonna be talking about one of the observations we've had recently.

Specifically around copper and zinc, and this is pretty much an observation because of the last two, three years of Covid and how important zinc was, but we're gonna be talking about that balance, but also just balance in general. And so we're hoping to highlight just a few things because human nature is to kinda overdo things. So we either tend to do not enough or way too much. So Let's talk a little bit about balance and see if we get that pendulum swinging the other direction. So Yep.

Let's start first with as we entered into Covid, we found out pretty quickly that the people that had intra cellular zinc levels that were sufficient, did much better than people who did not. That was a... I I wanna say this. That was a keen observation by us early on that wasn't in the literature but was identified in the labs we were running and turned out to be one of the the the key difference makers with people with outcomes. So that was really important.

So zinc was very, very important. People was zinc deficiency, so started taking a lot of zinc. And nowadays when people come in and we look at their intake reports, zinc seems to be like one of the things that they've been on for a long time. So Let's talk a little bit about the interactions between zinc and copper. What have you got for a off top of your head?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I I like to explain it as a Teeter to. Right? They're gonna be very similar to each other and how they're using in the body. They're going to counteract each other in some way too.

If you have too much zinc, you'll often deplete your copper. You have too much copper, you'll often deplete your zinc. And so this is where when people come in and I see this a lot too. Even if people haven't had Covid in two years. Yes.

They're still taking the stuff that they took when they had Covid. Yeah. I'll take early high vitamin d, which we could talk about that with balanced too.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: Really high zinc. And we'll do labs. We'll we'll not always, but we'll often do an actual zinc serum zinc lab. And I ipad people where it's double what it should be. It's sky high.

And they're saying, oh, I can't stop my zinc though because it's it's protecting me from Covid. It's like, what? That's true, Zinc does. But when it's double what it should be when you're taking so much for so long, you're not only getting too much zinc can be a problem, but you're also d deplete your copper. A lot of those people have essentially, low lab blow, sometimes no copper.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And if it's pushing copper, that can induce a little bit of anxiety, just the releasing of the copper. Number one. But I'll go through a little short list of copper deficiency and and we can talk a little bit about as far as how to recognize that. The number one thing that I'm seeing, I I I hear this a lot, but people who are coming through that with maybe too much zinc.

And non enough copper. They have low body temperature. So they start to to come in and they're talking about body temperature regulation issues, but their by temperature is low. Another sign is anemia. So if you have anemia that is not responding properly.

Copper is important with that. Low white blood cell count on labs can be a copper issue. Irregular heartbeat. That's actually the one I've seen the most recently other than the body temperature is just their irregular heartbeat. And then loss of pigment from the skin.

I actually have had two patients with that where they start losing the the pigment in their skin. Yep. And then thyroid problems and energy problems, because copper is very, very important for thyroid end and for energy. So it's not necessarily a good trade off. Is there anything else that you would add to list that's as far as copper deficiency.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You need copper to make the enzyme that helps you degrade histamine. And so histamine problems, which can be anything from skin issues to digestive complaints to congestion to anxiety. That could be because you're low copper. You don't have the enzyme then that you use to break that down.

That's one. It's also used in your... Called a cat system, the conversion from dopamine to norepinephrine requires copper. And so that can mess with a adrenal function. Stress response, motivation and mood.

So that's a big one too.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Motivation and mood. So if you have, like, low motivation or even mood, like the stream version of of this imbalance can be man, which mh explains a lot of the politicians right on on zinc. Took too much zinc. They over corrected it.

No. Like Man, we're we're basically not imbalance emotionally. So if if we're just going at the theme of balance. We're seeing this pendulum that swung too far in one direction, and it will affect mood dopamine is is the the pleasure brain chemical and with low dopamine, that can be be very problematic, but with high dopamine, it can be very problematic. And so it's all about balance and so this is just one thing we've been observing, and this is real time folks.

This is basically in the last couple months where were... It's enough where we've we start talking about in our meetings daily as far as just a trend that we're starting to see because people over corrected it. So that's very, very important to start to recognize some of the copper issues. And I remember talking about this because maybe twelve years ago, We went through this same scenario. And it might have been after one of the the flu or one of the epidemics that went through at that point.

But we started seeing people with low copper. So we had all whole bunch of copper on the shelf. And then all of a sudden, it just stayed there for a year or two. And everyone needs zinc again. And so it's just pendulum.

So we're really just talking about balance and you can pay attention to to your mood, your energy, thyroid. You get these clues all the time, but I want people to really really no. First of all, that you have to be balance. It's it's not anything that should be one or the other should be taken for long term all the time for most people.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You'll notice too that a lot of the symptoms that we describe. I think could be symptoms and other things too. It's not it's not a good thing to make an assumption and go take more copper. Correct.

Excess copper has its problems to do, especially in the brain that can cause its own anxiety and psychiatric changes. So you don't wanna go off the shelf, get a bunch of copper and start taking it.

Speaker 1: Right. And yeah. Because fight flight excess copper and the body triggers fire flight pretty pretty quickly, actually.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So it's one of those things though that if you're working with someone and you're having any of those signs with the let or the the low body temperature I I do see that and then even the regular heartbeat cardiologist says that your heart's doing well or something like that. It is just something to kinda throw out, there especially if you've been taking zinc for a long term for a long time. So with that, let's just talk a little bit about the the balance of things and and how we tend to over compensate or over react with different things and how important is balance when it comes to just being healthy?

Speaker 2: Think a lot of this comes out of people's fear, the imbalance. Right? Thinking about Covid and thinking about these supplements just as an example. People don't wanna stop taking these things if they feel like they're protective. Right?

So it's a it's a fear that if I stop taking the supplements, I'm gonna be more likely to get sick. I'm gonna get Covid. I'm gonna have a hard time. That's where coming in and doing labs and really having an assessment for where things are at in your body to make that correction is critical because you I understand the fear, but that's why you can't go off of just symptoms and how you feel on any good day.

Speaker 1: Yeah. This is. Yeah. This is the weird dichotomy of what we're dealing with because the number one rule of thumb is we want you to increase your body awareness. You have to know what's going with your body.

At the same time, there's a depth and breadth of that conversation. As you understand that, okay, I don't feel well in this area. Is this a good not feel well or is this a bad not feel well? Like, if you're detox and it generally is good for you. You're gonna feel a little unwell for a short period of time.

And so discernment is needed there. So we want you to have awareness. But we also want you have discernment. Now when we get lab work, that just is a new layer of awareness. So we want you definitively to know your body.

One of the things that kinda... We're gonna vent here a little bit, but Dr. Josh and I both we'll get a little bit irritable when patients kinda just change things on their own without contacting us when we're actually regulating their program. That is... Is that a pet peeve of yours, Josh?

At all?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I give patients some leeway sometime. Yes. Right? But it's all with what's a it's a balancing act.

Yeah. There are some people that will over analyze how they feel.

Speaker 1: Yes.

Speaker 2: Where every little sneeze and sniff and, you know, my my left, middle knuckle of my pinky hurt for thirty seconds, so that must mean something. It doesn't always mean something. That over analyzing and need jerk correcting in that way, can be very detrimental for us. What I tell people is that if if you make a change document it. Yep.

Right? Write down how you feel, don't change multiple things at once. If you come back and say, hey, and I wondered about this supplement, and I stopped this one thing and then I felt this. You know, we're usually okay with that because you're helping us troubleshoot.

Speaker 1: Yeah. That that I'm good with it. And but the thing is you need to give things time.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And so there are... There are such things as immediate, like allergic reactions and stuff like that. That's obviously relevant. But small joint pains and aches and little things that that happen that may or may not be related to what you're starting. That starts to get down a slippery slope.

If you don't see what it does over time. I can't tell you how many people will try something and have some weird symptom they've never had and then stop everything because that weird symptoms. So we say, okay, try it again. If it happens again, then we've got something here. If it doesn't, then it was maybe something else.

So that's the discernment factor. So we do want you have awareness. We want you to take one hundred percent responsibility for your health. So that's all very important. So when we go through these nuances of copper deficiency with zinc, potential zinc excess.

It's with the caveat of of have awareness, measure it, give things time and it's better to at least have the the the knowledge that there... This could be a reason for anemia or your low body temperature bone fractures is another one I forgot with copper. You need you need copper to prevent bone fractures. So especially for the elderly who are zinc deficient and immune system issues if they're all of a sudden getting these stress fractures that can be a copper thing sometimes.

Speaker 2: All of your collagen requires copper. That's a collagen requirement along with zinc. And vitamin c, and iron and protein and silicon mean it's collagen is an interesting thing. But changes in hair, skin, nails, the bone stuff, all of that could be copper or it could be zinc. Or could be iron.

Speaker 1: Yes. And so just to to kinda hammer this home a little bit more, you can understand now how things can be a little complex. So the more awareness you have more data points you bring in, you have to give it time and then that just tells you how how much time and effort is needed to to stay on top of these things. And that requires a lifestyle change. So when it comes to just health in general, I like to make changes slowly.

I like to for the most part, and I like to give things time, and then I like to to just acknowledge what works for me and what doesn't. And then that goes into the data bank of of this is good for my health. And when it comes to functional medicine in particular, you have to have keen observations and it's like going back to school, we tell us to our patients all the time. You're going back to school but you're learning about yourself and what works for you want doesn't. And that takes time and effort and consistent observation and discernment.

And so this is one of those key areas though that we started seeing some some changes with the labs and people... We start seeing a shift, and that that is because of the just again, pendulum swing too far into in the one direction. But you can apply this to many, many different things in the body when it comes to balance. You had mentioned vitamin D. So if vitamin d, calcium, vitamin k, allows those things that go with a nice balance it's very important to to really focus on the foundational stuff to stay in and balance, the sleep, your stress, your exercise or movement your diet what you're putting in your body, supplements meant to supplement a healthy diet in lifestyle.

These are just foundational, factors that you that you just stay consistent with as much as possible, and then you can use these other things just tweak and optimize your health.

Speaker 2: Talk about one other Covid ballots thing. Sure. We we joked about this yesterday. It was everything our our new solution to everything. All you need is love from everything single beatles song during red like, I bring this up because I've had a lot of patients with Covid and this goes back to fear two that's isolate.

Speaker 1: Yes. And

Speaker 2: they isolate themselves they're worried and afraid of getting the infection. So they don't go out. They don't see people. They're pretty cl into their their house or maybe maybe a couple individuals. But I've have known people where they they don't for for years practically haven't seen the outside world.

Yeah. That alone, more than pretty much anything else we ever talk about is gonna be hard on your health.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Mh. That is worse in Covid. Majority of people.

Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. Mentally, physically, chemically all of that. If you're inside and you're not moving, you're not experiencing love, you're not experiencing life with other people. Like you said, that's going to be more of a stress response on your body than most of the time being.

Speaker 1: And there's a self prophetic scenario there where they're actually making themselves sicker so that they're going to be more predisposed to catching infections. Covid or otherwise. Yeah. Because when you put that layer of distress on your body, but with that level of worrying concern, it actually shuts down your cells, they they actually stiff they harden and they close off, so the receptors that take in the nutrients you're consuming can't get into the cell, which is much, much more detrimental. That's like starving your army.

So your immune system is your army. And you're basically saying be ready, be ready, be ready, but you stop feeding them. So you're starving your army when the other... The enemy attacks or that's called a bacteria virus attacks, they can get up to actually defend them you at all. So it it's completely backwards.

So it is very, very important to really being balanced that way as well. And and we have a saying here, as I said this years ago and that I always say on podcast stuff like that. I can't remember if I came remember it or I read it somewhere. But worry is a misuse of your imagination. And the amount of detriment that comes from worry from a physiological perspective is very, very high.

And so it's important to know that that optimize what your cells are doing. When we walk in a state of joy, love, excitement, happiness, our cells are more open to receiving the nutrients that you're ingesting. If those nutrients are good, solid clean nutrients, you're going to optimize your cellular function, which optimize your defense function, which optimize your communication to the rest of your cells. So that's what we're talking about when it comes to the basics. And again, sleep deprivation, stress, worrying is another form of stress.

These are some of the foundational things to work on. And truthfully, your minerals like copper and zinc stay more balance when you're able to properly manage those other stress. So that that is a good observation. Yeah. I forgot that that we saying that yesterday.

Out of tune.

Speaker 2: Yeah. But you say I think you were the only one that saying it actually Got

Speaker 1: a tune.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You got the point across.

Speaker 1: Yes. So, yeah, that is just to to to bring it home, the the balance component of this is very, very important and and you can start to see where you maybe swing the pendulum yourself a little bit too far one way. You can definitely see it with society as we start to do one thing, we tend to over correct and then do the other thing and then over correct and it goes back and forth. We do that individually to with our own choices and sometimes sometimes people get too caught up in the details over analyze and then that becomes their stress. Where they don't know how to make a decision or a choice.

And so you have to surrender that a little bit. We have a mindset class that we teach here with our program patients And we talk about how our weaknesses are really our strengths being overdo and the key is really just render a little bit of yourself. And I'll give you one example. If my strength is confidence, and I'm over confident, over confident becomes arrogance. So for me to get and help me deal with my arrogance against, I have to surrender some of my confidence.

I have to give it up. It's a little less of me. And when we have times of stress, like, what's happening with a a lot of people right now. We have a lot of information and stress in the world. People tend to resort back to what they're good at and what they know, which is their strengths.

But when you overdo your strengths, it becomes your weakness. If you support others and you support others and you overs support others, you become self sacrificing and the victims to your circumstances. So you have to surrender that excessive support. It's true for every single weakness out there. There's a strength that's being overdo, but we enter those strengths when we get to this place of just heightened stress.

It's reflective. So it takes just stepping back having some awareness of the situation and course correcting and and and surrendering, which it means giving up some of the things that you're actually good at. Trust me, it's way easier to do less of what you're good at than to change who you are as a human being. Completely. And we're not even asking that.

We're don't want that. So surrender want of the keys when it comes to being imbalance. So there be some reflex of things that you're good at that you'll just do because you know how to do it. And those are things you have to just surrender a little bit and bring things back into balance. So I hope this was good for today.

Short and sweet to the point, but let's get the copper zinc back in balance. It's gonna change the world

Speaker 2: Take care of everybody. Don't. You had another announcement.

Speaker 1: No. I have an announcement. I do. Oh, I am wrote down.

Speaker 2: So I wouldn't forget. You gotta put you here so you at the board...

Speaker 1: I know. So one quick announcement, we are going to be working with more corporations for corporate wellness so we have some corporate wellness programs that we're gonna to be offering. So if you are a Ceo or work with your company, just in email us at info at official synapse dot com. And let us know if you have any interest in that. We have a few corporations and reached out.

Was many years ago and we're finally at a point where we said we would do that. And these are corporate wellness programs that really help people with the foundation of their health and wellness. It helps with productivity in the workforce as well as you just feeling better. So If you or your company has any interest at all, just let us know by emailing us need corporate wellness info and send that to info at official synapse dot com. Now we're out.

Thanks everybody.

Speaker 0: Thank you for listening to the Sun Snip podcast. If you like what you heard, subscribe to the podcast and share the podcast. To learn more, check out our website at w w w dot official s dot com. Until next time. This has been Ci Snip podcast.

We'll see you on the next episode. This podcast is for information purposes only and should under no circumstances be considered medical advice or a substitute for medical care. Any information given in this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease and is at the user's own risk, please first consult a licensed health professional.