Studies on Copper Metabolism

Copper Deficiency in Infancy

“…For instance, in seven of the patients reported by Schubert and Lahey [33] there was a brisk reticulocyte response to iron therapy without copper therapy, and similar results were obtained in three cases reported by Zipursky et at. [28]. Also, in one of the patients reported by Cordano et at.…”

“…A few patients [17,24,26] had been fed mainly on cow's milk, which contains slightly less copper than human milk [57] and this may have been a contributory factor. Only four patients were breast-fed [27,28], and two of the infants reported by Sutton et al [1] received naso jejunal feeding with expressed breast milk during the period in which the copper deficiency was probably developing.…”

“…These assays were also conducted with erythrocytes from three patients by Zipursky et al [28] ; one had a low result. The reference range for erythrocyte copper has still to be properly defined [49].…”

“…For this reason, high serum copper levels may be found in patients with infections. Low levels may be due to copper deficiency but may also occur when the synthesis or the retention of caeruloplasmin is impaired ; for example, low copper levels occur in the nephrotic syndrome [28] . Evidence that serum copper may not be a sensitive measure of tissue copper deficiency is provided by animal studies; for example, ataxia due to copper deficiency is related to brain copper content but not to plasma copper concentrations (Fig .…”