Copper nutritional significance

A sludy by the Department of Foods and Nutrition, Kansas State University is exemplary of the much needed further research in determining the properties of certain elements, including copper, when contained in various rood substances. Part of the study was directed at determining the effects of cooking on copper content of turkey muscle. The researchers found that copper was significantly lower in cooked than in raw breast turkey muscle, but similar in raw and cooked thigh muscle. 

More recently there has been an explosion of interest in using collision/reac-tion cell/interface technology for the analysis of biomedical samples because of the benefits it brings to the determination of many of the toxologically and nutritionally significant elements snch as arsenic, selenium, chromium, iron, and copper. Traditionally, these elements have been very difficnlt to analyze by ICP-MS because of the spectral interferences derived from a combination of the matrix, solvent/acid, and plasma gas ions. This approach is allowing significant improvements in detection capability for both the total and speciated forms of these elements in biomedical-related samples, such as blood serum and tissue samples. 

Williams, D.M., Clinical significance of copper deficiency and toxicity in the world population, in Clinical Biochemical and Nutritional Aspects of Trace Elements, Vol. 6., Prasad, A.S., Ed., Alan R. Liss, Inc., New York, 1982, p. 277. 

Mills CF (1991) The significance of copper deficiency in human nutrition and health. In Momcilovic B, ed. Trace Elements in Man and Animals - 7. Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on Trace Elements in Man and Animals, pp. 5.1-5.5. IMI, Zagreb, Croatia. 

Trace metals present in foods can have nutritional or toxicological significance and in the case of certain metals, e.g., copper and zinc, both of these. Fruit products are routinely tested for trace metal contents, e.g., canned fruits for tin, iron, copper, and zinc fruit juices for copper, zinc, and lead tomato puree for copper and also lead, tin, and arsenic. Statutory limits exist for many metals, e.g., lead, arsenic, zinc, and copper. Atomic emission spectrometry is now widely used for trace metal analysis as multielement determinations can be made on a single sample however, other methodologies are... 

Drs. Filer and Muller, at the University of Iowa, treated an 8 year old girl with total parenteral nutrition for three two-month periods because of a poorly mobile gastrointestinal tract. Each period of treatment was separated by 5 months of oral alimentation. Following the last period of total intravenous nutrition, the same solution was administered via jejunostomy for an additional month. At that time, plasma and hair measurements were made. Table 5 shows that zinc and copper concentrations were significantly low in both plasma and hair. The chromium and manganese concentrations, however, remained in the normal range. 

---