9 Signs and Symptoms of Copper Deficiency

Copper is an essential mineral that has many roles in the body.

It helps maintain a healthy metabolism, promotes strong and healthy bones and ensures your nervous system works properly.

While copper deficiency is rare, it seems that fewer people today are getting enough of the mineral. In fact, up to 25% of people in America and Canada may not be meeting the recommended copper intake (1).

Not consuming enough copper may eventually lead to deficiency, which can be dangerous.

Other causes of copper deficiency are celiac disease, surgeries affecting the digestive tract and consuming too much zinc, as zinc competes with copper to be absorbed.

Here are 9 signs and symptoms of copper deficiency.

This article was written originally for the website Healthline by Ryan Raman, MS, RD. Follow Healthline by clicking the following link: https://www.healthline.com/

1. Fatigue and Weakness

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Copper deficiency may be one of the many causes of fatigue and weakness.

Copper is essential for absorbing iron from the gut (2Trusted Source).

When copper levels are low, the body may absorb less iron. This can cause iron deficiency anemia, a condition in which the body is unable to carry enough oxygen to its tissues. A lack of oxygen can make you weaker and feel tired more easily.

Several animal studies have shown that copper deficiency may cause anemia (2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source).

Additionally, cells use copper to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the body’s main source of energy. This means copper deficiency could affect your energy levels, which again promotes fatigue and weakness (4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source).

Fortunately, eating a copper-rich diet can help fix anemia caused by copper deficiency (6Trusted Source).

SUMMARY
Copper deficiency may cause iron deficiency anemia or compromise ATP production, resulting in weakness and fatigue. Fortunately, this can be reversed by increasing copper intake.

2. Frequent Sickness

People who get sick often may have copper deficiency.

That’s because copper plays an important role in maintaining a healthy immune system.

When copper levels are low, your body may struggle to make immune cells. This could drastically reduce your white blood cell count, compromising your body’s ability to combat infection (7Trusted Source).

Studies have shown that copper deficiency can dramatically reduce the production of neutrophils, which are white blood cells that act as the body’s first line of defense (8Trusted Source, 9Trusted Source).

Fortunately, eating more copper-rich foods can help reverse these effects.

SUMMARY
Copper deficiency may weaken the immune system, which can cause people to get sick more often. This can be reversed by increasing copper intake.

3. Weak and Brittle Bones

Osteoporosis is a condition characterized by weak and brittle bones.

It becomes more common with age and has been linked to copper deficiency (10Trusted Source).

For example, an analysis of eight studies including over 2,100 people found that those with osteoporosis had lower levels of copper than healthy adults (10Trusted Source).

Copper is involved in processes that create cross-links inside your bones. These cross-links ensure bones are healthy and strong (11Trusted Source, 12Trusted Source, 13Trusted Source).

What’s more, copper encourages the body to make more osteoblasts, which are cells that help reshape and strengthen bone tissue (14Trusted Source, 15Trusted Source).

SUMMARY
Copper is involved in processes that help strengthen bone tissue. Copper deficiency may promote osteoporosis, a condition of hollow and porous bones.

4. Problems With Memory and Learning

Copper deficiency could make it harder to learn and remember.

That’s because copper plays an important role in brain function and development.

Copper is used by enzymes that help supply energy to the brain, aid the brain’s defense system and relay signals to the body (16Trusted Source).

Conversely, copper deficiency has been linked to diseases that stunt brain development or affect the ability to learn and remember, such as Alzheimer’s disease (16Trusted Source, 17Trusted Source).

Interestingly, a study found that people with Alzheimer’s had up to 70% less copper in their brain, compared to people without the disease (18Trusted Source).

SUMMARY
Copper helps ensure optimal brain function and development. Consequently, copper deficiency could cause problems with learning and memory.

5. Difficulties Walking

People with copper deficiency may find it harder to walk properly (19Trusted Source, 20Trusted Source).

Enzymes use copper to maintain optimal health of the spinal cord. Some enzymes help insulate the spinal cord, so signals can be relayed between the brain and body (21Trusted Source).

Copper deficiency may cause these enzymes to not work as effectively, resulting in less spinal cord insulation. This, in turn, causes signals to not be relayed as efficiently (21Trusted Source, 22Trusted Source).

In fact, animal studies have found that copper deficiency may reduce spinal cord insulation by as much as 56% (23Trusted Source).

Walking is regulated by signals between the brain and body. As these signals are affected, copper deficiency may cause loss of coordination and unsteadiness (19Trusted Source, 20Trusted Source).

SUMMARY
Copper is used by enzymes that help maintain a healthy nervous system, ensuring signals are sent efficiently to and from the brain. A deficiency can compromise or delay these signals, causing a loss of coordination or unsteadiness while walking.

6. Sensitivity to Cold

People with copper deficiency may feel more sensitive to cooler temperatures.

Copper, along with other minerals like zinc, helps maintain optimal thyroid gland function.

Studies have shown that the T3 and T4 levels of thyroid hormones are closely linked to copper levels. When blood copper levels are low, these thyroid hormone levels fall. As a result, the thyroid gland may not work as effectively. (24, 25).

Given that the thyroid gland helps regulate your metabolism and heat production, low thyroid hormone levels could make you feel colder more easily (26, 27Trusted Source).

In fact, it’s estimated that over 80% of people with low thyroid hormone levels feel more sensitive to cold temperatures (28Trusted Source).

SUMMARY
Copper helps ensure healthy thyroid hormone levels. These hormones help regulate your metabolism and body heat. As a result, copper deficiency could make you feel cold.

7. Pale Skin

Skin color is greatly determined by the pigment melanin.

People with lighter skin usually have fewer, smaller and lighter melanin pigments than people with darker skin (29Trusted Source).

Interestingly, copper is used by enzymes that produce melanin. Therefore, copper deficiency could affect the production of this pigment, causing pale skin (30Trusted Source, 31Trusted Source).

However, more human-based research investigating the link between pale skin and copper deficiency is needed.

SUMMARY
Copper is used by enzymes that make melanin, the pigment that determines skin color. Copper deficiency may cause pale skin.

8. Premature Gray Hair

Hair color is also affected by the pigment melanin.

Given that low copper levels can affect melanin formation, copper deficiency may cause premature gray hair (32Trusted Source, 33Trusted Source).

While there is some research on copper deficiency and melanin pigment formation, hardly any studies have looked at the link between copper deficiency and gray hair specifically. More human-based research in this area would help clarify the link between the two.

SUMMARY
Like skin color, hair color is affected by melanin, which requires copper. This means copper deficiency may promote premature gray hair.

9. Vision Loss

Vision loss is a serious condition that may occur with long-term copper deficiency (34Trusted Source, 35Trusted Source).

Copper is used by many enzymes that help ensure the nervous system works properly. This means that copper deficiency can cause problems with the nervous system, including vision loss (36).

It seems that vision loss due to copper deficiency is more common among people who have had surgery on their digestive tract, such as gastric bypass surgery. This is because these surgeries can reduce the body’s ability to absorb copper (37Trusted Source).

While there is some evidence that vision loss caused by copper deficiency is reversible, other studies have shown no vision improvement after increasing copper intake (34Trusted Source, 37Trusted Source).

SUMMARY
Copper deficiency may cause vision loss. This is because your vision is closely linked to your nervous system, which relies heavily on copper.

Sources of Copper

Thankfully, copper deficiency is rare, as many foods contain a good amount of copper.

In addition, you only need a small amount of copper to meet the recommended daily intake (RDI) of 0.9 mg per day (38Trusted Source).

The following foods are excellent sources of copper (39):

Simply eating some of these foods throughout the week should provide you with enough copper to maintain healthy blood levels.

It’s also worth noting that you can get some copper by simply drinking tap water, as copper is commonly found in pipes that deliver water to your home. That said, the amount of copper found in tap water is very small, so you should eat a variety of copper-rich foods.

SUMMARY
Copper is found in many staple foods, which is why deficiency is rare. Eating a balanced diet should help you meet the recommended daily amount.

Side Effects of Too Much Copper

While copper is essential for optimal health, you only need to eat a small amount daily.

Consuming too much copper can cause copper toxicity, which is a type of metal poisoning.

Copper toxicity can have unpleasant and potentially fatal side effects, including (40Trusted Source, 41Trusted Source):

Nausea
Vomiting (food or blood)
Diarrhea
Stomach pain
Black, “tarry” stools
Headaches
Difficulty breathing
An irregular heartbeat
Low blood pressure
Coma
Yellow skin (jaundice)
Kidney damage
Liver damage

However, it’s very rare to eat toxic amounts of copper through a regular diet.

Instead, it tends to happen if you’re exposed to contaminated food and water or work in an environment with high levels of copper (40Trusted Source, 42Trusted Source).

SUMMARY
While copper toxicity is rare, the side effects can be very dangerous. This toxicity tends to occur when you’re exposed to food and water contaminated with copper or work in an environment with high copper levels.

The Bottom Line

Copper deficiency is very rare, as many foods provide sufficient amounts of the mineral.

If you’re concerned about your copper levels, it’s best to speak with your doctor. They will see if you are at risk of copper deficiency and may test your blood copper levels.

Simply consuming a balanced diet should help you meet your daily copper needs.

Nonetheless, it’s estimated that up to a quarter of people in American and Canada do not eat enough copper, which may increase the risk of copper deficiency.

Common signs and symptoms of copper deficiency include fatigue and weakness, frequent sickness, weak and brittle bones, problems with memory and learning, difficulties walking, increased cold sensitivity, pale skin, premature gray hair and vision loss.

Thankfully, increasing copper intake should correct most of these signs and symptoms.

Oshun Health’s Fulvic Acid contains more than 72 minerals and trace elmenets of which copper is one.

Henry Deale, chemist Oshun Health

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Fulvic Acid as a Potent Antiviral

Updated: 25 February 2025

Reading time: 10 minutes

Research shows that humic acid, of which fulvic acid forms part, binds so strongly to viruses that it can actually displace them from a cell surface. In vitro studies have shown, for example, that if you allow herpes simplex viruses to attach to host cells and then add humic acid to the solution, it will displace viruses from infected cell surfaces. That is, humic acid has a greater affinity for the virus than the virus does for the host cell. Thus, humic acid can actually displace a virus even after it has attached itself to the surface of a cell.[6]

The following article was originally posted by Michael Ash for the website of Clinical Education, a ‘Not for Profit’ organisation that brings a range of educational experiences to healthcare professionals. Follow Clinical Education by clicking on the following link: https://www.clinicaleducation.org/

The interview with Richard J Laub, MS, PhD, CChem, FRSC, was conducted by Focus Allergy Research Group.

*Note by Oshun Health: Humic Acids referred to in this article is the collective name for both humic acid and fulvic acid. In order to utilise humic acid, it is broken down to fulvic acid in the human gut. This is because humic acid is not soluble at the low pH (acidic) level of the stomach whereas fulvic acid is soluble at any pH level. The antiviral properties referred to in the article, therefore, applies to fulvic acid as well as humic acid.

An Interview with: Richard J Laub, MS, PhD, CChem, FRSC, is a chemist with nearly 150 peer-reviewed published research papers, sixteen patents, and numerous invited reviews and symposium presentations. He was formerly a professor of chemistry at The Ohio State University and San Diego State University, was a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in London, England, was an Alcoa fellow in San Diego, and a Science Research Council fellow in Swansea, Wales. For the last 17 years, Dr. Laub has focused exclusively on sourcing, analysing, studying, extracting and purifying humic acid, a remarkable high-mineral, healing substance with potent antiviral properties, found in ancient soil deposits.

Focus: You have devoted the last 17 years of your life to researching humic acid, an extract of ancient organic soil deposits. These ancient soil deposits—named humus, or humin, from the Greek word for soil—can be found all over the world and contain highly-concentrated minerals and healing substances. It’s interesting that in essence, the soil that nourishes plant life–and later the plant that dies and becomes part of the soil–contains such potent healing substances. Can you give us some basic facts about humic and fulvic acids before we discuss the health benefits?

RJL: Both humic and fulvic acids are extracts from composted organic matter and prove to be excellent mineral supplements. They excel at providing all the trace minerals we need. Fulvic acid is a small and somewhat rigid molecule, with a molecular weight of about 1,500 daltons (a dalton is a unit of mass commonly used in chemistry). Humic acid is equally potent as a mineral supplement, but is a much heavier, bigger molecule. It weighs about 50,000 daltons. Humic acid is flexible, because it is made up of many chains of molecules. It looks a bit like a series of wagon wheels, one inside the other, with spokes going from one wheel to the next. This flexibility is a very important contributor to its antiviral properties.

Focus: What do these very different shapes—small and rigid, or large and flexible—mean in terms of human health?

RJL: Because of its size and flexibility, certain humic acids from particular soil deposits turn out to be potent, broad-spectrum antivirals. That is because humic acid contains many kinds of “functional groups” (specific groups of atoms) that can bind to a multitude of viruses. Research has shown certain humic acids to be effective in vitro against a wide range of viruses, including influenza, HSV, HIV, and others.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5]

Focus: How exactly does humic acid bind to a virus?

RJL: Binding occurs through hydrogen bonding. Electropositive atoms attract electronegative atoms. These are the same forces that hold DNA together. What is remarkable is that humic acid, with its many kinds of functional groups, binds more strongly to viruses than do our own cells. Certain humic acids from certain soil deposits are essentially like a really, really sticky piece of Velcro. Viruses also have really sticky sites—that’s how they manage to bind to a host cell. When these two very sticky pieces of Velcro come together they bind together very strongly.

Focus: Can you explain what a virus does once it attaches to a cell receptor?

RJL: It essentially pokes a hole in the cell, and injects either its RNA or DNA–its genomic material–into the cell. At that point the virus has essentially spent itself, but the viral material inside the cell uses the cell’s machinery to create more viruses, which then leave the cell and go on to bind to and infect other cells.

Focus: What happens to a virus when it binds to humic acid instead of a cell surface?

RJL: Humic acid essentially neutralises a virus’s chemical “stickiness”. Doing so in turn prevents the virus from reproducing since it can no longer attach (“fuse”) to the surface of a host cell. The immune system can then begin to eliminate the virus (largely through the action of macrophages). Also, viruses don’t live forever: if not allowed to reproduce, influenza viruses, for example, die out in 36-48 hours.

Focus: What happens if viruses have already attached to your cells? Can humic acid help?

RJL: Humic acid binds so strongly to viruses that it can actually displace them from a cell surface. In vitro studies have shown, for example, that if you allow herpes simplex viruses to attach to host cells and then add humic acid to the solution, it will displace viruses from infected cell surfaces. That is, humic acid has a greater affinity for the virus than the virus does for the host cell. Thus, humic acid can actually displace a virus even after it has attached itself to the surface of a cell.[6]

Focus: That’s quite amazing—that this natural substance can displace viruses that have already locked onto cells. Is this true of any humic acid from around the world?

RJL: No. Humic acid varies dramatically from site to site. Humic acids from different deposits have very different physicochemical properties. Just like coal—the coal from South Africa is very different in makeup than the coal from Birmingham in Britain. For instance, one of the better-known humic acid deposits in the United States occurs in the state of New Mexico, where humic acid is mined for agriculture–as a fertiliser–and also for the petroleum industry as a drilling mud additive. From an agricultural standpoint New Mexico humic acid is great, but it is not very effective at combating human viruses. A lot of the research I carried out in the early days was simply obtaining samples of humic acid from around the world and testing them to see which ones were efficacious against human viral disease. Remember, humic acid is the result of composted organic matter that is 50-100,000 years old, and that can be found almost anywhere—places where there are freshwater deposits and vegetation living around freshwater lakes, other places where there are saltwater deposits and decomposed organic matter at the edge of marine environments. Some humic acids come from decomposed forests, others from marshes, peat bogs, or scrub-brush. Any plant can be composted into humic acid, but the enormous variety of plant life means that each source of humic acid is unique.

Focus: Once you found the ideal antiviral humic acid, what did you do?

RJL: The next challenge was to purify and sterilise it without degrading it. When you first dig humic acid out of the ground it is dark-brown or even black. Shilajit is a very crude form of humic acid that has been used around the world for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. The most familiar form of humic acid looks like coal, and is sometimes called leonardite or brown coal—though it isn’t actually coal. So, the challenge was to extract the humic acid without damaging it. Methodologies suitable for sterilisation of the final processed product also took very considerable research and development. (The original microbes that created the humus are of course long since dead, but other bacteria and moulds flourish in such soil deposits.) Overall, ten solid years of research and development were required to identify a quality source of humic acid that could also be purified and sterilised without diminishing its effectiveness as a human antiviral agent.

Focus: If one takes humic acid orally, when do peak blood levels occur?

RJL: Peak levels occur at about four hours. By eight to twelve hours the substance is pretty much cleared out of the bloodstream.

Focus: Do you think it has any other special properties beyond being a great mineral source and a potent antiviral?

RJL: Some researchers claim it boosts the immune system, but I’m not convinced it does so directly.[7] I think that humic acid’s wide spectrum of important trace minerals, coupled with its antiviral properties, result in a stronger immune system indirectly. Some of the trace minerals are present in very, very tiny amounts—just a few parts per million—but that’s exactly what we need to support enzyme functions among other things. I also think there are a lot of viruses we are all carrying that haven’t yet been identified (“stealth” viruses). But humic acid will bind to them, regardless.

Focus: That just shows you the broad-spectrum action of humic acid, so that it’s likely to work on many viruses we carry that have not yet been identified. I assume you take it yourself?

RJL: Of course. And I haven’t had a cold or the flu since 2004. Not one.

References

[1] F. J. Lu, S. N. Tseng, et al. In Vitro Anti-Influenza Virus Activity of Synthetic Humate Analogues Derived from Protocatechuic Acid. Arch. Virol. 2002, 147(2), 273-284 View Abstract

[2] C. E. J. van Rensburg, J. Dekker, et al. Investigations of the Anti- HIV Properties of Oxihumate. Chemotherapy 2002, 48(3), 138-143. View Abstract

[3] G. Kornilaeva, A. Becovich, et al. New Humic Acid Derivative as Potent Inhibitor of HIV-1 Replication. Med. Gen. Med. 2004, 6(3), A10360 View Summary PDF

[4] R. Kloecking, B. Helbig, G. Schotz, et al. Anti-HSV-1 Activity of Synthetic Humic Acid-Like Polymers Derived from p-Diphenolic Starting Compounds. Arch. Chem. Chemother. 2002, 13(4), 241-249

[5] Laub Biochem Specialty Labsl, 2001-2002, research conducted by contract for Virology Branch of the Antiviral Research and Antimicrobial Chemistry Program (Dr. Christopher Tseng, Program Officer), Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) Screening and Testing Program for Antiviral, Immunomodulatory, Antitumor and/or Drug Delivery Activities, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health (NIH, Bethesda, Maryland)

[6] Laub Biochem Specialty Labs, Humic Acid Inhibition of HSV Infection. 1998

[7] G. K. Joone, J. Dekker, et al. Investigation of the Immunostimulatory Properties of Oxihumates. Z. Naturforsch. C: J. Biosci. 2003, 58(3/4) 263-267. PMID: 12710739 View Abstract LinkedInFacebookTwitterEmailPrintMor

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