Welcome to Everything Copper bisglycinate

Due to the chemical nature of Copper, one of the main reasons it is so powerful in the body is its reactive nature. This also means that copper is rarely found in its ionic form in nature as well as in the body.

Elemental copper is not well-absorbed, and high doses via supplements typically lead to stomach upset and other symptoms. 

Copper is an essential trace element that is vital to human life.  Due to developments over the last century, copper has, for many people, become either insufficient in their diet and/or sabotaged by excessive iron and other chemicals introduced to use.

Chelated copper is a special type of mineral supplement that may be better absorbed and easier on the stomach.

Copper bisglycinate, is a copper molecule bonded to a glycerin substrate.  It absorbs directly into the bloodstream. This type of copper has much higher bioavailability than copper citrate, but scientists aren’t sure yet exactly how much better the absorption of copper bisglycinate might be. However, it is believed to be the most bioavailable form of copper.

Key Benefits of Copper Bisglycinate:

• Essential for a healthy metabolism
• Essential for managing and mitigating ROS
• Essential for a healthy immune system
• Essential for healthy bones
• Essential for proper growth and development
• Essential for balancing thyroid activity
• Essential for healthy hair, skin, eyes
• Essential for wound healing
• Stabilizes glucose and cholesterol metabolism.
• Low levels of copper increase cholesterol in the serum.
• Low levels decrease glucose tolerance.
• Low levels increase LDL and triglycerides and decrease HDL.⁽¹⁾
• Mitigates DNA damage
• Mitigates diabetes
• Mitigates heart and heart vessel damage & dysfunction.
• Necessary for cell proliferation, differentiation, and cell death.⁽²⁾
• Essential for the normal growth and development of human fetuses, infants, and children.
• Essential for emotional regulation.
• Essential to maintaining the brain’s biochemistry.⁽³⁾
• Essential for many enzymatic reactions and neurotransmitter biosynthesis.
• Normalizes blood pressure
• Mitigates fatty liver disease
• Preventing the accrual of iron in tissues and organs.
• Essential to iron homeostasis.
• Ceruloplasmin (copper-dependent enzyme) is essential to the normal movement of iron throughout the body.⁽⁴⁾⁽⁵⁾
• Necessary for hemoglobin synthesis – i.e., making red blood cells.⁽⁶⁾
• Is involved in the development and maintenance of cardiovascular and skeletal integrity, central nervous system structure and function, and erythropoietic function, including iron metabolism.⁽⁷⁾

Key Risks of Copper Bisglycinate:

• In the wrong form and in excessive amounts, it becomes toxic to the body. However, this toxicity rarely happens by accident. 
• Chronic dietary copper toxicity is not typically viewed as a significant human public health concern. The most common risk is due to a mutation or defect in a person’s genes that affect copper pumps. Copper is made bioavailable through its insertion into key enzymes and proteins. The ones that are most important to copper are the copper pumps. ATP7A (Menkes disease) & ATP7B (Wilson disease). Thus, copper is only dangerous in normal use and consumption to a person when a genetic mutation affects a copper pump and its ability to be properly transported, leading to copper build-up and dysregulation.⁽⁸⁾⁽⁹⁾
• Chelated copper supplements may cause stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, difficulty concentrating, unexplained sleepiness, mood swings, dizziness, a coppery aftertaste in the mouth and muscle aches.

Copper Bisglycinate Production

Elemental copper is not well-absorbed and high doses via supplements typically lead to stomach upset and other symptoms. Chelated copper is a special type of mineral supplement that may be better absorbed and easier on the stomach.

Chelated mineral supplements are minerals combined with amino acids. A common form of chelated copper is called copper glycinate, which is a molecular complex that consists of elemental copper and the amino acid glycine.

Copper bisglycinate is produced by chemical reaction between glycine and copper carbonate, it consists of a bivalent copper ion linked to two molecules of glycine. The copper metal is bound to the carboxyl group and to the α-amino group of glycine with coordinate covalent bonds.

This 1:2 metal to ligand ratio restricts reaction with dietary inhibitors of the metal absorption and prevents the metal from participating in oxidation reactions.

Copper bisglycinate occurs as monohydrate and as dihydrate. The monohydrate is long deep-blue needles. The dihydrate is light blue powdery crystals.

Copper Sulfate

Copper sulfate is an inorganic compound that combines sulfur with copper. Copper sulfate is produced industrially by treating copper metal with hot concentrated sulfuric acid or copper oxides with dilute sulfuric acid. It is usually used for laboratory use, though some biohackers have begun supplementing with it. Copper sulfate can also be produced by slowly leaching low-grade copper ore in air; bacteria may be used to hasten the process.

Copper(II) salts have an LD50 of 100 mg/kg. It is harmless enough to be a routine component of high school experiments and to be used widely in swimming lakes to control algae. Copper(II) sulfate was used in the past as an emetic.