It's official! If you are interested in Walsh's Advanced Nutrient Therapy and are in Vermont, Quebec, Upstate New York, or potentially parts of New Hampshire, I'm your doc. I've been administering the protocols since I came back from the conference at the beginning of May, but this puts me on the WRI website so that people who are looking for this type of successful therapy, they can find me. 

If you're interested in William Walsh, PhD or his therapies that he developed alongside Carl Pfeiffer, MD, check out the website for the Walsh Research Institute.

​If you've seen me already, you know I talk a lot about copper, especially in women. All those high estrogen conditions like heavy menses, cramping, endometriosis, fibroids, post partum depression, PMS/PMDD, etc. can all be due to copper. But where is it coming from?

Exogenous hormones used for birth control elevate your body's copper levels. Women who feel terrible on oral contraceptive pills, shots, implants, ring, IUD, and patches, are the most likely candidates.

Copper sulfate is an algaecide, bactericide, desiccant, fungicide, and herbicide. It gets sprayed on fruits and vegetables, even organic, and especially grapes. It's also in Centrum and similar one-a-day multivitamins as a source of copper. Municipal water sources use it to kill off various microbes and algae, and public swimming pools use it too.You could also get it from copper pipes and pans.

For people with adequate zinc, gall bladder function, vitamin A, and ceruloplasmin (a blood protein that binds to copper), you might not have any problems. The more dysfunctions and nutrient insufficiencies you have, the more problems you will see related to copper. And, it's not just about being "within normal range". You could have a completely normal copper, normal ceruloplasmin, but a really high free copper or free copper index. These calculations show us that you can have elevated production of Norepinephrine, which will make you more anxious or manic. And, because copper is Cu++ in the blood, it is very pro-oxidative and can cause a lot of damage.
​
Lowering your free copper is possible with appropriate nutrient supplementation.

Sorry for the very technical post, but I've had two different MDs tell my patients that I was wrong regarding the testing and interpretation of copper and ceruloplasmin and resulting concern of the possibility of Wilson's Disease (WD).

Wilson's Disease is a genetic condition in which the body makes too little of a protein called ceruloplasmin. The result is that the body can't keep copper in the blood and it ends up getting deposited into the liver, brain, and eye tissue.

But here is what they are misinterpreting:
- Ceruloplasmin levels are LOW in WD
- Serum copper levels are LOW in WD
- *this is the part where they are confused* FREE copper levels are normal or HIGH in WD. So these physicians are telling my patients that they could not possibly have WD because they have low serum copper. Again, serum copper is not the same as free copper.

Labs report *serum copper* and usually not *FREE* copper (I've seen it calculated on some alternative labs). Free copper is a calculation in which the ceruloplasmin (in mg/dL) is multiplied by 3; this value is then subtracted from the total serum copper level (in μg/dL). When the result is above 25 μg/dL, AND the person has low ceruloplasmin, AND low serum copper, I send them to an opthalmologist to have a slit-lamp test to look for Kayser-Fleischer rings, a keynote symptom in many WD patients.
​
This scenario doesn't happen often, but it does happen. If you have an MD who doesn't understand the difference, I'd be happy to explain it to them.