Reference:
Fields M, Lewis CG, Lure MD, Burns WA, Antholine WE. Low dietary iron prevents free radical formation and heart pathology of copper-deficient rats fed fructose. Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1993 Feb;202(2):225-32. doi: 10.3181/00379727-202-43531. PMID: 8380928.
This study was done in rats.
Key Points From The Study:
When fed the adequate iron diet (50 micrograms Fe/g), copper-deficient rats fed either fructose or starch exhibited hepatic iron overload of similar magnitude. However, only livers of copper-deficient rats fed fructose exhibited the presence of high peaks associated with an iron compound detected by electron spin resonance.
Only copper-deficient rats fed fructose developed anemia, pancreatic atrophy, and heart hypertrophy with histopathologic changes, and they died prematurely of heart-related abnormalities.
Lowering dietary iron from 50 micrograms/g to 30 micrograms/g was not sufficient to protect the animals against the pathologic consequences of copper deficiency.
The consumption of a fructose diet inadequate in both copper (0.6 micrograms/g) and iron (17 micrograms/g) resulted in the reduction of hepatic iron, which in turn caused the amelioration of the deficiency, compared with rats fed the adequate iron (50 micrograms/g) diet.
None of these rats developed pancreatic atrophy, none exhibited myocardial lesions, and none died of the deficiency.
Electron spin resonance spectra of their livers did not show the presence of free radicals.
The data suggest that hepatic iron overload plays a role in the exacerbation of copper deficiency only when fructose diets are consumed.
Comment
Iron overload is increasingly linked to a variety of metabolic illnesses such as diabetes through it’s effect on the liver, among other organs.
Meira Fields, the author of the paper above, has done extensive research showing that fructose blocks copper uptake, and a state of copper deficiency exacerbates the effects of iron overload in the liver.
It’s very interesting to note that the trend in the medical literature in relation to iron overload in the liver ticks up after the addition of high-fructose corn syrup to processed foods in the 1970’s.
High-fructose corn syrup is one of the worst offenders I tell my patients to subtract if they have trouble losing weight.
In addition to it’s detrimental effects on blood sugar levels, it crucially blocks the uptake of bioavailable copper. Bioavailable copper is required for proper iron metabolism in the body, and its deficiency exacerbates all of the symptoms we see in metabolic syndrome.