Including more copper in your everyday diet could be good for your heart, according to a study on page 657. Jiang et al. now find that dietary supplementation of copper offsets the effects of stress on an overworked heart by preventing its enlargement.
Copper-carrying proteins disarm oxygen radicals and power electron transport. Humans with copper deficiency have increased cholesterol levels, clot formation, oxidative tissue damage, and heart disease. Cardiac tissue biopsies of heart attack victims show a great reduction in copper levels.
In mice with stress-induced heart disease, the team now shows, increased heart size and decreased heart function can both be restored to normal levels by a small increase in the daily intake of copper, even when the stress stimulus is maintained. But without the copper supplement, stressed mice suffer heart failure after two months.
The authors show that mice receiving dietary copper...
