Kgnu - How On Earth

  I'm Shelley Schlender.  This is an extended interview from the report we broadcast on August 20th, 2013, about a new study from the University of Rochester that indicates that too much of an essential nutrient, copper, might promote Alzheimer’s disease. As background Rashid Deane gave mice drinking water laced with 50 times their normal copper intake. While that sounds high, he says it was only 10% of the daily dose that the EPA considers to be within safe limits for the mice. Rashid says this amount of copper, that’s within EPA limits, led to a reduced effectiveness of the blood-brain barrier, resulting in excess copper in the blood that feeds the mice brains. This activated mop-up proteins, such as beta amyloid and prions. Some research indicates that these proteins, when working properly clear out inflammation. But the excess copper stuck to the clean-up proteins. Altered proteins then clogged receptor channels that normally allow the beta amyloid, prion proteins, and copper all to pass back down, t