zinc and copper

[hellonice2meetu]

bit confused about taking zinc and copper. First can they be taken together? and should they be taken separately if possible? I ask because lots of supplements combine them yet i thought they compete with each other. Are they synergestic taken together? I see this board recommend 50/2 but most of the information on the net says 10:1 combo. Any clarification, thanks.

[jimmylegs]

recommendations elsewhere do range from 8:1 to 15:1 from what i have seen to date. i suspect that kind of level recommendation is related to daily maintenance of good status.

i would suspect that people who use 50 mgs of supplemental zinc per day are more likely to be correcting low zinc status rather than maintaining good zinc status. the 2 mgs of copper is in there to stop the high intake of zinc from interfering with copper status.

hope that helps

[hellonice2meetu]

yes thanks though im still confused as to whether they can be taken together or not in one supplement.

[jimmylegs]

depends on your specific needs. if you had a low copper issue, you would probably not find a zn cu blend very useful. if you had a low zinc issue, you probably would. competitors or not, zn and cu appear together in food. many blended supplements attempt to match a similar ratio to those seen in copper and zinc rich foods.