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Findings that shed new light on the possible pathogenesis of a disease or an adverse effect
CASE REPORT
Copper deficiency caused by excessive alcohol consumption
  1. Shunichi Shibazaki1,
  2. Shuhei Uchiyama2,
  3. Katsuji Tsuda3,
  4. Norihide Taniuchi4
  1. 1Department of Emergency and General Internal Medicine, Hitachinaka General Hospital, Hitachinaka, Ibaraki, Japan
  2. 2Department of General Internal Medicine, Tokyo Bay Urayasu Ichikawa Medical Center, Urayasu, Chiba, Japan
  3. 3Department of Nephrology, Suwa Central Hospital, Chino, Nagano, Japan
  4. 4Department of Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine, Suwa Central Hospital, Chino, Nagano, Japan
  1. Correspondence to Dr Shunichi Shibazaki, sn1.shibazaki{at}gmail.com

Summary

Copper deficiency is a disease that causes cytopaenia and neuropathy and can be treated by copper supplementation. Long-term tube feeding, long-term total parenteral nutrition, intestinal resection and ingestion of zinc are known copper deficiency risk factors; however, alcohol abuse is not. In this case, a 71-year-old man had difficulty waking. He had a history of drinking more than five glasses of spirits daily. He was well until 3 months ago. A month before his visit to our hospital, he could not eat meals but continued drinking. He had macrocytic anaemia on admission. Copper and ceruloplasmin levels were markedly low, and we diagnosed copper deficiency. There were no other known risk factors for copper deficiency. After he began drinking cocoa as a copper supplement, the anaemia ameliorated and he was able to walk. This is the first report showing alcohol abuse as a risk factor for copper deficiency.

  • alcoholic liver disease
  • peripheral nerve disease
  • diet
  • haematology (incl blood transfusion)

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2017-220921

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors Authors’ contributions are following: SS, corresponding author wrote the draft. SU, KT and NT revised the article for intellectual content.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.