1] reported two women with copper deficiency of unclear etiology whose deficiency quickly resolved after supplementation with copper gluconate. They suggested that consumption of 100 oz daily of soft drinks containing sucrose or fructose may have contributed to the problem because these simple sugars have been shown to disrupt copper utilization in animal experiments.
A diet low in copper also may have been contributory. The Western diet often is low in copper [2], according to pooled data of more than 900 diets analyzed chemically and summarized in several articles. Recently, 62 and 36% of diets of 80 randomly selected adults in Baltimore, MD [3], were below the recommended dietary allowance (0.9 mg/day) and the estimated average requirement for adults (0.7 mg/day). The estimated average requirement is the median of a distribution of requirements; it applies only to apparently healthy people.
Although soft drinks may have increased the copper requirements of the women, it seems unlikely that with body mass indices of 17 and 21 they had eaten sufficient copper from food when drinking 1400 kcal of Mountain Dew, or equivalent, daily. Recovery in a month from 2 mg copper gluconate daily (14.0% copper) yielding only 40% of the estimated average requirement is remarkable.