The health benefits of copper continue to be unearthed. The metal has been shown to help form red blood cells, absorb iron, develop connective tissue and support the immune system. Now, chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and at the University of California-Berkeley have found that copper plays a key role in helping to burn fat.

Their research establishes copper’s role in fat metabolism and shows that it’s an essential nutrient for breaking down fat cells.

Chris Chang and UC Berkeley graduate student Sumin Lee conduct experiments to find proteins that bind to copper and potentially influence the storage and burning of fat. Source: Peg Skorpinski, UC Berkeley Copper is found in such foods as shellfish, leafy greens, mushrooms, nuts, seeds and beans, and is a common nutrient in many Asian diets. Researchers suggest that it could potentially prove to be an effective way to boost the body’s natural ability to burn fat.

Researchers made the copper-fat link using mice with a genetic mutation that causes the accumulation of copper in the liver. The inherited condition, known as Wilson’s disease, also occurs in humans and is potentially fatal if left untreated.

Analysis of the mice with the disease showed that the abnormal copper buildup was accompanied by lower than normal lipid levels in the liver compared with control groups of mice. The researchers also found that the white adipose tissue, or white fat, of the mice with Wilson’s disease had lower levels of copper compared with the control mice and correspondingly higher levels of fat deposits.

The diseased mice were then treated with isoproterenol, a beta agonist known to induce lipolysis, the breakdown of fat into fatty acids, through the cyclic adenosine monophosphate, or cAMP, signaling pathway. Results showed that mice with Wilson’s disease exhibited less fat-breakdown activity compared with control mice.

This prompted researchers to conduct cell culture analyses to clarify the mechanism by which copper influences the breakdown of fat stored in fat cells. They found that copper binds to phosphodiesterase 3, or PDE3, an enzyme that binds to cAMP, halting cAMP’s ability to facilitate the breakdown of fat.

“When copper binds phosphodiesterase, it’s like a brake on a brake,” says lead investigator Chris Chang, a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division “That’s why copper has a positive correlation with lipolysis.”

Researchers suggest further study might establish whether a copper deficiency could be linked to obesity and obesity-related diseases.