Effects of oral contraceptive agents on copper and zinc balance in young women.

ABSTRACT

PIP: Young adult women were selected from a group of volunteers on the basis of present and past use of (OCs) oral contraceptives. Subjects were either those who had never used OCs or those who had used an agent for a minimum of 2 menstrual cycles. All subjects were fed diets which provided 2.02-2.11 mg of copper and 9.15-9.10 mg of zinc daily in an 18-day controlled metabolic study. Both OC users and nonusers were in negative zinc balance and zinc excretion was not different (P 0.05) for the groups. OCs did not alter the metabolic balance of copper (P 0.05); the mean copper retention values were -0.16 mg/day for the nonusers and -0.13 mg/day for OC users. As anticipated from reports in the literature, the plasma copper levels were higher (P 0.01) in the OC group, but the levels of zinc were not different. Although blood levels of zinc and copper are usually changed with the use of OCs, the retention of the 2 nutrients appears not to be affected.