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Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

This study suggests that dietary copper may help convert fat to energy. A while ago copper's antiseptic role in hospital environments was revealed and may result in the wholesale replacement of stainless steel with copper and bronze surfaces such as doorknobs and tabletops (stainless steel became ubiquitous in hospitals based on its appearance, resistance to rust, and ease of cleaning).

It's my hope that these new findings didn't result from a sneaky plot by a mining conglomerate to increase demand for copper.

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Millions of tonnes of copper are mined every year. Dietary copper is on the scale of micrograms.

Your conspiracy has a problem of many magnitudes.

> Millions of tonnes of copper are mined every year. Dietary copper is on the scale of micrograms.

Imagine every stainless steel surface in every hospital being replaced with copper or bronze (which seems likely over time). Imagine that this subsequently becomes fashionable in private homes for the same reason.

I have a yacht and its anti-fouling paint has a high percentage of copper, for the same reason that copper seems effective in a hospital operating theater (it's pretty toxic). Imagine that a copper mine operator wants more public acceptance for copper as an everyday material. Both these recent developments produce that outcome, even given the fact that dietary copper is in reality a microscopic volume of the material. For the latter, the effect is more psychological than practical.

I emphasize that I'm not taking this hidden-agenda idea seriously, it's just something to think about.

I feel like the price of copper, due to demand from other industries, would be a huge deterrent to widespread use in hospitals. Is that not a major issue?

See the table on this page: http://www.roymech.co.uk/Useful_Tables/Matter/Costs.html

In one of the tables the cost for bronze (more durable than pure copper but having similar antiseptic properties) is listed as 19.5 versus 10.9 for stainless steel, same units. So bronze costs almost twice as much as stainless, not a ruinous increase given its antiseptic properties.

One could seek an alloy form that would balance a material's antiseptic property versus cost, a project that hasn't yet begun.

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