Copper Pans – For Better Health

Except for my cast iron fry pans. I have for the past year been replacing all of my cooking utensils with copper or copper clad products. Copper cooking utensils cost little more than stainless or aluminum utensils and are a much better and safer choice.

Copper surfaces, copper alloys such as brass and bronze, are being increasingly proposed for use in healthcare and other public settings due to their ability to rapidly kill bacteria on contact. Ironically it was the advent of commercially available antibiotics in the 1930’s that led to the decline in coppers medical application and since growing bacterial resistance to antibiotics in human medicine has led to the development of a number of difficult to treat infections.

Professor Keevil from the University of Southampton Environmental research said “using fluorescent microscopy found that dry, clean copper surfaces when tested against a bacterial level usually found in hospitals demonstrated a kill time of 2 minute whereas stainless steel surfaces, which have no antimicrobial properties, prolonged bacterial survival for several weeks.

Professor Keevil’s research has shown that replacing common touch surfaces with a copper alloy is cost effective and prevents the transmission of infection while reducing the spread of antibiotic resistance.

Copper is now registered at the US Environmental Protection Agency as the first solid antimicrobial material. The antibacterial efficacy of copper metals won’t wear away but actually increase with wear and tear and cleaning through a process called palination which results in slight discoloration. It is resistant to corrosion, effective even when scratched, and accessible, recyclable so sustainable and cost effective with widespread applications for its use in general public places such as airports, restaurants, kitchens and possibly in drinking vessels in developing countries to reduce infection transmission such as cholera.

A study, funded by the US Department of defense and presented at the annual conference of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in Boston, has again confirmed the usefulness of copper in microbial control. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center participated in this study, in which a variety of frequently touched hospital objects in intensive care units, such as bed rails, tray tables, call buttons and IV poles, were replaced with copper versions. This change resulted in a greater than 95% reduction in bacteria in ICU rooms and 41 percent reduction in the rate of nosocomial infections for ICU patients.