“Acute Phase Response and Plasma Carotenoid Concentrations in Older Women: Findings from the Nun Study”: Background

[...]in the fall of 1980, we began enrolling patients in our longitudinal studies to define further the nature of this orchestrated response, which was subsequently termed the acute phase response, as described by Kushner. [...]we observed decreased concentrations of copper and ceruloplasmin in the serum that lasted almost the duration of the hospital course in individuals with greater than 40% total body surface area burn. [...]the thermally injured patients had elevated levels of silver in the serum, as well as an increase in total body burden of silver, as indicated by the massive amounts of silver excreted in the urine[32]. Dietary selenium intake was generally adequate (as described in [38]) and was not likely to be the cause of this depression in serum selenium levels. Besides the reported antagonistic relationship observed between silver, copper, and ceruloplasmin, silver also appears to have an adverse effect on tissue selenium levels and function in experimental animals.