Minerals

The term minerals refers to elements in their simple inorganic form. In nutrition they are commonly referred to as mineral elements or inorganic nutrients. Minerals are vital to health but often forgotten. Like amino acids, enzymes, phytochemicals and vitamins (organic compounds), minerals (inorganic compounds) are essential for regulating and building the trillions of living cells which make up the body.

Minerals are especially important for intracellular electrical messages which tell cells when to replicate and when to die if abnormal. Cancer is caused by these messages not being present and often this is due to mineral deficiencies. Infection and damage can also stop these messages getting through to these abnormal cells.

Minerals play a highly important role in every bodily function and are present in every human cell. Although the amount needed may be small, without even the trace of the mineral, dysfunction is bound to occur at some level in the body. A zinc or calcium deficiency may show up in ridged fingernails with white spots. Lack of sulphur can cause lack-lustre hair and dull-looking skin. Less obvious deficiencies may surface as anxiety, depression, fatigue, irritability, loss of memory, nervousness and weakness.

Minerals also interact with vitamins. Magnesium, for instance, must be present in the body for utilisation of the vitamin B complex, vitamin C and vitamin E. Sulphur also works with the B complex vitamins and so on. The body needs all the trace minerals in proper balance. A constant lack of minerals in the body results in infection and disease and serious disorders of processes including diabetes, bone disorders, organ failures and cancer.

Alcohol and many prescribed medications and recreational drugs can rob the body of minerals, block their absorption or make them ineffective or force expulsion through the urine. Industrial pollutants cause toxic minerals to enter the body which displace the minerals required for essential processes. Minerals at toxic levels also have the effect of destroying the usefulness of other vitamins and minerals. Exercise improves the activity of certain vitamins and minerals while stress and fatigue work against them although excessive physical exercise also expels many minerals as can fever and diarrhoea.

A well-balanced diet provides an abundance of minerals and vitamins. In refining cereals, flour, grains, sugar and table salt the food industry has stripped them of their natural vitamins and minerals. Some dietary sources of these nutrients are in the bran and germ of grains and it is the bran and germ which are removed during in processing. Minerals cannot be made in the body and must be obtained in the diet however, because modern farming and food processing techniques have stripped the soil and food of these vital elements, it is necessary to avoid refined and processed foods and consume far more organic mineral rich natural foods such as sea food like oily fish, shellfish, octopus, squid, sea weed and sea vegetables like kelp, algae, vegetables, fruit, herbs, spices, nuts, seeds and legumes, pure unrefined sea salt and bottled at source mineral water.

Mineral rich algae like chlorella, dulse and spirulina can chelate (bind to and eliminate) harmful heavy metals in the body such as mercury that is linked with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. See Heavy Metal Contamination in the Hazards to Human Health Section.

A typical plant makes its own food from raw materials, and a typical animal eats its food. For plants, these raw materials include soil-based inorganic mineral salts. Soil-based mineral salts can be depleted through synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, as well as repeatedly growing crops on the same soil. This is why so many people are often unwittingly deficient in certain minerals especially those whose lifestyles deplete their bodily supplies faster and more often such as those on medications, those that drink alcohol regularly and those participating in high energy activates such as sports and dancing or those whose system is less able to absorb minerals due to illness or old age.

Minerals taken as supplements are industrial chemicals made from processing rocks with one or more acids. The consumption of this “other half” of the mineral compound is not only unnatural, but it can also lead to toxicity concerns. Humans were designed to get their minerals from foods. Foods do not naturally contain minerals bound to substances such as picolinic acid, carbonates, oxides, phosphates, etc. When supplementation is required, only supplements made from 100% food should be considered for supporting optimal health and they should only ever be taken after a proper test to ensure they are required as imbalances are often caused by supplementation and, in some cases, can harm the health.

Body cells receive the essential food elements through the blood stream. They must, therefore, be properly nourished with an adequate supply of all the essential minerals for the efficient functioning of the body. They help maintain the volume of water necessary to life processes in the body. They help draw chemical substances into and out of the cells and they keep the blood and tissue fluid from becoming either too acidic or too alkaline.

The importance of inorganic minerals, like organic phytochemicals, is illustrated by the fact that there are over 50,000 enzymes (p xxx) in the body which direct growth and energy and each enzyme has different minerals, vitamins and phytochemicals associated with it. Each of the essential food minerals does a specific job in the body and some of them do extra work, in teams, to keep body cells healthy and eliminate abnormal cells.

Although as yet, it has not been discovered what the functions of some elements have in the human body, all these 118 elements are present and many have a purpose or effect of some kind. Their atomic numbers are included in brackets.

Elements required by the human body

Elements in smaller amounts that have important affects in the human body

Trace elements also found in the human body

As yet, any beneficial biological purpose in the human body of the following elements is unknown but more functions of different minerals are constantly being discovered by scientists.

Essential minerals

Cobalt: needed for the biosynthesis of vitamin B12 family of coenzymes.

Copper: necessary component of many redox enzymes, including cytochrome c oxidase.

Chromium: for sugar metabolism.

Iodine: required not only for the biosynthesis of thyroxin, but probably, for other important organs as breast, stomach, salivary glands, thymus etc. (see Extrathyroidal iodine); for this reason, iodine is needed in larger quantities than others in this list and sometimes classified with the macrominerals.

Iron: required for many enzymes, and for haemoglobin and some other proteins.

Manganese: needed in the processing of oxygen.

Molybdenum: required for xanthine oxidase and related oxidases.

Nickel: present in urease.

Selenium: required for peroxidase (antioxidant proteins).

Zinc: required for several enzymes such as carboxypeptidase, liver alcohol dehydrogenase and carbonic anhydrase.

Mineral water

Mineral water is a healthy alternative to tap water as it usually contains trace mineral elements that are essential to human health. Depending upon its source it can naturally contain minerals such as bicarbonate, calcium, fluoride, lithium, magnesium, potassium, silica, sodium and strontium.

Water from natural springs, wells and mountain lakes contains minerals which are in the rocks through which it flows and these minerals all have a purpose within the human body. Modern day farming techniques have leeched many minerals from the soil so nonorganic farmed food often is lacking in them, especially magnesium. The best way to ingest the some of the minerals needed daily is through drinking mineral water, whether carbonated or still, every day.

Drinking mineral water is especially important for the elderly, alcoholics, drug addicts and those on medications which can force the body to expel essential minerals and electrolytes in the urine like diuretics. Tap water has no mineral content except fluoride and chlorine which are added artificially and, in many developed countries, also contains traces of medications administered to humans such as hormone replacement drugs and the contraceptive pill because these do not get filtered out during processing.

Water and heart attacks

Many people say they don’t drink anything before going to bed because they’ll have to get up to urinate during the night. Gravity holds water in the lower part of the body when it is upright (legs swell). When a human lays down and the lower body (legs etc) is level with the kidneys, it is then that the kidneys remove the water into the bladder because it is easier.

Drinking water at a certain time maximizes its effectiveness on the body as follows:

• 2 glasses of water after waking up – helps activate internal organs.
• 1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal – helps digestion.
• 1 glass of water before taking a bath – helps lower blood pressure.
• 1 glass of water before going to bed – avoids stroke or heart attack.
• Water at bedtime will also help prevent nighttime leg cramps.