Why Minerals?

 

Dr. Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel Prizes, stated,
 
"You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency."

 

Every living cell needs minerals for structure and function.  Minerals provide the materials for the composition of our bones and connective tissues, they allow electrical impulses to travel along our nerves, support muscle tone, are needed for the correct make-up of body fluids, and the formation of blood. Minerals also create an alkaline environment within our bodies, keeping our pH balanced. A deficiency in minerals can cause accelerated aging and cellular breakdown. In fact, minerals play such a vital role in maintaining our health that any deficiencies can have devastating effects, leaving the body vulnerable to disease.
 
Just as the spark plugs in your vehicle act as the catalysts in the transformation of gas into energy, minerals act as catalysts for many biological functions within your body, including the production of hormones, digestion, and the utilization of nutrients in our foods.
 
When vitamins were discovered in the 1930's, the importance of minerals became lost. Vitamins are not needed to make use of minerals, but without minerals, vitamins and amino acids are useless, since all enzyme activities involve minerals.  Since our bodies do not manufacture minerals, they must be regularly supplied through the foods we eat.
 
Minerals are components of body tissue and fluids that work in combination with enzymes, hormones, vitamins and other vital transport substances. Some minerals are co-factors (helpers) for enzymes, which are catalysts for every function that occurs in the body and brain.

 

 

Major and Trace Minerals

 

Minerals are generally divided into two classes: Macro, or major minerals, and Micro, or trace minerals. The major minerals are commonly needed in larger amounts in our bodies than the trace minerals. Macro minerals include calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium.

 

 

Macro Minerals

 

Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body. Calcium, together with phosphorus, makes up our bone structure, and also plays an important role in nerve transmission, muscle movement, glandular secretions, enzyme reactions, respiration, blood coagulation, and regulation of our heartbeat. Calcium deficiency can lead to debilitating symptoms including depression, insomnia, irritability, arthritis, and osteoporosis.
 
Magnesium is an essential mineral that is connected to over 300 metabolic processes taking place in our bodies, ranging from cell energy production, to the creation of proteins and nucleic acids. Magnesium has a higher concentration within the heart's muscle than in our bloodstream, keeping our heartbeat regulated. Magnesium is also found within our cells and is vital to energy production. It is also necessary for the movement of ions across our cell membranes. A deficiency in magnesium can lead to such conditions as cardiovascular disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, muscle cramps, anxiety, and heart attack.
 
Phosphorus is found in every cell and is the second most abundant mineral in the body. Phosphorus has been referred to by some scientists as the element "around which life is built". It is an essential mineral that plays pivotal roles in the structure and function of nearly every part of the body. 85% of phosphorus can be found in our bones, with the rest making up teeth, cellular membranes, and nucleic acids. An inadequacy of phosphorus can result in fatigue, weakness, and a decreased attention span, and can even lead to seizures, coma, and death.

 

Potassium constitutes 5% of the total mineral content of the body. Almost 98% of potassium is found inside the cells allowing the nervous system to transmit nerve impulses, and regulate the contraction of muscles.  The heart would not beat without potassium. It is also necessary for regulating blood pressure, and is important for the biosynthesis of protein. Deficient amounts of potassium can result in depression, high cholesterol levels, mental impairment, nervousness, and muscle impairment.

 

 

Micro Minerals

 

Micro, or trace minerals are needed in very small amounts by our bodies. Some of the more prominent trace minerals are iron, manganese, zinc, copper, chromium, iodine, selenium, boron, and molybdenum. Trace minerals are essential in the absorption and utilization of many nutrients, and assist enzymes and hormones in functions that are vital to life.
 
Iron is an essential trace mineral.  Its major function is to combine with protein in making haemoglobin which transports oxygen in the blood from the lungs to the tissues where it helps muscle cells store oxygen. It is also necessary for electron transport. These important functions make iron biologically indispensable. A deficiency in iron will lead to conditions including dizziness, headaches, confusion, depression, and anemia.
 
Manganese is another essential trace mineral involved in many key functions in our bodies. It activates various enzymes which are important for proper digestion and utilization of foods, nourishes the nerves and brain, plays a role in energy production, and in the synthesis of many vital cellular biochemicals such as fatty acids and protein. Symptoms of manganese deficiency include atherosclerosis, inflammatory disease, sprains and strains, and elevated cholesterol.
 
There are over 80 trace minerals necessary for maintaining health in our bodies. Even though the amounts needed are very small, the absence of one or more trace minerals is enough to create an imbalance, leaving us vulnerable to disease. Research indicates that trace minerals play an indispensable role in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases.

 

 

Electrolytes

 

Potassium, sodium, and chloride are the most prominent electrolytes in our bodies. Electrolytes are minerals with an electrical charge, allowing them to conduct electricity. They are able to split into two electrically charged ions when they are dissolved in fluid such as water or blood plasma. This current enables electrolytes to regulate how and where fluids are distributed throughout the body. This is how electrolytes transport nutrients into cells, and wastes out. They carry the electrical currents that travel down our nerves, allowing muscles to contract. Potassium collects within a cell while sodium stays outside of the cell in the extra cellular fluid. In this way they allow the electrical conductivity of our bodies to occur, including heartbeat, muscle contractions, nervous impulses and more. Prolonged periods of physical or mental stress deplete electrolytes, as well as our other minerals.

 

 

The Dangers of Mineral Deficiency

 

Because of their combined importance, minerals must be given first consideration in the maintenance and restoration of our bodies. In fact, minerals play a significant role in the continuation of all biological and psychological processes in the body. Without proper levels of minerals, our bodies and minds would have trouble functioning.

 

 

 

Body environments that depend on a consistent supply of high quality minerals include:

 

 

  • The Circulatory system: Our body's circulatory system transports oxygen, nutrients, water and blood throughout our bodies, as well as assists in the removal of waste products, and so it is essential to keep this system healthy.
  • The Skeletal system: As well as blood cell formation, or hematopoiesis, the skeletal system also serves as a storage area for minerals such as calcium and phosphorous. If the supply of these minerals within the blood is low, it will be withdrawn from the bones to replenish the supply.
  • The Muscular system: Muscles make up approximately half of the body's total weight and are required for every movement and manipulation that the body performs. Healthy muscles are dependent on a healthy nervous system, and should be nourished with minerals to maintain that health.
  • The Nervous system: There are several minerals that directly influence nervous system functioning and health, such as calcium and magnesium, and it is important to see that these are consumed at adequate levels. 
  • The Gastrointestinal system: This is where the absorption and assimilation of all nutrients takes place. Nourishment is broken down in the digestive tract until it is in a form that can be of use on the cellular level. 
  • The Immune system: Extra supplementation of minerals can be extremely helpful in keeping the immune system healthy and fighting off infection during cold and flu season and throughout the year when faced with extra stressors that can deplete the body's reserves.

 

 

  

A Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of 28,000 Americans aged 1 to 74, found that one in two women lacked sufficient calcium, nine in ten tested insufficient in iron - and 60% of all people tested had symptoms of malnutrition. Even microscopic deficiencies can hamper brain function, reduce energy and open cell receptors to disease.

 

 

The gastrointestinal system is the gateway to the proper functioning of the body's other environments. Like the roots of a tree, our gastrointestinal environment processes and supplies the necessary elements to all the other environments. If our digestive system is not functioning properly due to mineral depletion, the effects can be seen throughout all the body's environments. Take the minerals away from the roots of the tree, and all the other systems of the tree suffer as a result.

 

 

Some causes of Mineral Deficiency:


  • The mineral depletion of the earth's soils and oceans

  • Depletion of minerals from use of aluminum and copper cookware

  • Copper water pipes

  • Mineral destruction from food refining

  • Disruption of food mineral contents as a result of fertilizers

  • Prescription drugs; antibiotics, antihistamines, blood pressure medications, anti-depressants, drugs for sleep disorders, weight loss drugs, heart medications, birth control pills – all interfere with absorption and utilization of minerals

  • Chlorination of water supplies

 

 

Deficient Soil

 

According to the United States Senate Document 264, our mineral intake is more important than our intake of vitamins, calories, proteins, or carbohydrates. Duped into believing that our diets would suffice as a source of nutrients, nobody is informing us that as a result of past and present farming methods, there are virtually no nutritional minerals in our farm and range soils.

  

 

Consequently, the crops that are grown there are mineral deficient, and the animals and people who eat these mineral deficient crops are susceptible to mineral deficiency diseases. Many of today's long-term degenerative diseases, such as arthritis, heart disease, hypertension, and arteriosclerosis are caused by nutritional deficiencies.

 

What is even more frightening is that the findings of mineral deficient soils were made public over 70 years ago. These findings were not reported in some obscure medical journal or hidden deep within some historical archives; these findings were reported and made public by the United States Senate and can be found in U.S. Senate Document 264, published in 1936.

 

Studies conducted at the Earth Summit in Rio (June 1992), which compared the mineral content of soils today with soils 100 years ago, revealed some startling facts. Researchers found that in African soils, there were 74 percent less minerals present in the soil today than there were 100 years ago, Asian soils have 76 percent less, European soils have 72 percent less, South American soils have 76 percent less, and the soils in the United States and Canada contain 85 percent less minerals today than they did 100 years ago. These statistics show that our soils are not the "nutritional field of dreams" on which our ancestors flourished.

  

 

Starving on Full Stomachs

 

The evidence clearly shows that our world, and we as a nation, as well as our land are mineral deficient. Another excerpt from Senate Document Number 264 - again, this information was published in 1936 - reads, "Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grain, the eggs and even the milk and meat of today are not what they were a few generations ago”, which doubtlessly explains why our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us today.

 

Past and present research has confirmed that minerals are absolutely necessary to maintain optimal health. Minerals are involved with countless metabolic and enzymatic reactions, which either start, control, or help maintain important bodily functions. They are also involved with providing the necessary materials that help to maintain and build strong bones, teeth, and tissue structures. Collective data has also established the need to constantly supply the body with these mineral elements through diet, because the human body is incapable of making any minerals. Additionally, current soil cultivation methods are destroying farmlands of these valuable elements.

 

There is conclusive evidence that our farm soils are almost void of the necessary minerals we need. Past studies have shown that our soils have 85 percent less of the same minerals they had 100 years ago. Recently, the World Health Organization reported that this figure is now 95 percent less. Based on current data, the lack of minerals within our soils leads directly to severe mineral deficiencies in our food supply.

 

Soil is our primary source of minerals. Plants assimilate minerals from the soil they are growing in. When minerals are missing from the soil, plants will be devoid of these vital nutrients, and this means they will be missing from the food chain.

 

It might surprise you to learn that just one teaspoon of non-chemically-treated soil is home to more living creatures than there are people in the world. Or you can look at it this way: each gram of healthy soil has 600 million micro-organisms that hold thousands of species of bacteria and fungi. The importance of these bacteria and other soil organisms lies in their ability to assimilate minerals from rock, and then disperse these minerals throughout the soil as they die and decompose.

  

 

 

 

 

"Minerals from the soil control the metabolism of cells in plants, in animals, and in man... diseases are created chiefly by destroying the harmony reigning among mineral substances."

 

Dr. Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize winner in Medicine

 

 

The Importance of Minerals

 

Our bodies are made up of millions of cells. Each of these living cells requires minerals to work optimally. Since our bodies do not produce minerals on their own, they must be provided through the food we eat. In order for our food to be able to provide us with minerals, they must get them from the soil they are grown in. Most of our food is grown in mineral-depleted soils, making it necessary for us to supplement our diets with high quality minerals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

This information is provided for educational and informational purposes only, and is not intended to be a substitute for a health care provider's consultation.