The 6 Root Causes of Discomfort, Disease, Aging and Death and how to deal with them

3 Mineral Deficiencies

Over the past 30 years, nutritional approaches to disease prevention and treatment have become increasingly popular. In fact it has been estimated that between 70 and 100 million North Americans regularly take vitamin and/or mineral supplements. And though this is still less than 40% of the population, research indicates that the vitamin-takers are better educated, more affluent, and tend to be healthier.

Despite this trend, the evidence is that many people have nutrient deficiencies. In the USA, for example, a recent survey showed that 41% eat no fruit and only 25% eat a fruit or vegetable containing either vitamin C or A.

Another US study showed that adolescents have diets low in several essential vitamins and minerals and high in nutrients related to increased risks of chronic disease.

The question is: how many of us can say we consume the recommended quantities and quality of foods on a daily basis, sufficient to give us the nutrients we need?

How many of us can say we consume:

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2-3 servings of low-fat milk or other low-fat dairy products

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4-6 ounces of protein-rich foods

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6-9 servings of fruits and vegetables

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6-11 servings of bread, grain or cereal products

Each and every day - or even every other day?

Given how processing and preparation depletes our food's nutritional values - it's not suprising that the level of vitamins and minerals in the diets of over 90% of the American population is even less than the RDA.

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Heating and over-cooking food destroys its essential enzymes.

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Radiation kills a foods' nutritional value completely.

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Freezing food causes a 40% loss of its nutritional value.

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Many commonly used prescription drugs deplete nutrients.

The fact is we need a full range of nutrients to be healthy, and for one reason or another most of us don't get them from the food we eat.

Prime among these nutrients are minerals. Without them we can't process the other nutrients - without them our bodies can't perform the thousands of biochemical processes we need them to.

17 key minerals and their impact on your body.

But there is much confusion about how much of each mineral is required to ensure our bodies function properly.

Many still advocate sticking to the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) as a guide to optimum mineral consumption . . . but the RDA, although widely used by manufacturers to demonstrate the nutritional value of their products, was in fact established during the 40's as a minimum requirement to avoid deficiency diseases. And the quantities do not represent the levels necessary to achieve optimal health! (Currently the USA and Canada are collaborating on a revision to be called the "Dietary Reference Intake" (DRI) to replace the RDA).

It's also just as important, if not more so, to have the correct amount of each mineral in balance. If you don't, mineral deficiencies can still occur.

For example:

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If you take in an amount of potassium that is within the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance), but then also take in a large amount of sodium, such as with salty foods, the sodium will attempt to replace the potassium in certain cell functions - rather like a game of musical chairs. The result: potassium deficiency - symptoms of which include insomnia, rapid heartbeat, stiff cramping muscles and anxiety.

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You also need slightly more calcium than magnesium. Too much magnesium can cause diarrhea and can steal calcium from bones and muscles, including the heart. On the other hand, too much calcium can lead to a magnesium deficiency leading to heart problems such as irregular hearbeat.

This mineral balance is particularly critical when harmful minerals such as heavy metals have similar characteristics to essential minerals.

The harmful minerals bind to cells, locking out the essential minerals so the body can't benefit from them - rather like putting a broken key in a lock: it not only doesn't open the door, it prevents the right key from being used.

A common example of this is where the toxic metals, mercury (found in dental amalgam fillings) and cadmium (found in cigarettes and elsewhere) pevent the beneficial mineral, zinc, from being utilized, resulting in symptoms of zinc deficiency such as a loss of appetite, impaired taste and prostate problems.

This is why a person who quits cigarettes often has an increase in appetite even without taking zinc supplements - with less cadmium coming in from the cigarettes, more zinc can get to the cells so their appetite isn't suppressed.

With so little nutritional value in the food we eat, it's no wonder the Standard American Diet (SAD) is damaging to the liver - resulting in allergies, digestive problems, low energy, pain, and more serious disorders.

And supplementation as a way of making up deficiencies is really only partially effective for several reasons:

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There are studies showing that taking isolated nutrients can actually do more harm than good. We are much better off - when we can - to take our nutrients in a whole food. But, as most foods don't have the nutrients we need, we are more or less forced to look at supplementing with a whole food instead. Isolated nutrients are not a good idea.

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Many supplements are non-absorbable - they don't break down sufficiently for your body to be able to utilize the nutrients.

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Synthetic vitamins and minerals strip the absorbable vitamins and minerals out of your body.

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Synthesized vitamins are not balanced and miss some necessary nutrients - and they also release into your system at the wrong time.

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Vitamin-mineral supplements that are not balanced can cause greater deficiencies.

One of the reasons that taking isolated nutrients can actually do more harm than good is that vitamins and minerals in your body are linked together. Vitamin E is linked to selenium, and vitamin C is linked to copper. If you take high doses of Vitamin C - which many supplements supply in the form of 'ascorbic acid' - your body doesn't recognize it as vitamin C. Vitamin C is a compound with bioflavanoids and a link to copper. So if you take high doses of ascorbic acid without these other nutrients, first of all your body probably won't absorb it and second, when the ascorbic acid does get into the body, it will pull the needed copper out of the tissues. You can end up with a copper deficiency and a depleted immune system because your body needs copper to fight infection.

It is these nutrient deficiencies that cause us to experience food cravings - which are just the symptoms of a lack of true nutrients in our diet. Chocolate cravings, for instance, are our body's way of crying out for magnesium.

So - if you want to use supplements - opt for those that are derived from natural sources; that provide balanced ingredients; and that your body can use at the cellular level. Like Deep Sea Minerals harvested from plankton to provide a near perfect balance of Macro-, Micro- and Ultra-trace minerals, or the first Scientifically Developed, All-Natural, Whole Food - The Seven Essentials - that includes the same balanced minerals plus all the other nutritients you need: Enzymes, Vitamins, Protein, Fiber, Essential Oils and Probiotics.

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