11 Essential Minerals For Optimum Health

Minerals are essential nutrients that serve the body in many ways.
Minerals are essential to the functioning of the body. Literally thousands of enzymes depend upon individual minerals and combinations of various minerals to perform their tasks.

Your overall health is determined far more by minerals than proteins, fats, carbohydrates, or even vitamins.

Although lots of minerals serve individual purposes within the body and are active in their own right, the much more common way of working for minerals is partnership.

In many complex substances and processes they act as cofactor. Lots of minerals complement each other, serving as cofactor to each other in the most important processes of the body.

The body uses minerals in a wide variety of chemical combinations in essential processes from food digestion to oxygenation of the body's cells.

All functions in the body are built upon electrical and chemical reactions. These are initiated by the body's fuel: the nutrition we consume. Once this fuel is broken down to its basic elements by the digestive system, the chemicals needed to finish the various interactions.

As you may understand, the balance of the complex system is delicate, but must be maintained to ensure health and peak performance.

Since minerals carry an electric charge which is opposite that of your intestinal wall, taking straight minerals will have them stick to that wall so they can't pass through. After a while they are pushed out of the body. In the end, you absorb only about 3-5% of the straight minerals you consume.

In contrast with that, plants pull minerals straight out of the ground and transform them biologically into the very substance of the plant itself. Not surprisingly, your body likes this form of mineral better.

Your body is actually made mostly of minerals and water.
The amount of minerals available in food and water varies from region to region. That is because the amount of minerals found in plants depends on the quality of the soil. Growing the same crops in the same place year after year can deplete the minerals in the soil, as can topsoil erosion.

Nutritional supplements can be used for the standard recommended daily intake levels of the minerals. Because the balance of nutrients in the body is so important, it's always a good idea to engage in a consultation with a licensed nutritionist who will be able to help you to devise a mineral supplement plan that is best suited to your individual dietary needs.

With all that said, here are the main minerals that play an important role in maintaining your health. While we gave each mineral an appropriate titel there are many more ways these minerals are useful and some may even amaze you. That's why you should read them carefully.

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