Step 2: Trace Minerals.

Now in the natural course of things plants grow and die where their roots anchor them. They absorb minerals from the soil and release those same minerals when they die to more or less the same location where new generations of plants can use them again.

But for the last ten thousand years or so humans have been moving in and raising crops wherever we can find the most fertile soil. As soon as we create enough wealth and technical know-how we start damming up rivers and diking them off. Flooding farmers off the land every spring doesn't seem to be an option. Unfortunately as we tame seasonal flooding we also stop replenishing the soil's mineral content.

Every harvest time we cart off some of that mineral-containing plant material to feed ourselves and our farm animals. Every year a little more of the mineral content of the soil is lost to this process, called nutrient mining. The only way to halt this process is ground granite to be spread over farmland from time to time. Farming being the low-margin industry that it is, not very many farmers can afford this extra step. Even organic farmers generally don't bother to try to replenish the mineral content of their soil very aggressively (although the problem may be blunted somewhat by the use of manure instead of chemical fertilizers.)

In the mid-1980s dairy farmers in parts of the midwest started noticing something they'd never seen before. If heavy rains in the late winter or early spring produced lots of lush green grass an they turned their cattle out to pasture some would develop fatal seizures. Autopsies of the cattle determined that the cattle were dying of magnesium deficiency.

In one of its roles magnesium is critical for the relaxation of muscle and nerve tissue.⁵ Without enough magnesium the cattle seized up in a condition that came to be known as grass tetany.^6,7

Working in a pain management clinic I'm convinced that I constantly see a less severe version of this same problem. My patients are typically referred to me (the acupuncturist) after orthodox medicine has exhausted its options. Initially it can be a real struggle to get my acupuncture needles gently into some patients' very tight musculature. But within a week after they start taking a well-formulated trace mineral supplement my needles are sliding in and out easily with little pain. The change is rapid and dramatic.

Magnesium is also important for mental clarity^8,9 and peace of mind.^10,11,12

Magnesium is only one of the trace minerals. Chromium is critical to the body's ability to respond to insulin and therefore to utilize glucose effectively. Magnesium and zinc together are critical to a process called RNA transcription, in which the genetic information in each our cells is written into the proteins that replenish worn out cells and tissues (protein turnover), generate neurotransmitters, hormones and enzymes. We can't stay young and calm; we can't think clearly, feel our sensations or emotions freely; we can't even digest our food without adequate quantities of trace minerals.

Trace Mineral Supplementation Issues

There's two other issues to cover with respect to the difficulty of getting optimal amounts of trace minerals into our bodies. The first has to do with the fact that the vast majority of multi-vitamin and trace mineral products supply the minerals in the form of oxides, sulphates, sulphides or carbonates. These inorganic compounds hydrolyze, or split up, as soon as they encounter stomach acid. Minerals ions and their oxide, sulphate, sulphide or carbonate partners go wandering off in their own directions.

Free mineral ions swimming in our gut juice have a small electrical charge. The long-chain proteins that make up our gut walls don't. This means that if a free mineral ion comes into contact with the gut wall it clings to it and won't pass through, a sort of "static cling." Magnesium oxide, for example, is absorbed with something in the neighborhood of 30% efficiency. ¹³

If the mineral ions are to be absorbed they first have to be surrounded by amino acids, in a process called chelation.¹⁴ This makes them electrochemically neutral so they can be fully absorbed and utilized in the body. Young people's guts apparently do the work of finding the right amino acids and surrounding mineral ions with them easily so unchelated products work for them. But as we age our digestive systems typically weaken so that by the time we're in middle age we're chelating our minerals at a fraction of the efficiency we had when younger.

Few manufacturers can afford to fully chelate the trace minerals in their products. Some of those who do then supply substantially less than Daily Value levels of those chelated minerals in their formulations. It's almost always the magnesium that gets shorted, so when evaluating a trace mineral product that's what I look for first. There should be at least 400 mg of Mg in the product and there should be no Mg oxide.

Apparently chelating the minerals makes them more expensive and results in large tablets. Since most people don't understand how critical this process is to their ability to benefit from the products they're taking, and since hardly anyone realizes just how damaging magnesium deficiency is to our health and well-being, properly made formulas tend not to sell so well. Competition for display space on the shelves of retail food stores is intense; products that don't move well tend not to get restocked.

In the twenty or so years that I've been scouring vitamin shelves shopping for good trace mineral products, I've only found two that do the job. I've listed them in the footnote here.¹⁵

The last issue has to do with grains and grain products. Grains contain chemicals called phytates, which will combine with minerals in the gut and form insoluble compounds that can't be absorbed by the body.^16,17 It's best not to take trace mineral supplements within an hour before or two hours after eating any grain or foods made from grain, such as bread.