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Dietary Mineral Supplements
Identifying The Best Dietary Mineral Supplements
Minerals are absolutely necessary for life!
Together with vitamins, they help in controlling all of our metabolic processes. Enzymes speed up chemical reactions in our bodies, and coenzymes assist them in their life-sustaining functions. Minerals are essential components in these enzymatic reactions and thus share a critical responsibility for the correct functioning of your body.
Minerals serve as cofactors for all the biologic reactions necessary for energy, growth and repair.
Plants take inorganic minerals from the soil and convert them to organic minerals. You get your dietary intake of minerals largely by eating these plants or animals that have eaten them.
The mineral content in soil has been falling for at least the last 70 years. This is reducing the mineral contain in fruits and veggies. To read about this problem please visit my
why supplements
page.
This raises the highly likely scenario of mineral deficiencies.
Not only do our fruits and vegetables contain only a fraction of the vitamins and minerals they once did – but the average western diet today concerns very little fruit and vegetables at all.
A large percentage of the population therefore suffers from marginal nutrient deficiencies without even knowing it. That’s because marginal deficiencies do not create ‘classical’ deficiency symptoms.
With these factors in mind you can see that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get the amounts of minerals you need for optimal health from diet alone.
Quality dietary mineral supplements have become essential for maintaining good health. An imbalance of even one mineral, if not corrected, can start a chain reaction of imbalances leading to illness (see below).
| The Benefit of Dietary Mineral Supplements |
The first point I’d like to make up front is that dietary mineral supplements are not substitutes for food. You should not rely on supplements to look after your mineral needs in the absence of any fruits and vegetables in your diet. This applies to using a multi vitamin and mineral product as a means of supplying all vitamins and minerals in the diet.
Ok before discussing the benefits of supplements let’s quickly look at some basic vitamins and minerals facts.
Here's What You Need To Know About Minerals!
In the simplest sense they are naturally occurring found in the earth - and you know from above that plants draw them in from soil and convert them into an organic form.
Minerals are grouped into two categories: macro and micros.
Macro-minerals such as calcium and potassium need to be consumed in greater quantity than micro-minerals such as selenium and chromium.
Please note – as with vitamins it is possible to develop mineral toxicity with minerals because they accumulate in bone and muscle tissue. You need to exercise caution and avoid large quantities over a prolonged period of time.
Dietary supplements offer significant health benefits by helping to ensure your body gets all the minerals it needs. Remember - minerals play a central role in many crucial functions in your body:
- Proper composition of blood and bone
- Maintenance of healthy nerve function
- Regulation of muscle tone – including that of the muscles of the cardiovascular system (1)
Dietary mineral supplements help to keep your mineral levels in balance because mineral imbalances can play havoc with your health!
Your body must maintain its proper chemical balance. This balance depends on your levels of different minerals and especially the ratios of certain mineral levels to one another. The level of each mineral has an effect on every other so if one is out of balance – all mineral levels are affected. (2)
But wait - don’t run out and immediately buy a multi dietary mineral supplement because taking dietary mineral supplements on their own when you don’t need them will cause more problems than good.
Unless you have been diagnosed with a specific mineral deficiency you shouldn’t take dietary mineral supplements – otherwise you’ll create imbalances that weren’t there to begin with.What you need instead is a combination of vitamins and minerals together (in safe proportions).
Minerals act as cofactors for vitamins and vice versa. They need to work together for proper utilization. That’s why multivitamin supplements always contain minerals. Dietary mineral supplements in isolation are for treating diagnosed problems only.
Those people most at risk with more significant mineral deficiencies are those on low calorie diets, the elderly, pregnant women and vegetarians.
A further benefit of some minerals is that they act as potent antioxidants which neutralize dangerous free radicals in your body. Selenium is a powerful mineral antioxidant which works together with vitamin E. Zinc is another common antioxidant.
Dietary Mineral Supplements
What To Look For |
As I mentioned above – it is easy to overdose on minerals, some will simply be excreted, but some can do serious harm to your body. So please only use a supplement that lists the elemental amount for each mineral so you know exactly how much you will be taking in.
E.G. Potassium Citrate (provides 7.2 mg elemental potassium) 20mg
The full dose amount (20mg) is higher that the elemental because as well as Potassium the material contains other elements which are not potassium. These help to stabilize the potassium as well as make it more easily available in the body. In the example above, which I took from the supplement I take, the daily dose rate for the potassium citrate was 20 mg but you can see only 7.2mg of this is actual potassium.
What you’re concerned with is the elemental amount – so be sure it’s listed!
Please be sure your supplement is science-based and has been formulated by a bio-scientist – not a physician or marketer!
That way you can be sure the minerals have been included in balanced amounts. Some minerals utilize the same metabolic pathways in your body so they compete against one another – ending up with too much of one and not enough of another – imbalance! You need the experience of a qualified scientist to overcome complex bio-chemical problems like this.
The supplement company should manufacture its own products and control the manufacturing process through all stages.
To guarantee absolute safety, purity, and potency all raw materials must be sourced from GMP registered and audited facilities. All ingredients must have a Certificate of Analysis (COA) on file confirming their potency.
To further ensure safety and ingredient amounts in accordance with label claims, be sure the manufacturer is GMP compliant at a pharmaceutical level – this is the highest standard possible for the manufacture of nutritional supplements.
Very few companies manufacture to this level!
The product should come with a 100% unconditional money back guarantee - with no ridiculous conditions like 30 days! The manufacturer must be prepared to stand by their product.
Dietary Mineral Supplements
Which Supplement Gets My Vote? |
‘Total Balance’ from the Xtend-Life company is a multi nutrient 'micro-nutriment' grade vitamin health supplement. Supplements categorized as 'Micro-Nutriment' are the most sophisticated science based supplements available at this time.
In my opinion Total Balance is the best supplement you can get your hands on. It offers unmatched value for money and the company guarantees that. I recommend it to you with the utmost confidence because I know how much it has helped me over the past 7 years.
The formula has been revved up 5 times in that period with the 6th generation formula due out in mid 2008!
(click the label graphic to learn more)
There are 3 versions of Total Balance:
Men's Plus Women's Plus Unisex (for teenagers over 12 years and post menopausal women)
Total Balance not only contains a full spectrum of balanced minerals and trace elements in safe proportions, but its formula also contains vitamins, phytonutrients, herbal extracts, enzymes, amino acids, male and female support nutrients, immunity blend and other specialty nutrients.
Total Balance meets EVERY ONE of the criteria mentioned above.
All up its formula contains a WHOPPING 84 ingredients
which target and rejuvenate every organ and system in your body for overall good health, superior antioxidant protection, normalization of your aging process and potent disease protection.
Total Balance
was created by a world renowned bio-scientist, who has been hired by governments around the world to produce complex formulas that their own scientists could not (including brain formulas for the NASA space program!)
If you would like to see how Total Balance shaped up in some in-depth head to head comparisons with other well known market leading multi ingredient vitamin supplements, please visit my
best vitamin supplements
comparisons and reviews.
If you would like to read more details about Total Balance just visit the
xtend-life website
Dietary Mineral Supplements – Sources:
- Balch, PA. Prescription for Nutritional Healing. Third Edition. 2000 1: 25 re dietary mineral supplements
- Ibid (1)
End: - Dietary Mineral Supplements
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