Dietary Minerals – Supplements for Health
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need supplements such as minerals, vitamins, trace elements and antioxidants except in disease and/or preventive states. They can’t duplicate all of the nutrients and benefits of complete foods.
I don’t really know how you feel but I believe that people are intelligent and genuinely want to eat healthy but it would probably be wise they have themselves taking a limited amount of vitamins and minerals. Why is that? You and I both know that we will not for most of the times eat correctly.
Minerals like vitamins are micro nutrients and our bodies need a small but continuous supply. Our bodies cannot manufacture many of the micro nutrients so we need nutrient rich food to make them available. Although our food should supply our needs for minerals, as it should for vitamins, our poor eating habits and/or lack of such food in our diet may limits the amounts available to our bodies even below those recommended RDA levels.
To supply our diets with mineral rich foods it is only possible if we grow our crops on land fields rich with those important minerals. The content of minerals in our food depends on the content of the minerals in our soil where plants are grown or animals are raised.
For people that eat less than 1600 calories per day, it would be very difficult to eat enough nutrient dense foods to achieve the RDA for every nutrient. Therefore, it would be wise to take a multivitamin that contains 100% of the RDA for all vitamins and minerals as a precaution.
Symptoms from deficiency in minerals are rarely seen early enough but, for a long time there is concern about the prevalence of sub-optimal stores. What this means? For a large number of people, dietary intake of some minerals may not be high enough to promote an optimal status to be protective against disorders such as cardiovascular disease and immune dysfunction as for example in the case of Magnesium.
Lack of selenium can cause disease of the heart muscle, but does not account for all cases of Keshan disease or cardiomyopathy, where a virus attacks the heart muscle and may also cause it. A deficiency of selenium may increase a person’s susceptibility to the virus. To try and increase your daily intake of selenium and/or other minerals through your food it may be a lost battle especially if you live in selenium depleted area. It may not be enough in your food to restore very low levels to normal.
Supplements of vitamins, minerals and trace minerals are regulated by FDA as foods and they are regulated differently from drugs. The labels of drugs may claim that the product will cure, treat or prevent a disease. Such claims can not legally be made for minerals or vitamins. However, nowadays labels of supplements may contain a cautionary statement for any known adverse effects associated with the product.
The quality of the supplements depends on the manufacturer, the supplier, and others in the production line. If you decide you are going to supplement your self with man made nutrients it is important that you always take the qualified opinion and advice of your doctor or health care provider.
To use wisely dietary supplements, such as vitamins and minerals, estimate your needs, evaluate the worthiness of taking them, and understand how to select and utilize them.
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