Trace Minerals: The Most Important Supplements

Did you know?
Liquid Trace Minerals or LTMs and electrolyte ionic minerals increase the body's electrical energy flow and are sometimes called "the spark of life".
Minerals, especially trace minerals, are essential to cellular and glandular metabolism. A lack of minerals causes glandular imbalances and fatigue.

Enzymes are activated by trace minerals
Minerals combine with enzymes to eliminate toxic cellular waste. Hence, minerals are great detoxifiers, especially to the liver. Every enzyme system has a mineral that triggers it, hence, enzyme systems can shut down when the trace mineral they require is lacking. Enzymes run all of our life processes.

Many people take a multiple vitamin and mineral supplement every day and for most people, it’s probably a good practice because of the many refined and processed foods they eat. However, you could get most of these nutrients by eating a well-balanced diet of natural foods.

There is one group of nutrients that is difficult to get enough of, even in the best of diets. We are speaking of trace minerals. Our agricultural practices have greatly reduced the availability of these nutrients in food. Hence, no matter how good your diet, it is probably still deficient in trace minerals. With their positive and negative electrical charges, minerals are responsible for every electrochemical reaction in the human body. From the firing of the neurotransmitters in the brain to cellular metabolism, minerals are essential to life itself! We are literally composed of the “dust of the earth,” i.e., minerals.
To quote Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel Prizes, “You can trace every sickness, every disease and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.” That’s why a trace mineral supplement is probably the most important supplement you can take. It is even more important than vitamins.

Minerals from Aluminum to Zinc
There are two types of minerals: macro minerals and trace minerals.
** Macro minerals are needed in greater amounts by the body and they include calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and sulfur.
** Trace minerals are just as essential but are needed in lesser amounts by the body. You have probably heard of some of the more well-known trace minerals, such as zinc, chromium, copper, iron, boron, selenium and silicon. However, there are other minerals that are needed in extremely tiny amounts in the body, including some toxic elements. We’re talking about aluminum, bismuth, cobalt, germanium, gold, lithium, molybdenum, nickel, silver and vanadium.

Beyond this are a host of minerals that are present in our food and water in tiny amounts, but we have yet to discover their function, if any, in the body. These include barium, cesium, dysprosium, hafnium, holmium, iridium, palladium, platinum, rhodium, tellurium, titanium, tungsten, and zicronium. Some nutritionists believe that every element in the periodic table may be needed in the body in some tiny amount. However, all of these minerals must be presented to the body in the proper form or they cannot be properly utilized. In the wrong form, many of these elements are even toxic.

The safest way to ensure you are getting all of the trace minerals your body needs is to take a colloidal suspension of minerals, commonly called Ionic Minerals. We prefer to refer to them as Liquid Trace Minerals or LTM’s.

The Best Way to Eat a Rock?
There is a lot of confusion in the marketplace about mineral supplements. Let’s see if we can help clear things up. Living tissues utilize minerals in ionic form, that is, as single mineral atoms. These single atoms of a mineral are bonded to an organic molecule such as an enzyme or protein. This is how minerals are presented to our body in foods. Minerals in the earth are not found in ionic form. In their raw form minerals exist primarily as metals or salts. That’s why we can’t get our minerals by eating rocks. However, small amounts finely ground raw minerals can be assimilated by our bodies. When ingested, our digestive secretions break ions off of the surface of the salt or metal. These ions are then attached to amino acids from the proteins in our food and transported into the body.

Metallic minerals and salts are the cheapest, but most ineffective forms of mineral supplementation. They are poorly absorbed and tend to irritate the intestinal lining. The most commonly used metallic supplement is finely ground iron filings. We all know what metals are like. Can you imagine how indigestible they are? Yet, metallic iron is added to cold breakfast cereals.

Many salt forms of minerals are found in supplements, too. Examples of salt forms of minerals include calcium carbonate, ferrous sulfate, potassium carbonate and zinc sulfate.

Chelates
In order to improve the absorption of minerals scientists have learned to chelate minerals. This is done to try to “predigest” the mineral.
Ionic forms of minerals are bonded to an organic acid such as a citrate or amino acid. This is referred to as chelation.
Gluconates, citrates and glycerophosphates are all examples of chelated minerals. Unfortunately, most of these minerals form such strong bonds that it is difficult for the digestive tract to break them apart. Hence, they don’t fare much better than salts as far as absorption is concerned.
The exception to this is amino acid chelates, which are essentially predigested minerals ready for absorption. The only true amino acid chelates are produced by a company in Utah. This form of mineral is found in Target TS-II. The only disadvantage to this form of mineral supplementation is that it is expensive.

Colloids
The term colloid refers to a liquid suspension where the suspended particles are so tiny that they tend to stay in solution permanently rather than settle out. This is the form of minerals presented to the body when a person drinks mineral water. We stress that this is a liquid form of mineral because there are companies claiming to sell “dried” colloidal minerals. This is impossible, since drying a colloid would return it to a salt form. There is no such thing as a “dried” colloidal suspension. The advantage of colloids is their small particle size. The minute particles expose more surface area of the mineral to the action of digestive secretions.

To help you understand this, imagine you have a cube of iron one inch square. The total surface area of this cube would be six square inches. If this cube of iron were dissolved into a colloidal suspension, the particles would become so tiny that they would be invisible. However, the surface area would be something in the neighborhood of 127 acres.
The electrical charge is on the surface of the mineral, so a colloidal suspension has a greater energy charge (and hence a greater ability to interact with living tissue) than a salt or metallic form of a mineral. One of the biggest advantages of a colloidal mineral is the fact that it contains such a wide spectrum of minerals. This, coupled with the fact that they are relatively easier to assimilate and less prone to toxicity or intestinal irritation than metals or salts, makes them an ideal way to “eat your rocks.”

Liquid Trace Minerals
The North American Indians had legends about healing springs which gave rise to the myths about fountains of youth. The experience of a southern Utah rancher suggests that these “fountains of youth” may have been mineral springs. When the rancher developed certain health problems, an Indian ranch hand told him that there was a sacred spring on his property that the Indians had used for healing purposes. Together, they found the spring and the rancher bottled up the water and drank it. His health problems disappeared. He gave the water to others and it seemed to help them as well. Eventually, he invited a geologist to examine the spring and it was determined that the spring ran over a deposit a clay deposit which contained prehistoric plant material. As the water trickled over the clay, it picked up some 60 different trace minerals.
After some experimentation, the rancher developed a “cold extraction” process which produced a super saturated mineral water. This was the first product of this type on the market, although other people have created similar products since that time.

The raw clay from various deposits in southern Utah has also been sold in bulk and tablet form. Montmorillonite is one form of this clay which is sold in tablets as Mineral Maintenance. Because these LTMs and clays contain toxic minerals like aluminum, some people have argued that they must be toxic. However, both the clays and the mineral waters have been fed to animals, plants and human beings for over 50 years with no sign of toxicity. (And remember that the mineral springs they are derived from have been in use for thousands of years before that.) Hence, the colloidal form of these minerals renders them essentially nontoxic. (Theoretically anything is toxic in high enough amounts.)

There are 64 macro and trace minerals in NSP’s Ionic Trace Minerals. Ionic minerals also form the base for Chinese Mineral Chi Tonic. If you don’t like the taste of these products straight, try taking them in your favorite juice. Many people find they acquire a taste for these products because of their health benefits.

This information is for educational purposes only. Consult with a qualified health practictioner for all serious or persistant illness. Copyright © 1999 by Robinson & Horne, L.C., P.O. Box 1028, Roosevelt, UT 84066.
This material may be printed from this database (in single copies only) for educational purposes only (not for resale) provided it is not altered in any way.
Distributed by: Four Winds Nutrition and Webnat.com

Things to know..

Frequent mouth wounds are caused by a lack of iron, folic acid and vitamin B12 from your body.

Dried lips, even cracked are the symptoms of the lack of vitamin B2 and vitamin B6.

A reddish skin, irritated on the hands and legs are determined by the lack of some of the B vitamin complex, vitamin E and other essential acids.

Eczemas and dried skin are the symptoms of a lack of zinc and fatty acids.

If you are a woman who suffers from a very bad PMS syndrome you should try eating foods more rich in zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6.

A slow growing hair is the sign of a lack of iron and zinc.

Red eyes and tired eyes are due to a lack of vitamin A and vitamin B2 form the body.

The exfoliation of the nails are the symptom of the lack of iron, zinc and fatty acids from the body.

A pale complexion and anemia can be a symptom of the lack of iron, folic acid and vitamin B12.

If you are feeling tired all the time you should try eating more fresh foods. Avoid eating highly processed foods for a while and eat fresh fruits and vitamins.

Zits are a sign of the lack of vitamin A, fatty acids and zinc.

Phosphorus - Lack of phosphorus causes weakening of the bones and teeth, and loss of weight.

Potassium - The deficiency of potassium may cause weakness of the muscles, even paralysis. It may also cause brittleness of the bones, sterility and heart ailments. 

Sulphur - Some metabolic processes in the body are hindered by a deficiency of sulphur.

Iodine - Lack of iodine impairs the function of the thyroid gland, resulting in goiter.

Magnesium - Bones, teeth and muscles weaken due to the deficiency of magnesium. Insufficient supply of magnesium may even give rise to heart ailments.