 Hey everybody Dr. O here, welcome to chapter 13 on the trace minerals. So we've covered the water soluble vitamins and the fat soluble vitamins and the major minerals so now we're moving on to the trace minerals. Remember trace minerals are as important as the major minerals. You just need a lot less of them and there are a lot less stored in your body. So we are talking about milligrams, low milligram numbers below 100 milligrams and we're even talking about micrograms in some situations. So trace minerals, it's talking about the amount that you need, not their quality or their importance. Okay so let's go ahead and dive in with the icebreaker. Many of us are familiar with major vitamins and minerals. Are you familiar with trace minerals? Which can you name and where do we get trace minerals from? So I don't know which ones you can name but when I think when you think of the trace minerals most people know that we need iron and many people know that we need iodine. Look at like iodized salt right and selenium is my favorite one from the list but so I'm not sure how many you can name now but hopefully at the end of this hour you will be able to name more of them. And where do we get minerals from? We get them from the same place we get our trace minerals, we get them from the same place we get all minerals which is from the soil right. So remember that you know the elements on the periodic table which is what your minerals are. We're made in stardust at some point and that's what our planet's made up and we extract minerals from soil, rocks, water, these types of things. And that's where this idea of contaminants comes into play too. So if you're getting mineral rich water you're probably getting some of the minerals you want but you're probably getting some of the ones that you don't want to. We'll look at things like lead and cadmium and these types of things at the end of this chapter. Alright so our learning objectives. Number one summarize the key factors unique to the trace minerals. Number two identify the main roles, deficiency symptoms and food sources for each of the essential trace minerals which would be iron, zinc, iodine, selenium, copper, manganese, fluoride, chromium and molybdenum. So obviously there's a few that we'll spend way more time on than others. Some of the other ones will just kind of fly through because they're easy to find and we're not worried about toxicity or deficiency etc. And then describe how contaminant minerals disrupt body processes and impair nutrition status. So what's the problem with getting a little bit of lead or cadmium with your calcium for example? Alright let's do this. The trace minerals, a quick overview. So the trace mineral contents of foods, this is a important point, vary with soil and water composition and food processing. So we know that food processing can remove nutrients including trace minerals but the soil and water composition is a very big deal. For example when we talk about selenium I will tell you that the best food source of selenium is Brazil nuts. But that's just not any Brazil nut. There's nothing magical about Brazil nuts. They have to be grown in selenium rich soil. So Brazil nuts from Brazil I know have a lot of selenium but I don't know if Brazil nut has grown somewhere else if that's true. So it's the soil composition of selenium that causes those Brazil nuts to have a lot of selenium. So the water that you're using with plants, the soil that plants are growing in, that's what's going to determine the mineral composition. Other examples like we'll talk about actually a selenium deficiency called Caixan disease and that comes from, no matter what they're eating, it comes from living in a region in China where there's just not enough selenium in the soil. So even if you grow things there, there's not enough selenium to pull from so we have issues there. All right, so deficiencies can affect people of all ages and may be difficult to recognize. Some we just don't even really know enough about them yet to know what to look for and then toxicities with the trace minerals that's not regulated by the FDA in the same way that it is with other nutrients. So here we see just a comparison with some of these nutrients of the RDA or the AI. Remember, if you can't set an RDA, then you make your best guess or educated guess, which would be the AI. So comparing the RDA or the AI and the tolerable upper intake level, the UL, for selected trace minerals. And you'll see that the first bar, the top bar, is the RDA for young adults. The green bar is the UL compared with the men's RDA and the, what is that, orangish-yellowish bar, the UL compared to women's RDA. So usually there's a little bit of wiggle room there between the floor and the ceiling, right? This idea of adequacy and moderation. So the minimum dose you need is quite a ways off from the maximum dose, but not a huge number. So you notice that most of the time there isn't a ton of wiggle room. So what that means is but normal people eating normal, typical diets will not have to worry about these upper intake levels. This is where you get concerns if you're starting to supplement and you're taking just too high of doses of these types of things. Like for example, I don't know, just some people supplement with zinc, especially during cold and flu season. I don't have any problem with that. I take zinc when if I feel like I'm getting sick or if someone I've been around has been sick, but I only do it for a few days at a time. When you're using these super physiological doses, these higher doses of nutrients, I recommend keeping the time period pretty short. Try to get the benefit of a higher dose of something when you think it's necessary, but don't do that forever. All right. Interactions, so nutrient interactions, trace mineral interactions, they are common and well coordinated to meet the bodily needs. So that just means that again, we're not supposed to be consuming individual nutrients. We're supposed to be consuming foods. And you will see that there are interactions in the food that we eat that tries to normalize mineral levels. And then also you'll see that your gut is a really good job of deciding how much to absorb with something, whether to actually transport those minerals into the bloodstream or kick them out into your fecal material. It's a pretty cool system, if I'm being honest. But these interactions can sometimes lead to nutrient imbalances. So if you're getting, if you have a diet that's way too high in one mineral, for example, it can impair the absorption and use of others. We'll see like the relationship between zinc and copper and these types of things. All right, so an excess of one causes a deficiency in another, but going back to your major minerals like calcium and magnesium compete for absorption. So a high calcium diet can impact magnesium status. A high magnesium diet can impact calcium status. These nutrients are not just causing deficiencies, but they can interfere with how they work. And you'll see that's a big problem with lead. So lead can basically take the place of other minerals and that's a very bad thing. Contaminant minerals and toxic reactions lead to the biggest one we'll talk about there. I mean, lead, you know, lead-based paint or lead in water, I mean, these are serious issues that, you know, thankfully there's been a lot of progress removing lead from gas and paint and these types of things, but we still have a long ways to go. Okay, then we have what are called the non-essential trace minerals, which you'll find in your body and you will find in foods, but we just don't know what they need, what they do or if they're necessary. So that's things like nickel, silicone, vanadium, cobalt and boron. Let's go through the trace minerals. So the first one, I think is definitely the most important one is iron and that's because iron deficiency is the most common nutrient deficiency on the planet and we'll talk about why and iron has lots and lots of important functions. So you see there are two types of iron here. Make sure I have my documents here. All right, there are two types of iron. We have ferrous and ferric iron, so I don't care about their chemical formulas, but ferrous iron would be a two plus and ferric would be a three plus, but the key is ferrous iron is found in animal products and is more bioavailable, meaning you will digest and absorb more of it than ferric iron that is found in plant-based sources, basically. So we'll focus more on the terms heme and non-heme iron. All right, so iron is a cofactor to enzymes involved in oxidation reduction reactions, if you remember those terms from metabolism. But when you oxidize something, it's when you peel electrons off of it, when you reduce something, it's when you add or transfer electrons to it. So anytime there's this movement of electrons, then iron's involved, iron is involved in the electron transport chain to make ATP, which remember ATP or adenosine triphosphate is the energy currency that our cells use, so clearly important, but the main reason we talk about iron is this last point here. We need iron to make hemoglobin and myoglobin. So hemoglobin is about 96% of the protein that's in your red blood cells. So I think of hemoglobin almost like a wedding band with a, I don't know what they're called, I don't know much about jewelry, but the thing that holds the setting, that holds the diamond, hemoglobin is designed to hold iron, and then that iron is what gives hemoglobin its affinity for oxygen. So hemoglobin is its quaternary structure to review is four different subunits that make up hemoglobin that carry oxygen, or carry iron that carries oxygen or transports oxygen. Myoglobin would be like a single one of them. So myoglobin is almost like the hemoglobin in your muscle cells. So your slow twitch fibers, your postural muscles, they have a lot more myoglobin, so that's why they're built for endurance. All right, so iron is very important for hemoglobin and myoglobin, which are the protein in red blood cells and muscle cells, like I just said. All right, more iron is absorbed when stores are empty. So one of the cool things about mineral absorption is your body is really good at this. The more you need a nutrient, the more of it you will be absorbed into your bloodstream. And the less you need, your body tries to protect you by limiting absorption. So that is a very important point. We'll look at what happens at the level of the gut in just a moment when I show you an image. But ferritin is just some terminology here. Ferritin is an iron storage protein. And then iron, as you consume it as it's digested, it's actually absorbed into intestinal cells where it's stored. And then if the iron is needed, it gets passed into the bloodstream. If it's not needed, well, every three to five days, your intestinal cells are sloughed off and they will be sloughed off with those minerals if not needed. So it's a protective mechanism. If you absorbed all the iron you ate, we would be in deep, deep trouble. So it's great that your body has these systems to minimize absorption. Iron is something that pathogenic bacteria are always looking for. So we want to make sure we have enough iron, but the last thing we want to do is have ample iron around, more than we need, that can cause bacteria to flourish, microbes to flourish. So iron is stored in those mucosal cells. And if it's needed, then it's gonna be passed to the transport protein, transferrin, amongst others. So the transferrin is the storage protein which releases to that transport protein. If iron is not needed, the cells are gonna be sloughed off like I just mentioned in fecal material. And that happens on a constant basis. Your intestinal cells are constantly being replaced and that's why it's really one of its protective mechanisms. All right, so let's look at this as a really good picture. So we take the iron from our food, like looking at that plate, we'd see there'd be some heme iron in the meat as well as non-heme iron. There'd be non-heme iron in the broccoli, in the broccoli. So the iron in our food is taken up by the mucosal cells in the intestine and they store that iron as what's called mucosal ferritin, which is a storage protein. If your body needs the iron, then mucosal ferritin releases it to mucosal transferrin, which is a transport protein, which then releases it to an actual transferrin in the bloodstream and now it's being transported through your bloodstream to go where it's needed. If that iron was not needed, then the iron is never absorbed, it's excreted when the intestinal cells are sloughed off into the intestine and carried out in fecal material, that excess iron goes with it. So the same thing with other nutrients, pretty cool, other minerals. All right, so heme versus non-heme iron, very important terms. See, so heme iron think animal products, non-heme iron think plant products. So you see here about 40% of the iron in meat, fish, and poultry is bound into heme, the heme version, the other 60% is non-heme. So there is non-heme iron in animal products too, but notice that we're looking at meat, fish, and poultry. We're not talking about all animal products here, but all the iron in foods from plants is non-heme iron. So heme iron, you see here, is absorbed better. So heme accounts for only 10% of the average daily iron intake, but it is absorbed up to 25%. Non-heme iron is the majority of the iron you're gonna be consuming today, but it's absorbed less at about 17%. So heme iron is more bioavailable than non-heme iron. All right, and we have a couple more little facts about that too, something called meat factor. We'll talk about it in just a moment, but let's match these first. You can pause if you wanna try yourself. So found in plant and animal foods is non-heme iron, because remember, not all the iron in animal foods is heme, but so you find it in both. Heme iron has the highest bioavailability. Heme iron is found in animal foods. Heme iron is 25% absorbed. Non-heme iron, 17% absorbed. Influenced by dietary factors, that's gonna be non-heme iron, and we'll look at some of them like fiber. Fiber is a big one, and then another one I'll mention in just a moment throughout on the screen. And then non-heme iron, vitamin C actually improves absorption, so if you're trying to get more iron into your bloodstream because of anemia or low iron stores, then vitamin C will increase absorption. If you have a condition like chemochromatosis, where you would have too much iron, then you would want to avoid vitamin C or minimize your vitamin C intake to minimize iron absorption. So this is a good or bad thing depending on what your iron status is like. All right, so animal products also contain a peptide, which is actually called meat factor or meat factor peptide, that enhances non-heme iron absorption from other foods eaten in the same meal. So that's a big deal. So basically, if you ate that steak and that broccoli, the meat factor that was in the steak would actually increase the absorption of the non-heme iron in the broccoli. All right, some sugars and acids also can enhance non-heme iron absorption. Stomach acid's a big deal too. So dietary acid, stomach acid, acid is needed to properly digest foods to get at the iron in the first place. All right, factors that inhibit iron absorption. So we'll go through this and look at the list on the left-hand side. So the longer list, let's see, let's start with... All right, let's just start with the hemoglobin and blood cells at the bottom. Iron containing hemoglobin and red blood cells is doing its job, carrying its oxygen. Some of that iron will be lost with bleeding. So whether it's like GI bleeding or any kind of bleeding, but menstrual bleeding is one of the main reasons that you'll see that women of reproductive years need more iron than someone that isn't menstruating. And that's a really important point is the menstruation is the key, not the H, right? So if you're not menstruating, that does impact your iron needs. All right, then you'll see here when the red blood cells after 120 days, when a red blood cell needs to be basically recycled, the liver and spleen will dismantle red blood cells, package the iron into transferrin, that transport protein, and stores excess iron in ferritin and something called hemociderin, but ferritin's the key. So remember, transferrin is the iron transporter, ferritin is iron storage. There are some losses via sweat, skin, and urine, so that's why even as someone that's not bleeding, like a non-menstruating female or male or whatever, you do have iron needs because you can't trap and keep all of it. Some of it's going to be lost. All right, the transferrin's gonna carry the iron and the blood will be delivered to the myoglobin of your muscle cells plus taken to your bone marrow to make more hemoglobin, to make more red blood cells, and then we're back at the beginning. So what are some things that inhibit iron absorption? Phytates, which are found in legumes, rice, whole grains, so phytates and oxalates are examples of anti-nutrients. They're compounds found in plant products that impair the absorption of nutrients. If you're eating plenty, I mean, this is the reason that non-heme iron in plant foods is less bioavailable or one of them, but just something to keep in mind. The proteins that are found in soybeans and nuts can also inhibit iron absorption. So again, you're seeing a strike against plant-based foods for as your primary source of iron. Calcium, which is found in milk, so dairy products also are going to inhibit some of the iron absorption, and that's why you go back to the poultry, fish, and meat were being the best sources. And then something called polyphenols. These are antioxidants, they're not bad, but they do inhibit absorption of iron. So they're found in things like tea, coffee, and red wine, maybe tannins would be an example, something like this. So these things do impair absorption. So what does this mean? I mean, if you're trying to impair absorption, then you would want to have tea and coffee and these types of things with your iron-containing meals. If you're iron deficient, then you may want to limit your consumption of these types of things while you are consuming iron. All right, iron deficiency, so I already mentioned this earlier, the most common nutrient deficiency worldwide, main reasons being that, you know, think about the number, there's about eight billion of us getting close to eight billion of us on the planet now, and lots of people for cost, availability, cultural, religious reasons don't consume animal products, which are going to be your best source of iron, and then bleeding any. So think about someone that has parasitic infections that cause bleeding in the GI tract or menstruating female, so you're losing iron in ways you don't lose other nutrients. And there may be primary deficiencies just because you're not consuming enough of it. All right, so even small blood losses can cause deficiency, which is why you'll see that the needs for iron for a menstruating female is more than double that of a male. Deficiency develops in stages because remember you have a storage form of iron, you have iron being transported and iron being used. So you won't see a deficiency at the level of the iron being used until those other depots have been impacted. So with iron storage, so serum ferritin levels will drop first because that's stored iron. If you don't have enough iron, then you get rid of your stores first and that's when you'd see your iron stores start to drop. And then after that, you'd see a decrease in the transport iron transference. So ferritin levels will drop first, then transferring levels. If you're out of stored iron and out of this transported iron, then you don't have the iron needed to make red blood cells and you see your hemoglobin levels go down and hematocrit levels go down as well, which is hematocrit is a measure of the percent of hemoglobin. And that's when you would see iron deficiency or iron deficiency anemia. So if your iron stores are gone, you'll see low hemoglobin levels, symptoms of anemia may basically means without air. So if you have, let me show you a picture that shows you what they look like. If you have iron deficiency anemia, you're gonna have, your red blood cells are gonna be too small. That's called microcytic anemia. And they're also going to be pale because they're not carrying as much iron and making them hypochromic. So those red blood cells just won't function as well as the normal red blood cells, which you can read there, but you can see on the left-hand side how red blood cells develop without iron. It's just not gonna work properly. So you're not gonna be carrying as much oxygen and that's gonna lead to mental and physical issues. So you see some of the symptoms here. Behavioral symptoms, energy metabolism is impaired. Oxygen is needed for all ATP production so or not all glycolysis is an anaerobic process. So you can make two ATP without oxygen, but you need oxygen to make the total ATP that you can get from glucose, which is 36. So energy metabolism would definitely be impaired. Neurotransmitter synthesis would be altered so that can lead to some mental issues as well. Reduced work capacity and mental productivity in just running low on fuel. Your brain is extremely metabolically active and needs a ton of oxygen. Motivational problems, again, you're tired for very good reason. If you're iron deficient it's basically like imagine going from, I'm here at sea level to Denver or something, you're not gonna feel great. You're gonna have a headache, you're gonna be tired because there's less air up there. It's called the mile high city for a reason. So that would be what you would feel like at sea level because your ability to transport oxygen is diminished. Pica, so when you create, pica is the craving and consumption of non-food substances. So someone is craving non-food substances like dirt or clay that is often believed to be linked to a mineral deficiency. All right, now on the flip side. So iron deficiency is very common, but iron overload, the most common genetic condition in the United States is called hereditary hemochromatosis, which is an iron storage disorder where you store way too much iron. And this can damage the liver and do all sorts of things. But the liver is the big concern because you can reach toxic levels of iron there. But it is the most common genetic condition in the US. Again, signs of really free radical damage and liver damage would be the big ones to look for. Your transferrin is saturated, your ferritin levels are really, really high because you're storing too much iron, and this would be a problem. So how would you treat it? Interestingly, the best treatment that I know of is just donating blood. So I know people that have really severe hemochromatosis, instead of being able to give blood every few months, they give blood every week. Now I don't think they actually use the blood like a blood bank, I don't think they use it, but that's, I'm not sure. I've been told in the past that they don't, but so imagine giving blood every week, every time you give blood, you will have to dip into these iron stores. So giving blood is a phenomenal treatment. And then from a dietary standpoint, you'd wanna go on a low iron diet and also a diet that avoids excess, you wouldn't wanna get scurvy, but avoids excess vitamin C because of how it impacts iron absorption. So you'd want to decrease the consumption and digestion and absorption of iron and then get rid of iron through donating blood. All right, that's hemochromatosis. Iron and chronic diseases, so there's a few interesting ones here. Heart disease has been linked to excess iron because of free radical damage. Now I think this is a really important point to note. I don't, again, I'm not saying this with certainty, but so women of reproductive age that men straight have lower risks of heart disease than men matched for the same age. So you could make an argument. Now of course the estrogen and the other quote unquote female sex hormones could be cardio protective, but you can make an argument that the fact that a woman is keeping her iron stores lower by menstruating could be the reason that women have lower heart disease risk than men until menopause, right? So this is where, so after menopause, you start to see changes and the risks of dying of heart disease start to kind of match between or equalize. So until menopause, women have something or some combination of things that protects them from heart disease. After menopause, things start to change. So could it be, it could be the fact that after your last menstrual cycle you would now be storing more iron? That could be it. It's probably a combination, but I also think, and I think that the changes in sex hormones are certainly changing disease risk. And a third one is after menopause females generally start to increase the amount of abdominal or central obesity or adiposity that they have, which would increase the amount of visceral fat, which is the stuff that's really, really dangerous, very inflammatory, et cetera. So I don't know, but iron might have something to do with that. That's why generally if I'm counseling someone and this is not medical advice, if I'm looking at my own blood levels, I want to be in the low to moderate range of normal when it comes to iron. I don't wanna be on the high level of normal. I like to be in that kind of in the middle or the lower end when it comes to my iron status. Not deficient at all, but just I don't need the tank topped all the way off because excess iron can lead to free radical production that may increase risk of heart disease. Same thing with cancer, not as much evidence here, but still, that's why I don't recommend having too much iron unless there's a reason to, I guess. So iron poisoning, again, then that free radical damage and lots of other things, but this is a big deal. I'll tell you like when I was a kid, this is why you see concerns about, well, not concerns, but yeah, concerns. You have child proof caps on things like vitamins and stuff. The biggest concern would be iron poisoning. When I was a kid, I actually needed to get my stomach pumped because I got a hold of a bottle of Flintstone vitamins and consumed all of them. So for the extra vitamin C, the extra B vitamins, they would have all been passed right through me. The other one's not a big deal, but the biggest concern was removing that excess iron from my system. All right, so the recommendations here, you see men, eight milligrams a day, women of reproductive age need 18 milligrams a day. So if you're pregnant or capable of becoming pregnant or menstruating, your iron needs are going to be increased. Now, of course, if you have very heavy menstrual flow, maybe you need more, very light menstrual flow, maybe you need less. I mean, these are great recommendations to start from, but you gotta have to play with those things a bit. All right, let me see what I have here for my other lists I've been using for this unit. So iron is a nutrient of concern for young children, pregnant women and women capable of becoming pregnant. So those are the people that would have the increased need for iron. It's needed for energy production, growth and development, immune function, red blood cell formation, reproduction and wound healing, 18 milligrams a day for those groups, food sources, beans and peas, dark green vegetables, meats, poultry, prunes and prune juice, raisins, seafood, whole grain enriched and fortified cereals and breads, we should probably talk about those words we haven't yet, I don't believe, enriched versus fortified. So when a food's been enriched, you're basically putting nutrients back that were lost during processing. When a food's being fortified, you're adding nutrients that weren't there to begin with, at least not in those levels. All right, so what else do I have here for iron and you can look at the list of all the food sources they give, look at canned clams right there. So clams are off the chart in lots of nutrients, you see the beef liver there as well. So iron necessary for proper hemoglobin function is part of your metabolic electron carriers, talked about that. Iron is what gives hemoglobin molecules their affinity for oxygen. The two kinds of iron are heme and non-heme iron. Heme from animal products is more bioavailable. It is important to have adequate stomach acid to digest and absorb iron, so as we get older, that can impact our iron needs because a lot of people lose stomach acid with age. Iron along with many other minerals are sensitive to anti-nutrients like the phytates we mentioned earlier. Best food sources, beef liver, oysters, clams, red meat, and nuts. So speaking of clams, there are people that believe that if you're a vegan, you don't go to animal products, clams are kind of like on that dividing line, are they animals right there? As far as I know, they're not sentient. So there are people that make an argument that clams would fall more in the category of non-animal, so it might be a kind of food to look into if you're looking for a really nutrient dense food, but you do not consume animal products. Something to consider. All right, next we have zinc. So zinc supports the work of hundreds of proteins, stabilizes cell membranes, stabilizes DNA, both obviously huge, huge deals. Important for immune function, that's probably what we'll focus on the most. Growth and development as well, zinc's needed for sperm health, et cetera. So it's needed for the synthesis storage and release of insulin. It's important in blood clotting. It's needed for thyroid hormone function and it can impact learning performance and behavior if you don't get enough of it. So I gave a presentation about malnutrition in the brain a couple years ago and that was something that surprised me. I knew there are lots of nutrients like iodine that I knew we'd be talking about, but zinc absolutely can impact learning performance and if you don't get enough zinc during critical times in development, you may not be able to undo some of that damage. But the immune function is a big one for me, like the first one I think of zinc, that's definitely the first thing I think of. I do, you know, we'll talk about it shortening the duration of the cold and things like that, but zinc isn't something that we here at the house, we call the cocktail where if we feel like you're getting sick or someone is sick, then we increase our intake of zinc and I would say generally every two to three hours I would take a small dose of it. Again, not medical advice is what me and my family do. While we also increase our intake of vitamin A, vitamin D and vitamin C, as well as the amino acid lysine which appears to have antiviral properties, that's kind of what we call the cocktail around here. All right, so zinc absorption, the rate varies depending on the amount consumed. So like the more you need, the more you'll absorb, the more it's available or the less you need, the less will be absorbed. It can either be used or retained in the intestinal cells like we saw with iron and then it can be recycled through the small intestine and also through the pancreas. So we've talked about entero-hepatic circulation before, entero-pancreatic circulation impacts zinc and that's because zinc is needed to make digestive enzymes which are then squirt into the intestines. So let's look at it, you take the zinc from your food, the mucosal cells in the intestine will store the excess zinc in what's called metallothionine and then if the zinc is needed, it will be released into the transporters in your body in your blood which are albumin and transferrin, albumin being the big one there and transport it throughout your body to the pancreas where the pancreas will use zinc to make digestive enzymes and squirt it into the gut so it'll actually get dumped back into the gut and then if needed it will be reabsorbed, that's that entero-pancreatic circulation. If your body does not need the zinc then it just stays in those intestinal cells, remember every three to five days, those cells are sloughed off and those excess minerals will be lost. All right, zinc transport and deficiency in the blood, I just mentioned it's carried by albumin which is a critically important transporter in your blood, it's called a plasma protein and transferrin. Deficiency is widespread in the developing world and I think you'll see why when you look at the best food sources, again it's going to be things like red meat and organ meats and seafood and those are not consumed in many parts of the world, at least not enough. The Middle Eastern diets inhibit zinc absorption just has to do with other nutrients that are around as well as anti-nutrients. So the effects of zinc deficiency, growth retardation so slowing the growth process, impaired immune response, I don't know how much but a significant amount and central nervous damage, central nervous system damage if the deficiency is large enough. But growth, development, immune response, those are the key ones for me. So zinc toxicity, can we get too much zinc? Of course we can, we can get too much zinc. This is what I mentioned earlier about how getting too much of one mineral might impact others. If you have a very high zinc diet it'll impact copper metabolism and you'll see that we do need copper. This is what I was saying earlier with supplementation. Like if I supplement with zinc, I mean a bottle of zinc is gonna last a couple years because if I supplement with zinc I'm doing it for two or three days just to try to prop my immune system up while it's fighting something off and then I go back down to normal dietary patterns. All right, so zinc is found in protein rich foods. You see here shellfish, meats, poultry, milk and cheese and I think now you can see why some diets would be deficient. See what I have here from the FDA page. Tell what we're gonna use to end up with the last one. All right, so zinc needs 15 milligrams a day, functions, growth and development, immune function, nervous system function, protein formation, reproduction, taste and smell and wound healing. So food sources, I mentioned the best ones there but then beans and peas, beef, dairy products, fortified cereals, nuts, poultry, seafoods like clams, crabs, lobsters and oysters and whole grains and then I just have a little bit here. It's primary roles in gene expression so that's why it's important for reproductive health as well as immunity. Not getting enough zinc plays a definite role in increased infections. I mean one study found that just by reaching normal zinc levels you can reduce pneumonia by 30, 33%. Again, I wouldn't take it to the bank, it's only a single study but interesting and then I already told you the best food sources are animal based, red meat, organ meats and seafood. So you do see supplementation programs if you're not gonna consume these types of foods in the diet and supplementation is important and may shorten the duration of the common cold which is why I use it just to hedge my bets if I'm trying to, like I mentioned before, prop my immune system up. All right, so you can go ahead and look at this list of foods. You see more seafood there on the list though from a nutrient density standpoint if you were building a diet, a food pyramid or whatever, if you're building a diet based on nutrient density. To me the most nutrient density, well not to me, it's science but the most nutrient dense foods on the planet are organ meats and number two I would put seafood. If you're categorying just large groups I would put organ meats and then seafood and then I'd put other animal products and vegetables and things like that below that. All right, iodine, so iodine's an important one mainly because we need it to make thyroid hormone. Thyroid hormone is made out of the amino acid tyrosine plus the mineral iodine. It's actually iodide by the time we use it but I just like to call it iodine. So the GI tract converts iodine that's in your food into what's called iodide and iodide is what's absorbed by the body and then you'll see that you do have, your thyroid hormones are called T3 and T4 which is T3 is tri-iodothyronine and T4 is thyroxine. So the T3 and T4 tells you how many iodides there are. T4 has four. There's an enzyme that can lock that fourth iodine off making it a T3. So T4 is almost like a storage form of thyroid hormone. It's the most numerous in your body by far but T3 is more metabolically active. So iodine's key function is that it's part of thyroid hormone which you see here is very busy, regulates body temperature, metabolic rate, reproduction and growth, blood cell production, nerve and muscle function. We think of thyroid hormone, we think of metabolism but thyroid hormone basically signals to the body that you have enough energy to do things like grow and reproduce. So thyroid hormone is way more important than you may think. All right, iodine deficiency. So if we, you know, iodine deficiency globally, the most common cause of hypothyroidism or low thyroid hormone levels is iodine deficiency. Not true in the United States because we've iodized salt and so we fortified foods but globally it is in the U.S. the most common cause of hypothyroidism is an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto's thyroiditis but iodine deficiency can still be a big deal here because, you know, as you'll see, we iodized salt because goiters were a big problem in the U.S. a few decades ago and iodine deficiency was very common so we iodized salt but then we told people to stop using salt because, you know, obviously the average American eats consumes too much sodium so we may not have chose the perfect food to fortify if we were gonna tell people to stop using it but they haven't listened, I guess, so that's the good news but if you're on a low salt diet, it will impact the amount of iodine in your diet and then there's also, over the last few years, you've seen this real push for, you know, things like sea salts, right? So like we get the Celtic sea salt that was sun-dried on the beaches of France or something, right? I thought I would say my salt has had a better life than me but sea salts, those types of salts do not have, they're not fortified with iron, usually iodine, usually, some are but just be careful when you buy salt, are you buying the iodized or non-iodized salt because some people don't like the iodized version like for baking and such and if you're buying sea salts, just remember, unless it specifically tells you that iodine's been added, there won't be very much there. All right, so if we don't have enough thyroid hormone or iodine, we won't have enough thyroid hormone, your body responds by releasing something called thyroid stimulating hormone to increase iodine uptake. Thyroid stimulating hormone comes from the pituitary gland, so if you go to the doctor and your iodine deficient, they would see low thyroid hormone levels, high thyroid stimulating hormone levels because your body's trying to find the iodine it needs to make thyroid hormone. A goiter, so if you have a continued deficiency, it can lead to a goiter that's a swelling of the thyroid gland, basically your thyroid gland will up-regulate and it'll be inflamed but also it'll be growing, it's trying as hard as it can to make thyroid hormone, it just doesn't have the building blocks to do so. So creatinism, so iodine deficiency during pregnancy is a serious, serious problem. Like you see here, an iodine deficiency during pregnancy leads to irreversible physical and mental retardation, so the brain will be smaller, there will be accompanying issues there, there'll be physical growth issues as well, so super, super important that women that can become pregnant have enough iodine globally. One analysis that I saw showed that this is such a big problem that if every woman on the planet that ever became pregnant had enough iodine in their diet that the average human's IQ would be up, would be five points higher because of the impact of creatinism. So I don't know, it's just an interesting way to look at it, but super, super important. So iodine is important for everyone because it has an impact on thyroid hormone but critically important during pregnancy, growth, and development. Iodine toxicity and sources, so we'll look at that. Toxicity does interfere with thyroid function and enlarges it, that's one of the weird things about nutrient toxicities, they often mimic deficiencies because the deficiency would interfere with thyroid function and enlarge the thyroid gland. So goiters and infants with getting too much iodine, let's look at our recommendations here and our sources, so you see seafood and iodized salt. The most common way that a typical American would get iodine would be from the salt, but you just gotta keep that in mind because if you're not using iodized salt, then that's not true, it's not inherently in salt, it's been added. So iodine needed for growth, this is from the FDA site, needed from growth and development, metabolism, reproduction, and thyroid hormone production, needs 150 micrograms a day, found in breads and cereals, if they've been fortified, dairy products, iodized salt, potatoes, seafood, seaweed, and turkey. So you can get it from seaweed and these types of things, but a typical person with a typical diet doesn't consume a lot of these products. All right, let me find mine, I mainly just talk about the iodized salt thing here. All right, iodine necessary for the production of thyroid hormone, important for growth and regulating metabolism, so all that. Best sources are saltwater fish, sea vegetables, and iodized salt. Deficiencies are common in diets that limit salt intake. So if you cut your salt intake in half and an iodized salt was your main source of iodine, then you would be consuming less iodine, so something to consider. If you're on a very low salt diet or you don't use iodized salt, and make sure you're getting some of these other foods in your diet, or else check your intake using my fitness pal or chronometer, and if you're not getting enough, then maybe you should supplement. Let's see, iodine deficiency can cause goiter, we already said that, and kelp supplementation is a good idea for many people, or you can consume seaweed and consume kelp, those kind of things, but something to consider. All right, selenium. So I mentioned this being one of my favorites. Selenium is a substitute for sulfur in some amino acids, so selenium can be found in methionine, cysteine, and cysteine, the amino acids. So it's a very powerful antioxidant. It's to me, it's the most powerful intracellular antioxidant we have, meaning it's the most powerful antioxidant, or its role is in the glutathione peroxidase system, which is the most powerful intracellular antioxidant system we have. So glutathione peroxidase, very good at neutralizing free radicals, needs selenium to do its job. So the enzymes also activate or inactivate thyroid hormone, so selenium intake is linked to thyroid function. So where it's found in the soil, I mentioned that earlier, right? So the selenium in the soil is the only way that we get it into our plants, or the animals that ate those plants. So it's found in soil, meats, milk, eggs, and Brazil nuts. Not just soil, you can get a lot of selenium from fish, that came from leaching of the rocks and stuff that are in the oceans, and there's soil there too. So soil meets milk, eggs, and Brazil nuts, but remember, the Brazil nuts need to be grown in Brazil or grown in other places that have a lot of selenium in the soil. Just a handful of Brazil nuts a day, if they're grown in selenium rich soil would be enough to meet your needs. So how much do we need? The recommendations, the RDA is set to make sure we can maximize our glutathione peroxidase activity. So where does that put us? So selenium from the FDA site. Antioxidant, immune function, reproduction, thyroid hormone function. Needs 70 micrograms of it a day. I generally shoot for a little more, but again, remember the RDA is the floor, the bare minimum, 150, 200 micrograms a day, sounds like a good number to me. Eggs, enriched pasta and rice, meats, nuts like Brazil nuts and seeds, poultry, seafood, and whole grains. And what do I have on my document? Best food source is Brazil nuts, again from Brazil. Organ meats, seafood, grass-fed beef. A crucial part of the glutathione peroxidase enzyme system, which is not only an antioxidant system, but also a detoxification system, so super important stuff. I remember I used to do, I was a spokesperson for some cancer organization years and years ago, before I became a teacher. And one of the things we talked about, they had me go on TV and talk about selenium content and food and how selenium had been linked to decreased cancer risk, but the supplementation research since then, we're talking about a long time ago, has not panned out, but making sure you're getting enough of it in your diet, make sure you're getting enough to meet your needs is very important. All right, it also plays a role in the normal production of thyroid hormone and testosterone, that's something I hadn't mentioned before. So selenium deficiency and toxicity, so the deficiency would come from living in parts of the world where the soil doesn't have selenium, that would be, so parts of China would be a good example. Cation disease leads to heart disease. Cancer, it may be a protective factor, but it's one of those things where when we found out that selenium is important in detoxification as an antioxidant, we thought, hey, let's just crank the levels up and know it'll get cancer. It hasn't worked, right? You have to make sure you get enough of it. Maybe an optimized intake, not barely meeting the RDA, but supplementing with high doses just really hasn't panned out yet. Toxicity can lead to some bone issues and other things too, but pretty rare. All right, copper, so now we're gonna run through the rest of these relatively quickly. So copper is transport and balance depends on a system of proteins, kind of based on needs again. Rolls in the body, it's a constituent of lots of enzymes that reactions that consume oxygen or oxygen radicals, which is what basically powers your metabolism. Coppers needed for iron metabolism, which we talked about how higher iron levels can impact copper metabolism. Defense against oxidative damage, so which would be what free radicals do. So those are some of the big ones there. Copper deficiency, excuse me. Possibly linked to cardiovascular disease, not sure yet. U.S. diets are fight adequate intakes, so we're just not super worried about it. Unless you're supplementing, you shouldn't be reaching any toxicity levels. There are some genetic conditions though that affect copper status. You see Mankie's disease and Wilson's disease. Wilson's disease leads to this interesting, you have to Google it, leads to this interesting copper storage that occurs in the eye like this golden ring in the eye. That's kind of neat, but barring those genetic conditions, we don't have any huge concerns here. Oh, let me see if I have anything else to add. So copper is an antioxidant needed for bone formation, for collagen connected tissue formation, similar to vitamin C, energy production, iron metabolism, nervous system function. You need two milligrams a day. It's found in chocolate, cocoa, crustaceans, shellfish, lentils, nuts and seeds, organ meats like liver, and whole grains. I think I have anything else to really add there. All right, so I guess a little bit. Copper has many roles throughout the body, but is rarely seen as the key piece, because you say I mentioned like how it's, oh, that's something that zinc does, that's something vitamin C does, et cetera. Excess zinc intake can lead to a copper deficiency. I mentioned that earlier. Organ meats are a great source, but other meats and seafoods also have good amounts. We talked about Wilson's disease being a copper toxicity, so you do see that yellow or orange ring around the eye, but also it causes liver issues. The copper storage can damage the liver. All right, copper sources, legumes, whole grains, nuts, shellfish, seeds, and water delivered through copper plumbing, if you happen to have it. All right, manganese. So it's mainly stored in your bones, like most other minerals, and metabolically active organs. It's roles in the body, cofactor for enzymes that facilitate metabolism. You see why, it's an important bone formation, but the conversion of pyruvate to a TCA or Krebs cycle compound, so it is needed right there in your aerobic respiration pathways. Manganese deficiency and toxicity, so we don't need very much of it. What is the number there? Manganese, you need two milligrams a day, again, pretty easy to find, needed in carbohydrate, protein, and cholesterol metabolism, cartilage and bone formation, and wound healing. So where can we find it? You see here on the slide, it says grain products, but beans, nuts, pineapple, spinach, sweet potatoes, and whole grains are good ones. Toxicity really only occurs if you're getting it from, there's too much of it in the environment. That's about all there is there. All right, it's a fluoride. We'll spend a little few minutes on this here. So fluoride is, you know, it's famous for being found in your bones, but especially in your teeth. So it forms something called fluorapatite similar to calcium hydroxyapatite, which is what your body does with calcium to make your bones and teeth stronger. It has been, a deficiency has been linked to dental caries or cavities. So it's the primary source of fluoride would be drinking water, but if you're using things like culligan or reverse osmosis or bottled water, they are not gonna have fluoride. So you can find it in other places, but it's been added. Now the huge majority of people don't live somewhere in the planet where the fluoride is already in the water. It's usually added, right? We have fluoridated water. But what I would say here is it's okay. Like we use culligan and we don't worry about it at all. You know, my wife has perfect teeth. My kids have normal teeth. I have one kid that's never had a cavity. So here's what we do. Fluoride, you know, a huge report came out in 2008 that really talked about this. That the majority of the benefit that we get from fluoride is as a topical. So I'm not concerned about not having fluoride in my drinking water, but because of that, we use fluoridated dental products, right? Fluoride toothpaste, but also a fluoride rinse. So me and my family, we use a fluoride rinse twice a day. So basically we're making sure that the fluoride is getting where it's needed there on the teeth. And that's where most of the benefit comes from. So I always like to jokingly say that I don't drink sunscreen, right? I apply sunscreen topically. That's where it helps me. Same thing with fluoride. I don't worry about not drinking it because we apply it topically multiple times a day. Toxicity of fluoride, which is a common side effect of fluoride in the drinking water, about 10% of kids can develop fluorosis, which causes this issue with the teeth. All right, chromium. I have kind of one interesting to say about this, but so chromium is role in the body. It participates in carbohydrate and lipometabolism, but the key thing is right there. It helps maintain glucose homeostasis. So a diabetes-like condition, hyperglycemia, high blood sugar may result if chromium is lacking. So why do we talk about this? Because when people saw that, studies showed that not having enough chromium causes blood sugar to go up. Now all of a sudden, chromium is in every weight loss product you find, right? Go to GNC, go to a health food store, look at the weight loss section and you're gonna see lots of things that have chromium. But here's the problem. If you have a chromium deficiency, your blood sugar will be high. If you treat that deficiency, your blood sugar will come down. Taking more of it doesn't do anything, right? Doesn't help lower your blood sugar anymore. This is kind of one of those kind of scams in nutrition where they took a kernel of truth about how a chromium deficiency is bad, but excess high doses of it aren't doing anything. So make sure you get enough chromium and that's it. All right, so sources are in unrefined grain. Grains, unrefined food, sorry. You see liver, brewer's yeast, whole grains. So where else could be, whole grains would be a more common one for most people, but all right, let me find it here. So chromium needed for insulin function, protein, carbon, fat metabolism, need 120 micrograms a day, so make sure you're getting that, but getting five times that isn't doing you any good. Broccoli, fruits like apples and bananas, grapes and orange juice, meats, spices like garlic and basil, turkey and whole grains, that's from the FDA site. And then on my little section that I did on chromium, I'm sure I just talked about the supplementation thing. Needed for insulin to transport glucose into your cells. Treating a deficiency will help with blood sugar regulation, but supplementation is rarely needed. In many foods, but onions, tomatoes, and potatoes are good sources. Malibu dhanum, I like saying this one, but not a whole lot to say about it. It is important in what are known as a class of enzymes called metalloenzymes. Dietary deficiencies are unknown, so we need it, but it's pretty easy to find and we don't need tons of it. Legumes, breads, grain products, leafy green vegetables, milk and liver, and then toxicity is rare. So what does the FDA want you to know about malibu dhanum? Needed for enzyme production, needs 75 micrograms a day, from beans and peas, nuts and whole grains. And I don't have anything on my list about it. All right, so those are the actual trace minerals we're gonna talk about. Now we're talking about the things that get in the way, the contaminant minerals. So contaminant minerals, contaminant minerals they're generally found. They're found in the rocks and the water and the soil, the same place where you find the minerals you need, but they impair the body's growth, work capacity and general health. These would be the heavy metals that they contaminate not just our foods, but water. They also can contaminate supplements. It's like with calcium supplements, for example. You can find toxic levels of cadmium in calcium supplements. So you always wanna make sure you trust where you're getting any nutritional supplements. But lead's the big one. Lead is indestructible, meaning it's gonna be with us forever. It displaces nutrient minerals from metabolic sites. This is what leads to the damage. Children with iron deficiency are especially vulnerable. So lead, this is why, you know, the lead that was being spewed in the environment, I mean, this is why we switched from leaded to unleaded gas. This is why paint no longer has lead in it. But these issues, they absolutely still, they still are a serious problem. We have a discussion here to talk about that. There are often cases of minerals, such as lead, being found in older homes. What are the effects of lead in paint and water? Can you think of any examples where this has become an issue for our community? So lead, paint used to have lead in it, and then when the old paint peels and chips off, and children are exposed to those chips, maybe eating those paint chips, that's how they get lead. And then lead in pipes would lead to lead in the water. So there's, maybe I'll try to link it here at the video, or I'll share it in the course, but there's a video. I like to just go to YouTube and type in little things matter. It's a relatively old video, but it's from some sort of Canadian health organization. And I love it. It does a great job of showing how exposure to things like lead, impact brain development, impact IQ, impact these types of issues. So I recommend trying to find that there. Can you think of any examples? I mean, we probably have all heard of this one, but many older homes have lead in the paint, which can be problematic when the paint peels and is ingested, especially for young children. I mean, I know I don't eat paint chips. So the people that are most likely to eat paint chips are also small, meaning that they're getting a really high dose of lead relative body size, and they're also still developing. My brain is wasting away and no longer developing. And I think that during key times in development, these things are gonna be even more impactful. For the past several years, the Flint, Michigan community has experienced toxic levels of lead in their drinking water. This is routinely on national news, as it should be, and serves as a discussion point on the dangers of lead. So lead exposure will impact brain development, will impact IQ. So yeah, check out that video. All right, and that is that. Now the lesson is over. This show have we met our goals. Summarize key factors unique to the trace minerals, yep. Identify the main roles, deficiency symptoms, and food sources for each of the essential trace minerals. Iron, zinc, iodine, selenium, copper, manganese, fluoride, chromium, and molybdenum, yep. And describe how contaminant minerals disrupt body processes and impair nutritional status, especially lead, absolutely. Okay, we're done talking about vitamins and minerals. Now we're gonna move into a section on like physical activity and nutrition through the lifespan and global nutrition as we near the end. I hope this helps as always. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.