 Could mineral deficiencies cause occasional fatigue? So fatigue is one of the most common problems I hear from my patients. And while nutrient deficiency isn't always the root cause, it definitely can be, which is why it's so important to be honest with medical professionals about what you're eating on a daily basis. Now here's the first problem. Our soils are so nutrient depleted. We could eat continuously and never get trace minerals that we need. Now, I'm not just saying that. This was actually from a Senate document introduced in 1936, you know, almost a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago, we knew that our soil no longer could support our needs and yet nothing was done about it. What has happened is we literally need these nutrients, our bodies sense the lack of these nutrients, and one of the theories about why we overeat is we're constantly looking for these nutrients, which we never get and we assume the next bite of food will probably have that because long ago they did. We have killed our soil. Once petrochemicals were invented as fertilizers after World War II, we realized that we no longer needed a living soil to grow plants. That soil had its own microbiome. That microbiome added nutrients from the soil back into the plants, but we've killed off that microbiome with all of our herbicides and pesticides and biocides. So basically our soil is now dead and even though our plants look like plants, they no longer contain what a plant 50 years ago would have. So we're deficient in two very important minerals that normally would have come from the soil but now are no longer available. The first is potassium. Now, potassium is so important that we keep potassium in our blood at a very specific level and we will take potassium out of our cells and put it into our bloodstream to support that level. It's so essential that if your potassium levels fall too low in your bloodstream, you can begin to have skipped heartbeats. You can have heart arrhythmias. Interestingly enough in heart surgery, we give people potassium drips following heart surgery to keep their potassium levels high, to prevent dangerous skipped heartbeats or arrhythmias. It's so critical for that. Why do we do that? Well, we know that most people walking around will have a quote normal potassium on their blood test, but that doesn't tell us how much total body potassium is deficient because we'll just keep emptying ourselves of potassium to get enough potassium in our bloodstream. How can this manifest? Some people notice a potassium deficiency by leg cramps or even restless legs. If you notice that at night, particularly following exercise, you get cramps in your legs, potassium is frequently the answer and low potassium is the part of the problem. Now, it also, if you have too much potassium, which is virtually impossible unless you have advanced kidney failure, too much potassium can actually be so subtly suppressive of your heart that it can actually cause your heart to slow down and potentially even stop. Fun fact, we actually stop the heart during heart surgery by giving a bolus of potassium to make the heart stop moving. And it takes a while for that potassium to wear off and that's how we stop the heart. So too much potassium is a bad thing, but you cannot take enough potassium or eat enough potassium can name foods to do that. Sometimes you'll see a high potassium on a blood test. That usually is because the phlebotomist who drew your blood used a very tiny needle or had difficulty getting blood out of your vein and it actually caused red blood cells to hemolyze releasing potassium. That's not an issue. So foods that are high in potassium, spinach, broccoli, avocados, green bananas, and sweet potatoes have great amounts of potassium for you. So think about that the next time you're trying to get more potassium in your diet. Now, I particularly like a potassium supplement called potassium magnesium aspartate. The reason I like that is the second most critical mineral that you don't have enough in is magnesium. Now magnesium is frequently on blood tests, but most people don't measure it unless you have advanced kidney failure where for the same reason potassium might be a problem. Magnesium can be a problem. So you're sitting here watching me probably deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is kind of the one-two punch with potassium for stabilizing cell membranes, for stabilizing the conduction system of the heart, and interestingly enough for making muscles work properly. Many people have heard of magnesium as milk of magnesium and milk of magnesium is concentrated magnesium and as anyone who has used milk of magnesium, milk of magnesium will make you go to the bathroom by actually stimulating the muscles in your colon to contract more vigorously. Now, you don't need milk of magnesium to get magnesium, but magnesium is critically important for muscular work, muscular energy, and critically important for heart muscle stability and the electrical system of the heart. So potassium and magnesium they're so important in your bloodstream that you will keep that level normal even if the magnesium and potassium are very low inside yourself. And so it's deceptive for most people whose doctor tells them, oh, you have a normal magnesium, don't worry about it. Almost everyone I see in heart surgery is very deficient in magnesium. In fact, for two days after heart surgery, we give people boluses of magnesium through their veins every six hours to replete the amount of magnesium in their body, which is really low in most adults. Now magnesium is also a critical ingredient to help insulin deliver sugar into your muscle cells and people who have low magnesium inadvertently may have insulin resistance that just because they have low magnesium. The other thing that's fascinating with magnesium is that magnesium is incredibly important for sleep and also incredibly important for mood. And as I tell my patients, look, I want you to take some potassium and magnesium before you go to bed. It'll help you sleep. It'll help your mood. You won't beat your dog. And literally there's study after study showing the sleep benefits and the mood benefits for magnesium. And the combo of potassium and magnesium is just a one-two punch. Most of us are deficient in those two minerals and they're easy to find potassium, magnesium, aspartate tablets or capsules. In general, you want to look for at least about 99 milligrams of potassium and about 300 milligrams of magnesium. And you can find these in combo pills readily easily and they're really inexpensive. Now, believe it or not, many people are low in sodium, particularly people with high blood pressure or heart failure who have been convinced that they should follow a low sodium diet. In fact, sodium is actually an essential nutrient and the problem is a lot of our foods are very deficient in sodium and a lot of us have been told that we have to drink eight glasses of water a day, at least 64 ounces of water per day. And quite frankly, there's absolutely no valid science where that number came up from. Water flushes sodium out of us. And many people I see when we draw their blood in the morning have had one or two glasses of water to pump their veins up and in fact, they have low sodium and chloride in their blood. One of the scariest things about marathon runner deaths is that a great number of these deaths are not heart attacks from coronary artery disease, but rather from their heart failing because of their low sodium and chloride levels because of all the water that they were drinking without electrolytes during the marathon. So how much sodium is good? Well, here's what I want you to do. Salt is a really great way of getting iodine into your body. And iodine is essential for thyroid function to manufacture thyroid hormone. A hundred years ago, the U.S. government mandated iodine in salt. That's where Morton Salt came from, little girl with the umbrella. Recently, people have gone for Himalayan salt or sea salt. The problem is that none of these have any iodine. So get yourself some iodized sea salt. It's readily available. It's in almost all grocery stores. There's multiple varieties from around the world. There's French iodized sea salt. There's Baja California iodized sea salt. I'm currently using an Italian iodized sea salt. Mix it up. They all actually have slightly different flavor profiles and have fun, have a salt tasting party, but get iodized sea salt. And that'll solve your sodium problem and it'll solve an iodine problem. Another critical mineral that I see so many people with low thyroid. If I just get them to start using iodized sea salt, most of the time it comes right up. Are there minerals that people get too much of? Well, for one, iron. I'm old enough to remember geritol that was for people with iron poor blood. But as I've written about before, iron ages us. We rust. Women live seven years longer than men because, ladies, you get rid of iron once a month for half of your life. Men, unfortunately, don't wrestle saber-toothed tigers anymore. So we have no built-in way of getting rid of iron. And iron levels really correlate with aging. In fact, studies after studies show that people who donate blood on a regular basis live seven years longer than people who don't donate blood. So iron is not something that you should be taking as a supplement unless directed by a doctor. And if you have low iron, you need to find out where that iron loss is coming from, except during menstrual cycles. Calcium. There's absolutely positively no place for supplemental calcium in the treatment of osteopenia and osteoporosis. In fact, calcium that you take as a supplement may actually get deposited in your blood vessels rather than your bones. So please, taking a calcium supplement is absolutely contraindicated. Now, zinc. Zinc is another essential mineral, but zinc supplements can get complicated. Zinc and copper have to have a very balanced relationship. And we see too many people thinking, well, zinc is good. I need a lot more, but they don't balance it with calcium. Similarly, we see people saying, well, I need to balance zinc with calcium and I'm going to take copper. But usually the amount of copper in a supplement overwhelms what you need for zinc supplementation. In general, about 30 milligrams of zinc is all you need a day, and it's easy to obtain in a supplement. All right. Lastly, it's worth mentioning that what I've shared is general information and may not work for everybody. If you're struggling with chronic low energy or fatigue, make sure you check in with your doctor. They'll be able to help you identify the cause and put together a plan that works best for you. But look into the deficiencies in potassium and magnesium and iodine as a great place to start in your program. This next one is sure to surprise you. Numerous human studies have confirmed that cinnamon can lower fasting blood sugar levels by anywhere from 10 to 30 percent.