Essential minerals and your body needs for optimal health

Magnesium 

Magnesium is involved in more than 300 different chemical reactions in your body. Your muscles need this mineral to contract, while your nerves need it to send and receive messages. Your heart also needs magnesium to beat steadily. Magnesium works closely with calcium and phosphorus to support healthy bones and teeth. Additionally, your body uses magnesium to produce energy, synthesize proteins and DNA, and maintain healthy blood sugar and blood pressure levels already within the normal range. 

Sulfur 

Sulfur is a major constituent of two important amino acids, namely, methionine and cysteine. Methionine is an essential amino acid, meaning you need to get it through your diet. Methionine plays a critical role in the synthesis of new proteins inside your cells, a process that continuously occurs as older proteins are broken down. 

Methionine, a minor constituent of fats, bodily fluids, and bones, is also involved in the production of cysteine, another sulfur-containing amino acid that your body needs to make proteins. Cysteine is also important for the synthesis of glutathione. Also known as the “master antioxidant,” glutathione is a powerful antioxidant that protects your cells from highly reactive molecules called free radicals. 

Although you don’t need large amounts of microminerals, they’re just as important as macrominerals since they're also involved in many bodily functions. Here’s a quick look at microminerals and the roles they play inside your body: 

Zinc – Zinc serves as a catalyst for a wide range of biochemical reactions inside your body. It is essential for cell growth and division, tissue repair, and reproductive development. Zinc is also involved in the metabolism of protein, lipids, and carbohydrates.

Iodine – Iodine is a key component of thyroid hormones, thyroxine, and triiodothyronine. These hormones are key regulators of metabolism and are important for physical and mental development.

Selenium – Selenium is a key component of crucial antioxidant enzymes, such as glutathione peroxidase. It helps protect healthy cells from damaging free radicals and supports optimal thyroid function.

Copper – Copper, the third most abundant dietary trace mineral after iron and zinc, is needed for the production of red and white blood cells. The body also needs copper to utilize iron efficiently.

 Manganese – Manganese is necessary for healthy bone formation and energy metabolism. It is also a constituent of an antioxidant enzyme that helps protect cells from oxidative stress.

Chromium – Chromium works closely with insulin – the hormone that enables cells to absorb glucose from the blood – to support healthy blood sugar levels. Chromium is also involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

Molybdenum – In the body, molybdenum is converted into a molybdenum cofactor, which activates four important enzymes. These enzymes help the body process proteins and genetic material like DNA, as well as break down toxic substances like alcohol.  

Your body is like living soil. If it has sufficient minerals and trace elements to work with, it is able to nurture you and produce everything you need to live and grow. These essential materials, however, can get easily depleted when you are not getting enough of them through your food. Centuries of constant use and overuse of the same agricultural fields have led to foods that are highly nutrient-deficient. The situation worsened with the onset of chemical fertilizers that manipulate crops into growing more rapidly, with no regard to nutrient availability. When minerals and trace elements run low in the body, important functions can no longer be sustained, or become subdued. Disease is generally accompanied by lack of one or more of these important substances.  Because of the unnatural situation of mineral depletion in our soil today and, therefore, in our bodies, it may be useful for certain individuals types who suffer from chronic health problems) to supplement with natural minerals. The crucial question is whether the minerals sold in nutrition stores or pharmacies are capable of replenishing the mineral supply to the cells of the body. The answer is: “Highly unlikely!” Minerals are commonly made available in three basic forms: capsules, tablets and alkaline water. Before the depletion of soils, plant foods and the mineral-rich water they absorbed were our best source of minerals. When a plant grows in a healthy soil environment, it absorbs existing colloidal minerals and changes them into an ionic, water-soluble form. The ionic minerals come in the minute size known as angstrom, whereas the colloidal minerals, also known as inorganic, metallic minerals, are about 10,000 times larger (micron-size). Ionic, water-soluble, plant minerals are absorbed readily by our body cells. In contrast, the absorption rate for colloid particles packed into complex compounds and delivered is less than 1 percent. The minerals found in colloidal mineral waters are not any better absorbed. These are not water-soluble, just suspended between water molecules. Common mineral compounds include calcium carbonate and zinc picolinate. These colloid particles  tend to get caught in the bloodstream and subsequently are deposited in different parts of the body. As deposits, they can cause major mechanic and structural damage. Many health problems today, including osteoporosis, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, brain disorders, kidney stones, gallstones, etc. are the direct result of ingesting large quantities of such metallic minerals. Fortunately, there is a very efficient way to obtain minerals in the size and with the characteristic of plant minerals. By vaporizing minerals in a vacuum chamber (without oxygen), they are prevented from oxidizing and forming into complex states. Once vaporized, the minerals can be combined with purified water and be made readily available to the cells of the body. Hydra water has managed to create a delivery process capable of converting colloids into 99.9 percent water-soluble, ionic minerals. 

The history of vitamins is related to a disease called beriberi, which was pervasive in Asia during the 19th century.  By the year 1860, over one third of Japan’s marines had fallen ill with symptoms such as weakness, weight loss and heart problems.  The symptoms quickly disappeared whenever rice, Japan’s most important staple food, was replaced with other foods. Many years later, the Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman, who was searching for the cause of beriberi, noted an interesting peculiarity.  The chickens at the station where he was doing his work suddenly started to develop symptoms similar to beriberi.  Upon further investigation, he found that these chickens were normally fed brown rice.  But there had been a delay in the shipment of brown rice, so in the interim, the person responsible for feeding the chickens had been substituting white rice.  When the next shipment arrived, and the chickens were returned to a diet of brown rice, the symptoms disappeared.  Assuming that the white rice must be missing an important nutrient, Eijkman eventually discovered a few previously unknown substances within the bran of the brown rice; one of them he named B1.  This initiated the era of “vitamins,” a term that includes the same root word as “vitality.” This association of vitamins with vitality has become ingrained within our consciousness.      It eventually turned out that beriberi was not even caused by vitamin B1 deficiency. It should have been noticed from the beginning that people no longer suffered from beriberi once they discontinued eating rice altogether.  In 1891, a Japanese researcher finally discovered that beriberi was caused by the poison citreoviridine.  Citreoviridine is produced  produced by mold in white rice that is stored in contaminated and humid environments.  Yet even today, the vitamin B1 hypothesis as the cause of beriberi is still maintained in medical text books around the world. Throughout the past century, scientists and nutritionists have added to the body of knowledge about vitamins. Thanks to their efforts, we now know that vitamins are organic compounds that are effective in minute amounts.  Vitamins support essential processes in the body such as metabolism, growth and repair.  Though we need only very small amounts of a wide variety of vitamins, a deficiency can produce symptoms associated with disease. The best source of vitamins is natural foods, such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and grains.  Such foods contain all of the vitamins that we need for optimal health, in appropriate combinations and forms that can easily be assimilated into our bodies.  However, with the proliferation of processed foods, in which virtually all of the vitamins have been destroyed, researchers began to explore the possibility of creating synthetic vitamin “supplements” to be taken separately, and vitamin “additives” to be incorporated into processed foods.  Although this has been an effective marketing ploy, to be able to promote foods as being “enriched” with vitamins, both vitamin supplements and additives have led to a wide range of health complications.  First and foremost, no one really knows how much of each vitamin we need.  Governments and international organizations such as the World Health Organization frequently release figures that propose a Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for every vitamin that you supposedly need to stay healthy.  The nutritional experts in different countries, however, have varying opinions about how much of each vitamin your body needs each day.  An American, for example, is supposed to take at least 60mg of vitamin C, whereas a British citizen is considered better off taking only 30mg.  People living in France need 80mg of this  vitamin to stay healthy, whereas Italians are told they must consume approximately 45mg.  These figures are “adjusted” every few years, even though our bodies’ basic nutritional requirements have not changed.       To further confuse the issue, in recent years a new measurement scale has emerged known as Optimum Daily Allowance (ODA).  Proponents of the new system argue that RDA is based on the minimum acceptable levels, rather than optimal levels.  But the truth is, nobody really knows how much of each vitamin is good for us because the requirements, constitutions and absorption rates for vitamins differ from person to person.      Contrary to popular belief, individual vitamins do not have isolated functions.  They work as a “team” within the body.  Taking vitamins in supplemental form, rather than from natural foods, may be counter-productive since an excess of one vitamin can have a suppressing effect on another.  Individual vitamins that have been isolated and extracted from foods can stimulate your nervous system.  Feeling “energized,” you naturally assume these vitamins must be good for you – that they must be increasing your “vitality.”  But stimulants never give you extra energy, they only force the body to spend and give up energy.  Also, taking extra vitamins can be harmful if the body is unable to make use of them.  Because vitamins are strong acids, an overload can lead to vitamin “poisoning,” known as vitaminosis, which can be harmful to the kidneys.  

It is a well known fact that too much vitamin A can cause deformities in unborn children. For this reason, there is a law prohibiting the addition of this vitamin to foods.  Yet this law does not apply to animal feeds, even though it is well established that vitamin A accumulates in the liver of farm animals.  Pregnant women are usually warned not to consume liver in order to avoid potential damage to their babies.  If consuming extra vitamin A is considered dangerous for pregnant women or unborn babies, it cannot be considered safe for the rest of the population either. Vitamin B This is not a single vitamin, but rather an array of substances that have been categorized within the vitamin B series.  Following are some of the health issues related to three of the substances within this group: •         Vitamin B3      More commonly knows as niacin, vitamin B3 is one of the most popular B-vitamins.  Now added to a large number of processed foods, including breakfast cereals, niacin is not without risks.  After large doses of niacin (3g) had been given to patients suffering from psychiatric diseases, many developed hepatitis and other liver problems.  Among other symptoms of niacin poisoning are hot flushes, itching skin, arrhythmia and nervousness.  Illegal use of niacin in meats such as hamburger has often led to similar symptoms.  The main reason for adding niacin to meat is to color it red and give it the appearance of being fresh.  If you experience symptoms such as hot flashes after eating meat, then you are likely to have been poisoned with niacin. •         Vitamin B6  Also known as pyridoxin, vitamin B6 is a combination of six substances.  It has often been used as a drug to treat depression, pre-menstrual tension, schizophrenia and child asthma.  It was considered safe until 1983 when scientists discovered a syndrome related to circulatory problems in the hands and feet of a number of patients who were given large doses of vitamin B6.  The patients developed symptoms similar to the ones caused by the drug thalidomide.  Some mothers who had taken large amounts of B6 during their pregnancy also reported deformities in their children’s bodies.  It took a long time before the nerve damage was linked to vitamin B6 poisoning.  As it turned out, many patients who had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis also had been poisoned by vitamin B6.  There are many unsuspecting people currently taking vitamin B6 without any awareness of the risks involved. •         Vitamin B9      This vitamin is perhaps better known as folic acid.  It is a common food additive, and potentially one of the most harmful ones.  After researchers first discovered that people in malaria regions tended to have a deficiency of folic acid, they gave them this B vitamin in the belief that it would make their immune systems more resistant to the malaria virus.  The children who were given this vitamin felt worse after the treatment, and were found to have much higher concentrations of malaria-causing agents in their blood than before taking the vitamin.  The explanation for this phenomenon is that the malaria virus requires large amounts of folic acid in order to spread.  People who have a deficiency in this vitamin are being naturally protected from malaria infection.  After discovering that children who took folic acid developed malaria, a British doctor in Kenya gave folic acid to one group of monkeys and compared them with another group of monkeys who were folic acid deficient.  All the monkeys given folic acid supplements became infected with malaria, whereas the ones with “abnormally low” levels stayed healthy. Over 40 percent of the world’s population is threatened by malaria today, which is no longer restricted to developing countries.  Malaria is rapidly becoming the leading cause of death in the world.  One can only imagine the disastrous consequences that may have arisen from giving millions of healthy people vitamins to help their assumed vitamin deficiency.  What is considered to be a vitamin deficiency for one person may be a life-saving response for another person. Vitamin C      The most popular of all vitamins is ascorbic acid, or vitamin C.  A deficiency of vitamin C is believed to cause hemorrhages, anemia, scurvy (damage of blood vessels), and to slow wound healing.  It is, in fact, very easy to cure scurvy with red peppers, citrus fruits or cranberries, all of which contain high concentrations of vitamin C.  Since the Hungarian scientist Szent Gyoerkyi identified vitamin C in oranges to be an effective substance for curing scurvy, it became a common assumption that vitamin C and orange juice must have the same benefits.  But as it turned out, scurvy cannot be cured by vitamin C alone.  Regardless of how large a dosage of vitamin C you use, the blood vessels will remain damaged.  By contrast, eating a few oranges or red peppers cures scurvy quickly, without a trace of damage remaining.  Fruits that are rich in vitamin C contain another ingredient that is known as vitamin C2..