Minerals in Your Diet

Besides carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur that comprise of organic molecules, our organism you appraise other elements, or like structural components or by their catalytic capacities comprising of the enzyme active centers. These elements are:

* Calcium: It is the abundant mineral but in the organism, since it is a fundamental component of the bones. Also it participates in the nervous transmission and it comprises of the structure of several enzymes

* Phosphorus: It is an essential component, along with calcium, in the structure of the bones and teeth. Form leaves mainly from many fundamental organic substances in many metabolic routes in implied in the obtaining and the transmission of energy. Also in that they maintain and they pass on the genetic message.

* Potassium: It participates in the maintenance of the osmotic pressure, especially inside the cells, and in the nervous transmission.

* Chloride: It takes part in the maintenance of the ionic equilibria and osmotic. Form leaves from the gastric juice.

* Sodium: It participates in the maintenance of the osmotic pressure, in compartment essentially extracellular, the nervous transmission and on the maintenance of balances acid-it bases.

* Magnesium: Form leaves from the bone. It is also necessary for the activity of many enzymes, especially of which ATP uses. In these enzymes, the mg is united really to the ATP, and not to the own enzyme.

* Iron: Form leaves of the hemoglobina (the protein that transports oxygen in the blood) and from the mioglobina (that does in the muscle). Also it comprises of enough enzymes. The organism is able to store important amounts of this element like reserve, associated to a called protein ferritina.

* Fluorine: Form leaves from the structure of the teeth and bones, although it is not a strictly essential element.

*Zinc: Form leaves from enough enzymes, like the carbonic-anhydrase or fosfatasa alkaline.

* It receives: Form leaves from some enzymes, like tirosinasa.

* Manganese: Form leaves from some enzymes, among them the mitocondrial superoxide dismutasa.

* Selenium: Form leaves from the selenocisteina, an amino acid peculiar, (equivalent to the cisteina, but with sulphur instead of selenium) present in glutation peroxidasa.

* Iodine: Its unique biological function is like component of tiroideas hormones

The majority of minerals is distributed very widely between all type of foods, in such a way that any diet that is not aberrant includes a sufficient amount of the majority of them.

The unique elements of which deficiencies can take place are the calcium, the iron and the iodine, and this with diets only based on certain foods that do not contain them or contain that them in a nonassimilable form. The calcium is distributed so much in origin foods animal like vegetable. Nevertheless, the present in vegetal foods is little assimilable, since these also contain substances like the oxalato or fitato kidnaps that it and prevents their absorption in the alimentary canal. The bran, in particular, contains important amounts of this type of substances. In the integral flour, around 70% of all the existing phosphorus it is comprising of fítico acid, whereas in the white flour this proportion descends to 30%. Also the vegetables and the almonds contain important amounts of this substance. In animal products the calcium is available more easily. The best source of this element is the milky products.

The iron also is widely distributed, but the problems related to their bioavailability are still majors that in the case of calcium. The iron in form hemo (as animal is generally in origin foods) is absorbed with relative facility, but the iron in inorganic form, no. Its absorption depends on the presence in the diet of other components, that favor their pick up, as it is the ascorbic acid (reduces Faith 3+ to Fe2+, but soluble) make difficult or it, like oxalic acid or fítico acid. Altogether, although the vegetal foods contain iron enough (not too much; independent of the legend, the lentils and spinach contain similar amounts to other similar foods) their low bioavailability causes that they are not good nourishing sources of this mineral.