It’s relatively easy to understand why the body needs minerals like calcium. Calcium is an important building block that helps to strengthen the body and provides a solid foundation for the body’s processes to occur on. Less easy to understand is the impact of trace minerals, which have nowhere near the same “star power” as some of the major minerals and, as a result, they are deeply underappreciated and misunderstood. However, trace minerals are as important, if not more important, that the bodies “major” minerals and it is equally important that people take in sufficient amounts of these minerals in order to remain healthy.
A good way to think about the relationship between major minerals and trace minerals is to think of the difference between a pencil sketch and a painted canvas. Of course, it’s possible to admire a pencil sketch; all the contours of a picture are present there and one can easily admire the artistry and skill present. However, something probably feels incomplete, unfilled in. Would the Mona Lisa be what it is if it were mere pencil scribbling? No; it’s the paint that makes the picture, the paint that fills in the gaps and links the broad lines of a sketch into an artistic and colorful whole. People may be intrigued by an etching, but they are enthralled by a painting.
Trace minerals are like the paint in my analogy. They fill in the gaps and supplement the major minerals. Even though they are required in lower doses, which is why they’re referred to as trace, they are no less important in preventing and treating diseases, supporting immune functions, and aiding in the biological processes of the body. Trace minerals complete the picture of the human body and allow it to function to its fullest and healthiest potential.
Examples of the minerals I am speaking of are plentiful in number. For example, iron is an important trace mineral, one that is vital in oxygen transportation and an important part of hemoglobin and myoglobin. Minerals like zinc and copper are of paramount importance in cellular energy production and copper and selenium have been found to be crucial to the efficacy of the response of the immune system. The true question shouldn’t be “why does the body need trace minerals”; the true question is what the body would possibly do without them.
It’s fortunate for us that these minerals have no ego to be bruised or feelings to be slighted, as they are some of the most overlooked and underrated properties and would probably revolt if they had any awareness of how much they were slighted. Just as a canvas needs the application of paint in order to achieve true artistic beauty, the body needs plentiful amounts of trace minerals in operation in order for the body to operate as it should. Always make sure that your treating your body right and supplying it with the right amount of trace minerals so it can continue to prosper and achieve a beauty of its own.
