In the context of nutrition, minerals are the chemical elements needed as essential nutrients by organisms to perform the functions necessary for life. Minerals come from the earth and can not be made by living organisms. Plants get minerals from the soil. Most of the minerals in human food come from eating plants and animals or from drinking water. As a group, minerals is one of four important groups of nutrients, others are vitamins, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids.
The five main minerals in the human body are calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and magnesium. All the remaining elements in the human body are called "trace elements". The trace elements that have specific biochemical functions in the human body are sulfur, iron, chlorine, cobalt, copper, zinc, manganese, molybdenum, iodine and selenium.
Most of the chemical elements digested by organisms are in the form of simple compounds. Plants absorb the dissolved elements in the soil, which are then digested by the herbivores and omnivores that eat them, and the elements rise into the food chain. Larger organisms can also consume soil (geophagia) or use mineral resources, such as salt lick, to obtain limited minerals not available through other food sources.
Bacteria and fungi play an important role in weathering the major elements that result in the release of nutrients for their own nutrients and for the nutrients of other species in the ecological food chain. One element, cobalt, is available for use by animals only after being processed into complex molecules (eg, vitamin B 12 ) by bacteria. Minerals are used by animals and microorganisms for mineralized structure processes, called "biomineralization", which are used to build bones, shells, eggshells, exoskeleton and mollusc shells.
Video Mineral (nutrient)
Chemical elements are important to humans
At least twenty known chemical elements are required to support the human biochemical process by serving the structural and functional roles as well as the electrolyte. However, a total of twenty-nine elements (including hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen) are recommended for use by mammals, as concluded by biochemical studies and uptake. Calcium forms 920 to 1200 grams of adult body weight, with 99% of it contained in bones and teeth. Phosphorus forms about 1% of a person's body weight. Other major minerals (potassium, sodium, chlorine, sulfur and magnesium) form only about 0.85% of body weight. Together these eleven chemical elements (H, C, N, O, Ca, P, K, Na, Cl, S, Mg) form 99.85% of the body. There is no scientific consensus on whether chromium is an essential trace element. The United States and Japan set chromium as an essential nutrient, but the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), representing the European Union, reviewed the question in 2014 and disagreed.
Most of the known and recommended mineral nutrients have relatively low atomic weights, and are fairly common on land, or for sodium and iodine, in the oceans:
The following plays an important role in biological processes:
RDA = Recommended Food Suggestions; UL = Tolerable Tolerant Intake Level; The figures shown are for adults aged 31-50 years, men or women not pregnant or breastfeeding
* One serving of seaweed exceeds US Tolerable Intake Level (UL) 1100? G but not 3000? G UL set by Japan.
Maps Mineral (nutrient)
Mineral concentrations in blood
Minerals present in healthy human blood at certain concentrations of masses and molar. The figure below shows the concentrations of each of the chemical elements discussed in this article, from the center right to the right. Depending on the concentration, some at the top of the image, while others are at the bottom. These numbers include the relative value of other constituents of blood such as hormones. In the picture, colored minerals are highlighted in purple .
Nutrition diet
Dieticians can recommend that the minerals are best supplied by digesting certain foods rich in the chemical element (s) of interest. Elements can be naturally present in foods (eg, calcium in dairy milk) or added to food (for example, calcium-fortified orange juice, iodine-enriched iodized salt). Dietary supplements can be formulated to contain several different chemical elements (as compounds), combinations of vitamins and/or other chemical compounds, or single elements (as compounds or mixtures of compounds), such as calcium (such as calcium carbonate, calcium). citrate, etc.) or magnesium (such as magnesium oxide, etc.), or iron (such as iron sulfate, bis-glycinate iron, etc.).
The dietary focus on chemical elements stems from an interest in supporting the biochemical reactions of metabolism with the required elemental components. The appropriate level of intake of certain chemical elements has proven necessary to maintain optimal health. Diet can meet all the needs of the body's chemical elements, although supplements can be used when some requirements (eg, calcium, found mainly in dairy products) are not adequately met by diet, or when chronic or acute shortages arise from pathology, injury, Research has supported that altering inorganic mineral compounds (carbonates, oxides, etc.) by reacting with organic ligands (amino acids, organic acids, etc.) increases the added mineral bioavailability. Elements
are deemed to be important but not confirmed
Many elements of ultratrace have been suggested as important, but such claims are usually unconfirmed. The definitive evidence for success comes from the characterization of an elemental biomolecule with functions that can be identified and tested. One of the problems with identifying efficacy is that some elements are harmless at low concentrations and are pervasive (eg silicon and nickel in solid form and dust), so evidence of less efficacy due to deficiency is difficult to reproduce. The ultratrace elements of some minerals such as silicon and boron are known to have a role but the biochemical properties are definitely unknown, and others such as arsenic are thought to have a role in health, but with weaker evidence.
Mineral Ecology
Recent research shows a close connection between living organisms and the chemical elements on the planet. This leads to the redefinition of minerals as "elements or compounds, amorphous or crystalline, formed through a process of 'biogeochemistry'.The addition of 'bio' reflects a greater appreciation, despite the incomplete understanding, of the process of mineral formation by living forms. "Biologists and geologists have just begun to appreciate the magnitude of mineral biogeoengineering. Bacteria have contributed to mineral formation for billions of years and are critical in determining the biogeochemical minerals cycle on the planet. Microorganisms can precipitate metals from the solution contributing to the formation of ore deposits in addition to their ability to catalyze mineral dissolution, to breathe, precipitate, and form minerals.
Most minerals are inorganic. Mineral nutrition refers to a smaller mineral class that is metabolized for the growth, development, and vitality of living organisms. Mineral nutrients are recycled by bacteria suspended freely in the vast water column of the world's oceans. They absorb dissolved organic matter containing mineral nutrients as they scavenge dying people who fall from large phytoplankton blooms. Flagellates are effective bacteria and are also commonly found in sea water columns. Flagelates are preyed by zooplankton while phytoplankton concentrate on larger particles suspended in the water column as they are consumed by larger zooplankton, with fish as the top predator. Mineral nutrients cycle through this seafood chain, from bacteria and phytoplankton to flagellates and zooplankton which are then eaten by fish. Bacteria are important in this chain because only those with physiological abilities to absorb mineral nutrients dissolve from the ocean. These recycling principles of the marine environment also apply to many freshwater and land ecosystems. In terrestrial ecosystems, fungi play a similar role as bacteria: they mobilize the nutritional elements that make up the inaccessible material by other organisms and transport the nutrients acquired to the rare parts of the ecosystem of nutrients.
See also
- Food composition
- Healthy food
- Makronutrien
- Micronutrient deficiency
References
Further reading
- Humphry Bowen (1966) Trace Elements in Biochemistry . Press Academic.
- Humphrey Bowen (1979) Environmental Chemistry of the Elements . Academic Press, ISBN: 0-12-120450-2.
External links
- Metal in Nutrition
- The concept of nutritious food: towards nutritional density score
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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