welcome this is going to be our last chapter of this unit which I know you're excited to hear this is going to cover trace minerals so up to now we've discussed fat soluble vitamins and water soluble vitamins and then we got into minerals with the major minerals I'd like to start off this recording with a brief recap of minerals and then we'll get right into many of them I include this review because honestly the more times you hear this stuff the easier it is to remember it so this is going to be a review slide for all of our minerals whether they're major or Trace so characteristics they are essential Okay so we've got to get them through our diets why number one we can't make them or enough of them in our body and number two we have physical symptoms without so they are essential they are inorganic and they have zero calories Major versus Trace we learned this last chapter if the RDA is over 100 milligrams per day then the minerals considered a major mineral Trace under 100 Mig and actually all of the trace minerals they're under 20 mg but by definition under 100 would qualify as a trace mineral in terms of stability they do tend to be more resistant to heat and light and oxidation they're not destroyed readily due to their their state they are more minerals and inorganic rather than the organic vitamins bioavailability so this is how readily available are they to our system how well absorbed are they how well can we utilize them in our body so I included the slide or I'm sorry the figure that I have in the previous PowerPoint as well just to remind you some of the factors that increase and decrease bioavailability a couple that I'll make mention of here especially with these minerals deficiency does increase absorption so if if we're deficient in a mineral our bodies are pretty amazing in that they want to absorb more of it so nutritional status plays a big role also other foods that we're consuming that contain minerals or vitamins or compounds that influence availability and you see that with some of these examples vitamin C vitamin D and then in terms of reducing bioavailability remember these oxalates these are going to be found in green leafy veggies they're also found in nuts itates are found in nuts as well and whole grains beans and legumes so plant-based foods and the polyphenols we do find these in the tea and the coffee sometimes chocolate as well so when we're consuming foods that are rich in minerals if they're plant-based food they likely have some of these compounds in them so we know that the availability of that mineral isn't going to be as high as potentially with an animal product uh another point to make here supplementation does does influence bioavailability we'll see that especially with our trace minerals and then the last point I wanted to make mention of the form of the mineral we'll see that with a few of these iron a particular form of it is more easily absorbed than another form of iron so stay tuned for for that General functions of minerals they have many uh we learned that they are great for fluid and electrolyte balance sodium and potassium in particular they serve as co-enzymes they help the development of our bones our muscles our muscle actions so a wide array of functions and in terms of toxicity uh they tend to be more toxic than vitamins and we we see this especially with the supplements so these are the ones that we really want to avoid taking excess supplements of unless there's a particular need for it so that's a recap of all minerals what about the trace minerals well there are nine of them that are considered essential I will cover the main seven the last two I'll just make a brief mention of Manganese and Molly denim but the first seven are very important to our health and they have some unique functions so we'll be looking at those here shortly couple of key points I want to make here content in food is dependent number one on soil content so depending on where we live in the world we may have more iodine in our soil than other parts of the world so we may get more from a plant-based food than someone another part of the world so this is kind of an interesting point in that maybe those nutrient databases aren't always 100% accurate so I may tell you that yes uh for example uh selenium is found in a lot of our nuts but if those nuts are going to be raised or grown in an area that is not rich in selenium in terms of having it in the soil those nuts may not have as much selenium as nuts in other parts of the world so something to keep in mind and then the processing so when we process foods particularly going from whole grains to refined grains we do tend to lose some of these minerals remember the three layers of the the kernel of grain we have the bran The Germ and the endosperm when we take away that BR we're often taking away many of these minerals and some general functions we'll look at today many of them serve as co-enzymes or co-actors for enzymes hormones the most important hormone probably for us in our body is thyroid hormone and we'll look at iodine and its role in the synthesis of that hormone many of the ones we look at today are fantastic antioxidants zinc you've probably heard of that one taking it whenever you have a head cold or you feel like you're coming down with the cold and then again the structure of the bones and the teeth there's a couple minerals that we'll discuss today that have some neat functions with this all right so that ends my initial recording here I will record about iron next