Minerals, Vitamins, and Supplements

Jake Ames, MD, HMD

Selenium

At least over one billion people worldwide are low on the mineral selenium.  Most people need to take it as a supplement, because of all the heavy metals we are exposed to.

Selenium binds to mercury, cadmium, arsenic, antimony, and thallium and makes them a harmless compound, so it is needed to help detoxify these heavy metals.

It prevents most cancers, helps protect you from infectious diseases, and helps your thyroid gland make thyroid hormone.  It is a very powerful antioxidant.

Selenium acts like a birth control pill for viruses, and it helps to prevent viral replication.  Selenium slows the progression of an HIV positive person going into AIDS.

Selenium is used for treating Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and Graves’ disease.

Natural food sources that are high in selenium include Brazil nuts, sardines, salmon, tuna, predatory fish, liver, organic eggs, and mushrooms.  Tuna and other predatory fish contain mercury, but most of the mercury is bound to selenium. 

Chronic mercury exposure is one cause of Alzheimer’s disease.  Selenium at optimal doses will help protect you from Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, hypothyroidism, viral infections, and heart attacks.

The usual dose to supplement is 200-600 mcg a day.

Manganese

Manganese is an essential mineral and is naturally found in the soil and in some groundwater to a certain extent.  Sources of manganese depend on how rich the soils that the plants are grown in.  It is found in most fruits and vegetables. 

You should never take additional manganese without testing your levels since toxic levels of manganese can be dangerous.

Manganese may improve your allergies slightly.

Manganese can be used to treat osteoporosis along with boron, strontium, vitamin C, Bio Sil, vitamins K2, D, and collagen.

If you are low in manganese and/or copper you may get ruptured tendons and ligaments.

Manganese contributes to healthy bones and bone metabolism and helps to create essential enzymes for building bones.  It is involved in forming connective tissue and collagen.

It is involved in the proper functioning of the thyroid gland and in making sex hormones. It helps regulate glucose levels along with the minerals chromium and vanadium. It may also help prevent some forms of epilepsy.

Manganese makes a very powerful antioxidant called superoxide dismutase enzyme (SOD), the type found in the mitochondria.  Zinc and copper make the SOD found in the cytoplasm.  The mitochondria are the fuel source for our bodies, so manganese is needed to give us energy.

Manganese is involved in fat and carbohydrate metabolism.

Manganese supplementation in addition to magnesium and potassium supplementation can correct muscle cramps.  This can also apply to heart arrhythmia.

Manganese may help some women with premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

Manganese is needed for wound healing.  It increases collagen production.

Sometimes it helps one’s body with digestion so one can absorb one’s vitamins and minerals more efficiently.

You should never take additional manganese without testing your levels since toxic levels of manganese can be dangerous.

The usual dose to supplement is 15 mg a day.

Boron

Almost all of us are deficient in the mineral Boron.  Boron is used for bone health, balancing your calcium-magnesium levels, arthritis, osteoporosis, antifungal-candida treatment, improving your well-being, softer skin, weight loss, whitening and strengthening of your teeth, prostate cancer, and cancer prevention, anti-radiation, improved mental clarity and function, improved balance, and anti-anxiety. Boron is largely stored in the parathyroid, and it might be effective against parathyroid problems.

Natural sources of boron are raisins, avocados, prunes, Brazil nuts, dried apricots, and some other fruits and vegetables.

The usual dose to supplement is 10-20 mg a day.

Iodine

All of us are very deficient in the mineral iodine unless we are supplementing with it.  You might approach optimal amounts of iodine if you are eating seaweed or kelp daily.  Refined salt contains micrograms of iodine.  You need milligram amounts of iodine daily.  Lugols iodine is 5% iodine and 10% potassium iodide.

Iodine makes thyroid hormone.  It kills bacteria, viruses, and fungi.  Thyroid hormone controls the function of most cells in your body, so without iodine, you won’t make enough thyroid hormone, and almost every cell in your body is affected.

The usual dose to supplement is 12.5 mg a day.

Magnesium

Over 325 enzymes in your body need magnesium.  Magnesium helps to lower your blood pressure and prevent arteriosclerosis.  It is a component of the Krebs cycle to generate ATP, the fuel for your cells.  Magnesium helps you sleep and it relaxes you.  It helps to maintain normal nerve and muscle function.  It helps to regulate your glucose levels and is involve in protein synthesis. Magnesium helps to keep your heartbeat regular, and it prevents arrhythmias.

Magnesium is found in dark, green leafy vegetables, beans, nuts, and grains.  Most people are deficient in magnesium.

The usual dose to supplement is 500-1,000 mg a day.

Copper

Most people are low on copper when they do a red blood cell (RBC) copper blood test.  It is important for your doctor to check an RBC copper, and an RBC zinc test to determine your copper and zinc levels.  Too much copper or too much zinc in your diet can interfere with each minerals absorption.

Causes of Copper Deficiency

Copper deficiency can be either genetic or non-genetic origin.   Copper deficiency is very common.  Causes of copper deficiencies are low dietary copper, gastrointestinal surgery, such as gastric bypass surgery, malabsorption such as celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, excess supplementary zinc and iron, DMPS chelation, diabetes, low-birth-weight infants, infants being fed cow's milk instead of breast milk, patients receiving total parenteral nutrition, chronic diseases that result in low food intake, such as alcoholics, and persons with eating disorders. The elderly and athletes may become low due to special needs that increase their daily requirements. Vegetarians may have decreased copper intake due to consuming low copper in plant foods. Genetic defects such as Menkes disease also cause low copper.

Symptoms of Copper Deficiency

Copper deficiency can cause anemia, confusion, decrease in number of white blood cells, depression, fatigue, hemorrhoids, arthritis, muscle weakness, strokes, myocardial infarction, hypochromic anemia, hypothyroidism, impaired coordination, iron deficiency, thinning and wrinkling of skin, irritability, neutropenia, osteoporosis, peripheral neuropathy, varicose veins, vitamin B12 deficiency,

weakened blood vessels, white, gray and silver hair, and poor tanning

Food Sources of Copper

Almonds, Avocados, Beef Liver, Calamari, Cashews, Chia Seeds, Chickpeas, Cocoa powder, Goat Cheese, Kale, Lentils, Lobster, Prunes, Pumpkin seeds, Quinoa, Raw Kale, Oysters, Sesame seeds, Shiitake mushrooms, Spirulina, Squid, Sunflower seeds, and Tempeh

Zinc and copper should be taken at different meals since they both interfere with each other’s absorption.

The best absorbable forms of copper are copper sebacate and copper glycinate.  Copper gluconate and copper sulfate are poorly absorbed.  Cupric oxide is a very poor choice.

Copper can be obtained by drinking water from a pure copper container and cooking with pure copper pots and pans.

Copper supplements may cause nausea in some people, so they must be taken with a meal. 

The usual dose to supplement is 2-4 mg a day.

Lithium

Many of us think that lithium is only used for bipolar disorder.  It is the first-line treatment for bipolar disorder, but it has many other uses in the brain and body.  It is actually a mineral, and it is not a drug.

Lithium orotate enters cells easier than lithium carbonate.  Lithium is neuroprotective and literally grows back new brain cells and protects your brain cells from toxins, infections, and strokes.  It is used for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, depression, anxiety disorders, insomnia, ALS (Lou Gehrig disease), anger and mood disorders and bipolar disorder.

It is also used for hyperthyroidism, Graves’ disease, gout, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue states, many skin rashes, improving one’s memory, addiction disorders, headaches, and alcoholism.

It helps prevent crime in areas of the world where lithium has a higher concentration in the drinking water.

Lithium boosts one’s immune system and is a treatment for herpes, besides selenium, lysine, and vitamin C.  It decreases insulin resistance, improves mitochondrial function, and supports bone health.

Lithium and melatonin can help our circadian rhythm, so we achieve better sleep.

Lithium increases longevity and protects our brain from Alzheimer’s disease.  It is almost a fountain of youth mineral for your brain.

Side effects

Usually, there are no side effects taking lithium orotate at 5-20 mg at bedtime.  Occasionally if one takes lithium during the day, it might make one sleepy. 

Lithium carbonate is the lithium that doctors prescribe to bipolar patients.  At high doses, this form of lithium can cause some serious side effects, even death.  That’s why these patients monitor their lithium levels with blood tests.

Very high doses of lithium carbonate may cause

hypothyroidism, confusion, tachycardia or a slow heart beat, heart arrhythmia, weight gain, increased thirst, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting, tremors, blurred vision, ringing in the ears, coma and death with very high levels. 

The usual dose to supplement is 5-20 mg a day.

Zinc

Over 200 enzymes in the human body use zinc.  It is secondary in importance to magnesium, which uses over 300 enzymes in the human body.

Function

Zinc is ubiquitous in the human body.  It is an essential part of your immune system to protect you from viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites.

Zinc is involved in wound healing, cell division, cell growth, collagen and bone formation, carbohydrate metabolism, fertility, detoxification, thyroid hormone production, the sense of taste and smell.  Zinc enhances the action of insulin.  It is needed to make metallothionein, which detoxifies heavy metals.  It makes SOD, a powerful antioxidant. 

Foods high in zinc

Zinc is found in beef, oysters, chocolate, beans, mushrooms, spinach, wheat germ, chicken, pumpkin and squash seeds,

The usual dose to supplement is 15-60 mg a day.

Molybdenum

Molybdenum is trace mineral found in liver, grains, green leafy vegetables, cheese, legumes, lentils, peas, and nuts.  Most of my patients since 1993 have had zero levels of molybdenum on the RBC molybdenum blood tests.  Most had low molybdenum in the hair analysis.

Molybdenum is an essential cofactor for many enzymes.  It is involved in the metabolism of fats and carbohydrates.  It converts sulfites to sulfates, and it is involved in making sulfur amino acids (methionine and cysteine).  It helps prevent sulfite sensitivity or allergies from wine and foods.  Low levels will decrease the production of uric acid.

It helps to prevent esophageal cancer.  It is found in tooth enamel and may help prevent cavities.

It breaks down nitrates to make nitric oxide to dilate blood vessels and improve circulation.

Molybdenum detoxifies alcohol and other drugs.

Molybdenum can be supplemented with molybdenum aspartate, citrate, glycinate, picolinate, ammonium molybdate, and sodium molybdate. 

The usual dose to supplement is 100 mcg a day.

Chromium

Chromium is a trace mineral found in brewer’s yeast, whole-grain products, broccoli, meat, some fruits, vegetables, spices, raw onions, and tomatoes.  One hundred percent of my patients since 1993 have had zero levels of chromium on an RBC chromium blood test.

Chromium regulates glucose by helping insulin-glucose get inside cells.  It helps to metabolize carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

As a supplement, it is available as glucose tolerance factor (GTF), chromium picolinate, chromium polynicotinate, and chromium chloride.  Chromium polynicotinate works the best and chromium chloride is very poorly absorbed.

Chromium raises HDL (good) cholesterol.

Chromium deficiency can lead to type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis.

The usual dose to supplement is 600 mcg a day for a non-diabetic, and 600 mcg three times a day for a diabetic or for someone who craves sweets or sugar.  Chromium does help reduce sugar cravings.  A person’s diabetic medicines may have to be lowered.

MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane)

MSM is a chemical which contains an organic form of sulfur.  It is used for inflammation, arthritis, scar tissues, wrinkles, collagen formation, skin health, detoxification, hair and skin disorders, and for detoxification of chemicals and heavy metals.  It helps the permeability of your cell membranes.

It can be taken in a powder of capsule forms.  The starting dose is one teaspoon a day.  Some people take up to 2-3 tablespoons a day.

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