1.8 KiB
1.8 KiB
- Major minerals are essential mineral elements required in amounts of 100mg or more per day
Trace Minerals
- Trace minerals are essential mineral elements required in amounts that are less than 100mg per day
- They still perform vital roles
- Obtaining adequate amounts of them from food is difficult
- Iron is the most important trace mineral
- Iron has 4 major roles:
- Oxygen transport - Needed for production of hemoglobin (red blood cells), myoglobin (muscle cells), and cytochromes (most body cells)
- Cell division - Required by an enzyme needed for DNA production
- Immune system - Needed for production of lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). Enables neutrophils (another type of white blood cell) to destroy bacteria
- Nervous system - Needed to help maintain the myelin sheath that covers parts of certain nerve cells, needed for the production of neurotransmitters (eg, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine that regulate brain and muscle activity).
- Heme is the iron-containing component of hemoglobin and myoglobin. Heme is a type of iron found in our food, food sources provide both heme iron and non-heme iron.
- Hemoglobin is the iron-containing protein in red blood cells that transports oxygen to cells, and carbon dioxide away from tissues.
- Myoglobin is the iron containing protein in red muscle cells that controls oxygen uptake from red blood cells
- Cytochromes are a group of proteins necessary for certain chemical reactions involved in the release of energy from macronutrients
- Heme iron is the form of iron found in meat, and it's absorbed efficiently
- Nonheme iron is a form of iron that's not absorbed as efficiently as heme iron
- Meat, vegtables, grains, supplements, and foritifed or enriched foods
- Iron has 4 major roles: