Re: Ionic/Bioactive minerals

December 5, 2002

,

I think that fruits and vegetables are good sources of several of

the essential minerals. However, there are some minerals that may

not be present in a fruit and vegetable diet at high enough

concentrations to supply close to the optimum amounts that people

need. For example, calcium, zinc and iron are often not high enough

in diets of this type. In addition, chromium, selenium and iodine

are not needed by plants, but they are needed by human beings.

Plants may contain them, if they grow on soil that contains them,

but the plants will grow perfectly well without them, so you can't

count on them being there just because the plants grew well. These

are the reasons why I think that taking a multimineral or a high

potency general nutritional supplement that contains appropriate

amounts of the minerals known to be needed by the body is a good

idea. Of course, we can debate about the appropriate amounts, but I

think everyone who looks at the evidence rationally will agree that

we do need some of each of several of the minerals. (I personally

don't think that fluoride is an essential mineral, even though it is

used to prevent tooth decay. I notice that the younger kids now

tend to have fluorosis spots on their front teeth from too much

fluoride. I don't view this as a beneficial development, and I

wonder what the long-term effects on their skeletons will be.)

I have no objection to taking the products you mentioned, , so

long as a person doesn't overdo them, and so long as one gets enough

of the minerals that aren't in them in large enough quantities.

In regard to lithium, 1.2 mg per day is probably not going to do

much to a person. Perhaps amounts this low actually do some good.

My concern is that one not overdo lithium, because its therapeutic

range when used as a drug is narrow. It doesn't take much more than

the effective dose to get into the toxic range, and this has

resulted in quite a few deaths of people who have been treated for

bipolar disorder using lithium.

Rich

> Rich, you analyzed a couple brands now of the liquid ionic and

bioactive

> minerals and I remember you stressing one reason you did not favor

them was

> that they had lithium in them. I am looking at the back of my NOW

Ionic

> Trace Minerals label and it says that it has 1.2 mg of lithium in

the

> recommended dosage they are recommending. Now, I go to this

paragraph from

> Vitamin Research page that was posted previously on this

discussion here:

>

> Superiority of Lithium Orotate

>

> The lithium salt of orotic acid (lithium orotate) improves the

specific

> effects of lithium many-fold by increasing lithium bio-

utilization. The

> orotates transport the lithium to the membranes of mitochondria,

lysosomes

> and the glia cells. Lithium orotate stabilizes the lysosomal

membranes and

> prevents the enzyme reactions that are responsible for the sodium

depletion

> and dehydration effects of other lithium salts. Because of the

superior

> bioavailability of lithium orotate, the therapeutic dosage is much

less than

> prescription forms of lithium. For example, in cases of severe

depression,

> the therapeutic dosage of lithium orotate is 150 mg/day. This is

compared to

> 900-1800 mg of the prescription forms. In this dosage range of

lithium

> orotate, there are no adverse lithium side reactions and no need

for

> monitoring blood serum measurements.17

>

> Now, what I am wondering is if prescription gets up to 900-1800 mg

then why

> do you become worrisome over 1.2 mg of naturally occuring lithium?

> Also, your argument was that humans are designed to get their

minerals from

> foods and not from sea water from the Great Salt Lakes of Utah.

But then

> again, humans definitely are not designed to take minerals in the

forms that

> we are otherwised offered w/o getting them from naturally occuring

foods. So

> out of the two choices I don't see why the best choice would be to

consume a

> lot of fruits and vegetables (like I am doing with the blender mix

I drink

> every morning) and then supplement with one of the two supplements

mentioned

> here recently as at least the ionic trace minerals are from a

naturally

> occuring source (even if we didn't evolve drinking this sea water,

much like

> we didn't evolve doing 7 bee stings MWF like I am still doing) and

are

> absorbed better and is highly bioavailable, allowing the body to

selectively

> utilize what it needs, rather than forcing all the minerals in

whether you

> need them or not and nocking other minerals out of balance in the

process.

> Thanks for the analysis of the products but as you can probably

see, I'm sold

> now.

>

December 5, 2002

Rich-

What does a flourosis spot lool like? Do you know if it is white?

Kathy