Mineral deficiency is poorly understood, and many are treating muscle cramping, vertigo, nausea, bloating and so on with hydrating with water or medication. However, they are different signs of mineral deficiencies and not just water can help and no need for medications. Let’s start off with looking at what causes the mineral depletion.
How We Lose Minerals
Cause of depletion of minerals can be sweating, consumption of caffeinated beverages, alcohol and even medications. 4 cups of coffee can deplete 1 teaspoon full of salt (2.3g), mainly sodium, through urine. Average American drink about 4 cups of coffee a day and RDA of salt intake is 6g per day. An hour of exercise can also contribute to excreting ½ teaspoon of salt by sweating.
Nowadays it is common to see trainers and lifters consuming energy drinks or pre-workout that are high in caffeine so they workout out for 1-2 hours per day. During their workout instead of replenishing with salt, many use candies and other sugar containing food and beverages. Major reason is they are trying to replenish glycogen that are lost from muscle through workout but not very smart move for this type of habits avoid the trainees to use the stored energy called fat. Not only they cannot lose fat but they are not replenishing what they are really losing during their workout, which would be salt through sweating.
Now you can visualize how much salt a person can lose and following dietary guideline of consuming no more than 6g of salt per day just doesn’t make any sense.
What Conditions Will We Have by Losing Minerals?
Along with sodium, we can lose huge amount of iodine through sweat which is important minerals for regulating thyroid functioning. Which means, that if iodine is not replenished after the workout, our body could go into hypothyroidism and lower the metabolism, which is complete opposite of why we diet and exercise.
Another mineral that we lose through sweat is copper which is important in creating red blood cells, support immune system and absorb iron to our body to name the few. Copper is mainly present in vegetables rather than animal products.
Magnesium is another common mineral that are deficient in many. Magnesium is responsible for more than 300 chemical reaction that happens in our body. Symptoms of magnesium deficiency are muscle cramping, mental disorder, osteoporosis, fatigue, high blood pressure, and so on.
Sodium is also an important minerals and depletion can lead to headache, nausea, muscle spasm and even a seizure.
How Do We Replenish Minerals?
Fortunately, it is not a very hard fix though may take some time for the body to meet the requirement. Common one is adding more salt to your diet and another through supplement.
One of the options is to add salt. Table salt unfortunately doesn’t have any other minerals beside sodium and chloride. However, salts like real sea salt, Celtic Sea salt, Himalayan pink salt has more trace minerals, which can replenish what you may have depleted.
Iodized table salts are high in iodine which can help support your thyroid health. Sea salt has higher calcium and relatively higher iodine. Celtic Sea salt are high in magnesium and Himalayan Pink salt has higher potassium and relatively higher iodine.
Second option is mineral supplements. My personal preference is powder form which you can mix it with your water. Mineral supplements usually have various minerals, antioxidants and B-vitamins which help you energize your entire body without caffeine. It usually comes in various flavors and those who are not good with drink just a plain water may like these options. Also, because it is mixed with water, the body absorb them easier and faster than tablet form.
Too Much Salt Raise Blood Pressure?
By now you may be thinking about your blood pressure. Fact is that salt does not raise you blood pressure. Yes, eliminating salt from diet does lower the blood pressure, however, it also elevates our resting heart rate. By eliminating salt blood volume decreases, therefore, blood pressure naturally become lower. However, because the blood volume is decreased, now the heart must work harder to meet the blood volume requirement for the body, hence the resting heart rate increases.
What increases your blood pressure is over consumption of sugar that spilled into the blood stream. They are both white crystal but works completely different in our body.
Besides, food tastes so much better when you salt them. Salts are essential nutrients where sugar, cholesterol, saturated fat are not. Just like anything else, it is good to have various salt options for health benefit but also to enjoy our foods.
Kota Shimada
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