#231 Optimal Mineral Intake: Magnesium, Calcium, Copper, Zinc, Chromium, Boron, Molybdenum and More - Dr James DiNicolantonio

Siim Land (0:16)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast, I'm your host, Siim Land, and today we talk with Dr. James DiNicolantonio. Dr. James and I wrote a new book called The Mineral Fix, which talks about how to optimize your mineral intake for energy, longevity, sleep, immunity, and so much more. This book is the bomb. It's the most in-depth book about minerals I've seen, and it contains up to 700 pages and over 4500 references. It's perfect for anyone who wants to eat a diet that covers all your mineral requirements and improve their health. You can get The Mineral Fix from Amazon.

James, welcome back to the show.

James DiNicolantonio (0:52)

Siim, thanks for having me.

Siim Land (0:53)

Yeah, you're almost regular on the podcast already, and for a reason, we have another book coming out.

James DiNicolantonio (1:00)

Yes, indeed.

Siim Land (1:01)

Yeah, and this one is going to be focused on minerals and why. Why would we write a book about minerals and why worry about your mineral intake in the first place?

James DiNicolantonio (1:13)

Yeah, I'm excited, really excited about this book because it was probably the biggest request that I got from my followers.

After I was publishing a lot of magnesium, they really wanted a book on all the minerals. So I think you and I coming together was perfect. You're really good at piecing together a lot of the science and it's something I've published a lot on. So and it's a huge issue and we can get into the reasons why. But I think people are going to be pretty blown away by this book because it's just so evidence-based, almost 5,000 references, over 750 pages. So it's just a beast.

Siim Land (1:53)

Yeah, I agree and it's a pretty big, big book and very thorough.

At the same time, I believe we make it also pretty simple and kind of easier to comprehend. It does go into very scientific detail, but at the same time it also maintains this user-friendly aspect to it.

James DiNicolantonio (2:13)

Right, I think we did a good job in regards to a lot of the times, if there's something pretty in-depth, we create figures to sort of simplify it.

Siim Land (2:22)

Maybe let's start with what is the importance of the minerals in the human body in the first place and how does it affect, let's say, just our overall health?

James DiNicolantonio (2:31)

Right, so there are 17 essential minerals and five possibly essential. And so the 17 essential are broken down into seven macro minerals and 10 trace.

And they do all different types of things, but essentially their primary function is co-factor. So these enzymes in our bodies can work. But, I mean, that's just the bare minimum in regards to what minerals do. They literally are the shields for oxidative stress because they make up our antioxidant enzymes.

They help us produce and activate ATP, help us produce DNA, protein. So literally every function in the body in some way is dependent on minerals. So if you're not getting enough, you know, a lot of people realize if you're eating badly, like if you're eating sugar or you're eating seed oils, that's bad for your health. But if you're not getting optimal intakes of minerals, that can also be just as damaging.

Siim Land (3:29)

Yeah, that is a pretty profound realization, like a lot of people, let's hope that they have.

And I definitely kind of understood a lot more about these, how deep it actually goes with the minerals. Like they go straight into just a pure energy production. You need magnesium for energy production and some other minerals to like say, break down carbohydrates and fats and produce protein or synthesize protein. So yeah, it's a very kind of different viewpoint on like nutrition itself. And it's a very kind of paradigm shifting, I believe.

James DiNicolantonio (4:02)

Right. We go into and we have figures on why minerals help through glycolysis, how we produce ATP by breaking down glucose, how minerals are important for feeding pyruvates and acetyl-CoA right into the Krebs cycle, and then how even into the electron transport chain, we show all the minerals that are actually, you know, contained in the complexes that help us form ATP. So we try to take both like a real world approach to this, but then also like kind of zone in on the mitochondria too to show you how important minerals are.

Even from the fact of even protecting the mitochondria, like things like manganese superoxide, which is actually in the mitochondria to protect it from oxidizing.

Siim Land (4:49)

Yeah.

And one like really scary statistic that we talk about in the book is that how prevalent, let's say these mineral deficiencies actually are. So like, I believe it's like one out of three people in the US have like up to 10 mineral deficiencies of the common essential minerals.