General Overview
Body minerals or sometimes called dietary minerals are the
chemical elements required by living organisms, other than the four elements
Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen which are ubiquitous in organic molecules.
They can be either macro minerals (required in relatively large amounts) or
trace minerals (required only in very small amounts).
These can be naturally occurring in food or added in elemental or mineral form,
such as calcium carbonate or sodium chloride. Some of these additives come from
natural sources such as ground oyster shells. Sometimes minerals are added to
the diet separately from food, as vitamin and mineral supplements and in dirt
eating, called pica or geophagy.
Appropriate intake levels of each dietary mineral must be sustained to maintain
physical health. Excessive intake of a dietary mineral may either lead to illness
directly or indirectly because of the competitive nature between mineral levels
in the body. For example, large doses of zinc are not really harmful in themselves,
but may lead to a harmful copper deficiency unless compensated for and managed.
Soils in different geographic areas contain varying quantities of minerals. (wiki)
