mineral
Meaning of mineral: Unlike vitamins, these are chemical elements: they cannot be built or destroyed by cooking, only taken in and lost again.
Definition of mineral
A mineral, in nutrition, is a chemical element the body needs in small amounts and cannot produce, so it has to come from food or water. Minerals build hard tissue, carry electrical charge across cell membranes, hold fluid in balance, and sit at the working center of many enzymes. They are grouped by how much of each is needed rather than by importance.
How are minerals grouped?
| Group | Members | Rough scale of need |
|---|---|---|
| Major minerals | Calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chloride, sulfur | Hundreds of milligrams to grams a day |
| Trace minerals | Iron, zinc, iodine, selenium, copper, manganese, molybdenum, chromium, fluoride | Milligrams or micrograms a day |
The split reflects quantity only. A trace mineral needed in microgram amounts is no less essential than one needed in grams, and iodine makes the point: the whole body holds a very small quantity of it, and without that quantity the thyroid cannot make hormone at all. Major minerals do tend to take structural roles, with calcium and phosphorus forming the hard mineral of bone and teeth, while sodium, potassium and chloride govern the charge across cell membranes that lets nerves fire and muscle contract.
Why is one mineral rarely considered alone?
Because they interfere with one another at almost every stage. Calcium taken in quantity reduces iron absorption from the same meal. Zinc and copper compete for the same route into the body, so a sustained excess of one can produce a shortage of the other. Sodium and potassium move in opposite directions across cell membranes, and treatment aimed at one shifts the other. Magnesium is the clearest example of all: a low magnesium level prevents low potassium and low calcium from correcting, so the two apparently unrelated results will not respond until the magnesium is addressed. This is why a mineral result is read alongside its neighbors rather than in isolation.
Does the word always mean this?
No, and the other senses cause real confusion. Mineral oil is a refined petroleum product containing no nutritional mineral whatsoever; the name refers to its origin in the ground. Bone mineral density measures the calcium and phosphorus packed into bone, a use closer to the nutritional sense but describing structure rather than diet. In geology a mineral is a naturally occurring solid with a defined crystal structure, which covers a vast range of substances that have nothing to do with nutrition. And mineral water simply means water that picked up dissolved elements from rock, in quantities that vary enormously between sources.
Used in a sentence
A blood panel was ordered to evaluate the patient's mineral levels as part of the nutritional assessment.
Good to know
An abnormal level of one mineral is often evaluated alongside related minerals, since deficiencies and excesses in this category frequently occur together rather than in isolation.