Colloidal Minerals

[Airbrush]

Does anyone have an opinion of the subject of colloidal liquid minerals? The famous or infamous Joel Wallach was promoting liquid minerals from his web site. He is known for his tape recording "Dead Doctors Don't Lie".

 

"There are 90 nutrients essential to human health. A common recommendation made by most medical doctors is that in order to get all the nutrients necessary to maintain health you must, on a daily basis, eat food from each of the four basic food groups. Dr. Joel Wallach challenges this belief and highlights the reasons why it is practically impossible to get all the nutrients necessary to achieve and maintain opitimal health by eating food from the four food groups. Therefore you must supplement!"

 

He may be a con man, and he makes a lot of incredible claims, but I believe many health problems come from nutrient deficiency. Mass produced agriculture is short of the nutrients from chemical fertilizers. If colloidal minerals does indeed contain 60 or more minerals that may be valuable to the body, then why not?

Edited April 15, 2009 by Airbrush

[John Cuthber]

The biggest word in this sentence "If colloidal minerals does indeed contain 60 or more minerals that may be valuable to the body, then why not?" is "If".

[jimmydasaint]

Interesting OP. I think the effects of deficiency are probably quite pronounced in livestock, e.g. http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vetext/INF-DA/Magnesium_Deficiency.pdf but I wonder how pronounced an effect would be on humans, due to a short-term deficiency of vitamins or minerals. Note, I said short-term... Almost every doctor I have consulted has mentioned that we get the required dosage of minerals and vitamins from a well balanced diet. However, it is quite easy to switch from a well-balanced diet to a starch, protein and sugar dominated diet.

At the same time, every alternative doctor I have consulted insists that people are short of some mineral or vitamin. To be honest, I am confused about the issue.

[Airbrush]

The biggest word in this sentence "If colloidal minerals does indeed contain 60 or more minerals that may be valuable to the body, then why not?" is "If".

 

How difficult would it be to test the mineral supplement for the minerals listed on the label? Has it been done?

 

I believe there is an implicit conspiracy between the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies. People are supposed to go to the doctor when they are not well so the doctor can prescribe drugs to mask the symptoms. The only way to correct your health problem is eating correctly and exercising. What if Joel Wallach is right? In this age of mass production, all foods are becoming more mineral deficient over time with soil mineral depletion, because not much nutrition comes from petrochemical fertilizers. More attention is given to the nutritional requirements of cattle than humans.

Edited April 16, 2009 by Airbrush

[Mr Skeptic]

You could always just eat some dirt. That has plenty of minerals in it.

[Airbrush]

You could always just eat some dirt. That has plenty of minerals in it.

 

Exactly my point! The dirt is deficient in minerals, so plants are deficient in minerals, and animals that eat the plants are deficient in minerals. And I haven't even mentioned vitamins and other nutrients yet.

[GDG]

It is very difficult to study micronutrient requirements, because (a) people have varied diets, and (b) it is easy to miss 2 micrograms (for example) of a particular nutrient hidden in the quantity of food you might consume in a day. Some micronutrient requirements are known only because patients receiving total parenteral nutrition would develop symptoms if one of the nutrients was inadvertently left out. I would be very skeptical of claims that Dr. Whozits can prove that any of the minerals not already known to be nutrients are required. Most of the trace elements that you need (i.e., those things for which your daily requirement is on the order of micrograms) are only needed because they form part of an enzyme or vitamin. For example, you only need cobalt because it is an essential part of one of the B vitamins.

 

For the most part, your normal diet should automatically include all the minerals you need, usually in fair excess. Yes, you can screw it up. For example, if you rigorously exclude all fish and seafood from your diet, and spurn iodized salt, you can give yourself an iodine deficiency. If you start eating dirt or clay, you can give yourself a zinc deficiency (because the zinc already in your system will tend to bind to the soil: you would lose more zinc than you would gain).

 

Most minerals are toxic if one takes too much. More than 2 mg of iodine daily can give you goiter. Excess selenium or manganese can cause vomiting, make your hair fall out, give you skin lesions, etc. Excessive potassium can send your heart into fibrillation.

 

It's your money, and your health. I'd trust this about as much as I'd trust all those ads claiming that they can improve certain portions of my anatomy.