Trace Minerals Story
What's happened to the soil?
For millions of years, every sprouting seed and towering tree has helped dissolve minerals, raising them from deep within the soil to the surface, where they are easily washed away. Farmers have complicated this problem through aggressive practices that drain soils of their nutrients without allowing enough time between growing seasons for the soil to renew itself. Add to this the many fertilizers and pesticides that bind trace minerals in the soil (which means fewer minerals are absorbed by the fruits and vegetables grown in that soil), and you end up with farmed food that is increasingly deficient in natural minerals.
The amount of major and trace minerals the body needs is small, but the import of these nutrients is huge. We've seen the farming industry resort to the constant use of fertilizers in attempts to provide plants with the nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine, carbon, boron, sulfur, potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, iron, zinc, copper manganese, and molybdenum, they need. And in addition to what plants need, human health requires mineral nutrients such as calcium, sodium, fluorine, bromine, chromium, iodine, silicon, selenium, beryllium, lithium, cobalt, vanadium and nickel.1 As soils become more and more depleted, our reliance on those soils for minerals becomes more problematic.
Follow the minerals
As minerals leave the soil, they don't simply disappear; rather they are washed into the seas. As water cycles through from evaporation to precipitation, minerals are transported through rivers and streams and are collected in the seas. Trace Minerals Research realized over three decades ago that the rich mineral deposits in the Great Salt Lake (an inland sea) could provide a potent solution to soil-based mineral depletion. Since that time, TMR has innovated close to 80 products that deliver minerals in balanced, bioavailable formulations.
Keep it in balance
The human body is complex and requires nearly two thirds of all the elements currently known to man in order to maintain health, but the complexity doesn't end there. These minerals and nutrients must exist in balance (92 elements are found in nature, with hundreds of isotopes that may prove vital to human health). As more human health studies have been conducted, the relationship between a balanced ratio of minerals and health levels has grown increasingly evident.*2 Maintaining balance becomes complex because mineral nutrients are constantly used by bodily processes and must be renewed regularly through the diet. While most Americans take in plenty of calories, their mineral intake is drastically deficient. In fact, an estimated 90% of Americans suffer a mineral deficiency or imbalance.
The human health industry's approach to balance has not curtailed the problem. When a study has highlighted the importance of a particular mineral, the industry has responded by providing that single nutrient in isolation. However, the more studies that are done, the more we realize the inadequacies of this approach. Needless to say, our understanding of the mechanisms operating through mineral balance is fragmentary.*3 TMR resolves this issue by providing supplements with a full array of mineral nutrients in the same ratios found in nature, allowing the body access to the optimum amounts it needs in order to restore balance.
What salt tells us about balance
Consuming single or processed refined minerals can lead to imbalanced mineral interactions. For example, most Americans take a large amount of sodium chloride (table salt) into their systems, resulting in an imbalance with strong negative effects on blood pressure and heart health.
What do minerals do?
Consumed in proper ratios, minerals and trace minerals have a profound effect on human health: they transport life-giving oxygen to the body; aid in the assimilation of other nutrients; form building blocks such as amino acids, hormones, and proteins; and can even act as antioxidants. Basically your entire body—including your hair, nails, bones, blood and nerves—relies on major and trace minerals for its proper function.
Why ionic minerals?
Within the body, major and trace minerals are found in a liquid environment (the blood stream, lymphatic, cellular, and extracellular fluids). Minerals in liquid are in their electrolyte (or ionic) form.4 In this state, each mineral has a positive or negative electrical signature. These signatures coexist in dynamic equilibrium and use equilibrium fluctuations to help the body move nutrients to the areas that need them the most. The electrical signatures in ionic minerals are also inextricably linked with the electrical impulses that run the entire nervous system.*5 Needless to say, your body can't operate without minerals.
When harvested collectively, sea-based major and trace minerals have the same dynamic equilibrium as the body. In fact, sea water creates the same balance of liquid ionic signatures as healthy blood plasma and lymphatic fluid.*
Why a desert sea?
In a few surviving inland seas, such as the Great Salt Lake of western North America, these essential elements exist in highly-concentrated, salubrious proportions. Much of the Great Salt Lake has evaporated, leaving a particularly rich harvest of minerals and trace minerals like magnesium, selenium, lithium, and boron.
While the Great Salt Lake is rich in minerals, its total soluble concentrations of toxic heavy metals are extremely low. According to the Utah Geological and Mineral Survey, "The heavy metals in the lake, along with clays, organic materials and carbonates, are precipitating to the sediments and deep brines, which immobilize the metals. The lake thus avoids accumulation of heavy metals in the lake waters and is non-toxic and self-cleansing."*6 By sourcing products from the Great Salt Lake, TRM provides access to concentrated minerals free from toxic metal contamination.
This story's end is only the beginning
Research has been harvesting the major and trace minerals of the Great Salt
Lake for more than 35 years. In that time, we've formulated nearly 80 products
that all contain these health-promoting elements. These products pair minerals
with other vital nutrients because the minerals prepare the body to absorb
those additional nutrients more easily. As a result, TMR formulations ensure
that you get the most out of every supplement you take. This is why we can
guarantee that, when you balance a diet deficient in minerals with TMR products,
you'll soon feel the difference.
- Schauss, A.G. Keynote lecture, Texas Conference on Nutrition and Behavior, University of Texas at Austin, October 28, 1982; and Schauss, A G. Nutrition and Behavior. Journal of Applied Nutrition, 1983; 35:30−43.
- Schauss, Alexander. Minerals and Human Health: The Rationale for Optimal and Balanced Trace Element Levels. Life Sciences Press: 1995, pp. 1, 5.
- Hoekstra, W.G. Federation Proceedings. National Academy of Sciences: Washington D.C. (Sept./ Oct., 1964).
- American Medical Association. The American Medical Associations Encyclopedia of Medicine. Ed. Charles B. Clayman. Random House: 1989, pp. 396, 605, 752.
- Nielson, Mark T. Ions: The Body's Electrical Energy Source. 1993, p. 3.
Geological and Mineral Survey. Bulletin II 6., University of Utah: 1980,
† These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.