Major minerals like sodium, potassium, calcium, and iron play important roles in the body. Sodium and potassium help regulate fluid balance and nerve impulses. Calcium is essential for building strong bones and teeth. Iron carries oxygen throughout the body. The body also needs water and electrolytes like sodium to maintain proper fluid levels and pH balance. Minerals are involved in many metabolic processes as components of enzymes and help regulate tissues and organs.

1. MAJOR
MINERALS
HEALTH

2. MINERALS
– Minerals are simple-structured substances that play major roles in many
metabolic functions. Many minerals are components of enzymes, which
are catalysts of chemical reactions in the body. Additionally, minerals
regulate and control the normal function of human and animal tissues,
muscles, and organs. For example, sodium and potassium play a vital
role in maintaining proper fluid balance. Calcium acts as a major
structural component of bones and teeth. Iron carries oxygen throughout
the body in blood.

3. Water and Electrolytes
– Water constitutes 50-55% of a woman's body weight and 55-60% of man's
weight. Water gives structure and form to the body, helps maintain body
temperature, and also creates the necessary environment for cell
metabolism and
– There are two compartments of body water, extracellular and intracellular
fluid. Extracellular fluid (ECF) is water found outside of cells. Making up
approximately 20% of total body weight, the ECF consists of blood plasma,
interstitial fluid surrounding the cells, secretory fluid, which is water in transit,
and dense tissue fluid, which is water located within dense connective tissue
such as cartilage and bone. Intracellular fluid (ICF) is the water inside the
cells. It makes up 35-40% of total body weight.

4. Sodium
– Sodium (Na) is the major cation (positively charged ion) in the extracellular fluid and
plays a variety of fundamental roles within the body.
– Sodium plays a large role in fluid balance, with different variations of sodium
determining the shift of water by osmosis from one area of the body to another. See
Cellular Control of Water Distribution
– Along with chloride and bicarbonate, sodium is important for the proper regulation
of the acid-base balance of the body.
– As an active transport mechanism in the form of Na, K –ATPase, sodium is essential
for the passage of metabolic materials through cell walls.
– Sodium, along with potassium, is responsible for balancing the response of nerves
to stimulation, travel of nerve impulses to muscles, and muscle contraction.

5. Potassium
– Potassium is the major cation of the intracellular fluid. Potassium plays a number of
roles in the body.
• In balance with extracellular sodium, helps maintain normal osmotic pressure and
water balance.
• Along with ionized sodium and hydrogen, helps control acid-base balance.
• Plays a major role in skeletal and cardiac muscle activity.
• In combination with ionized sodium and calcium, potassium helps regulate
neuromuscular stimulation, transmission of impulses, and contraction of muscle fibers.
This is particularly important to the proper action of heart muscle.
• Potassium is also involved in carbohydrate metabolism and protein synthesis.

6. Absorption and Excretion of
potassium
– Dietary potassium is easily absorbed into the small intestine. Potassium
is lost through urinary excretion. Through the renal aldosterone
mechanism, potassium is lost in exchange for sodium. Approximately 160
mg of potassium is lost daily.

7. Calcium
– Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body. Calcium's primary
function is to build and maintain skeletal tissue. Ninety-nine percent of the
body's calcium supply resides in the bone and teeth. Osteoblasts are
bone-forming cells in which calcium phosphate is deposited.
Ameleoblasts are the tooth- forming cells that deposit calcium to form
teeth.
– Calcium has many other important functions in the body even though only
1% of the body's calcium performs these functions.

8. Magnesium
– Magnesium is involved in over 300 enzymatic reactions, most often in an
Mg- ATP complex. Cyclic adenosine monophosphate, a messenger
involved in many enzymatic reactions, is activated by magnesium.
Magnesium is involved in carbohydrate metabolism, as an activator of
enzymes for the initial pathway for glucose oxidation. It serves as a
coenzyme in protein synthesis and lipid metabolism, and plays a role in
cell reproduction# and growth, and in the action of smooth muscle.

9. Phosphorus
– The majority of phosphorus in the body is used in the formation of teeth
and bone, giving phosphorous a strong correlation with calcium: calcium
phosphate is deposited and reabsorbed in bone formation.
– The remaining phosphorus is involved in various aspects of metabolism
and has an important role in every cell in the body.

10. THE END
– Resources:
https://www.sparknotes.com/health/minerals/major/