Mineral Miracles

Have you ever had a craving to eat dirt? It sounds bizarre, but people have been eating dirt for a long time. Why? Pliny the Elder, an ancient Roman author and natural philosopher documents people eating the soil on the Greek island of Lemnos. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, documents the practice as early as 400 BC.  Archeologists at the prehistoric site of Kalambo Falls discovered evidence of our ancestors Homo habillis eating a calcium-rich white clay 200,000 years ago.

Even today you can find small bags of “white dirt” for sale at local groceries and convenience stores in the southeastern United States. Dirt isn’t the only strange thing people eat. People who suffer from an iron deficiency may experience an uncontrollable urge to eat or chew on crushed ice. Other people may crave chalk.

What’s behind these strange obsessions? Scientists don’t know for sure, but one theory is that the body is craving critical minerals that are missing from the diet. A recent study showed people who engaged in pica (the scientific name for eating dirt or other non-food items) were 2.35 times more likely than average to have a deficiency in iron or zinc. The proper intake of minerals is essential for your body to function. As an athlete, you may be at an increased risk for some mineral deficiencies, but what if you eat a healthy ‘balanced diet?’ If you are paying attention, following a healthy diet, and eating all your veggies you might believe that you’re getting all your required minerals, but you’d be wrong.

Missing Minerals

The American Dietetic Association is responsible for establishing the Reference Daily Intakes (RDI). The RDI replaces the older RDA and provides a list of the required minimal daily intake of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients needed to prevent nutritional deficiencies. A recent study published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition analyzed over 70 different diets followed by athletes and sedentary subjects (who were actively looking to improve their nutritional intake). The study found that all of them fell short of supplying 100% of the RDI of micronutrients and minerals. Not a single diet analyzed by the researchers supplied all of the required micronutrients!

The results of this study become even more critical when you understand that the RDI is not designed for athletes who are seeking optimal performance from their bodies. Instead, they serve as a bare minimum for everyone in the US who is more than four years old. Athletes, who typically need more nutrients than the average person, are getting less of some nutrients than recommended for a typical 5-year-old. So, if you’re not supplementing with minerals and relying on your diet alone to supply these critical nutrients, you’re almost certainly deficient in some of them.

Essentials for the Jiu-JItsu Athlete
As a jiu-jitsu athlete your diet is most likely to be too low in calcium, iron, zinc, and magnesium.

Calcium
Calcium acts like cement in the construction of your bones. It is the most abundant mineral in the body, present in every cell. You have about 3lbs of calcium in your body, of which 98% is in your bones, 1% in your teeth, and the rest in other tissues and the blood.

Calcium does more than just build strong bones, though; it helps regulate heart and muscle contraction, as well as nerve conduction. So, while most of your calcium is sequestered in the bones, it’s this blood calcium level that is most critical. If your diet doesn’t supply enough calcium, your body will draw it out of the bones to try and maintain adequate blood levels.

Adult athletes should try to consume at least 1500mg of calcium daily. Some of the best food sources of calcium are:
Milk – 240mg/cup
Hard cheese – 240mg/30g serving
Sardines – 240mg/60g serving
White Beans – 132mg/200g serving
Dried Figs – 96mg/60g serving
Broccoli – 112mg/120g raw serving

When supplementing with calcium, some forms are much easier for your body to utilize than others (they are more bio-available). The most common form of calcium is calcium carbonate, which is very inexpensive, but also very difficult for your body to absorb. A better choice would be calcium citrate or calcium orotate.

Make sure to take your calcium supplements with food and with Vitamin D, which is critical in helping absorption. If you needed one more reason to avoid cola, one serving of soda can leach over 100mg of calcium out of your body due to the high phosphorus content.

It’s also critical to make sure you are getting enough magnesium in your diet, especially when supplementing with calcium. Getting too much calcium without enough magnesium can lead to hardening of the arteries – otherwise known as calcification.

Magnesium
Magnesium is extremely important for the metabolism of calcium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, iron, Sodium, lead, acetylcholine, and nitric oxide. It’s also a cofactor in over 300 enzyme reactions, intracellular homeostasis, and the activation of thiamine. This means it’s critical for a wide variety of body processes like the synthesis of fat, protein and nucleic acids, neurological activity, muscular contraction and relaxation, cardiac activity, and bone metabolism.

Magnesium is involved with numerous processes that affect muscle function, including oxygen uptake, energy production, and electrolyte balance. Even a marginal magnesium deficiency impairs exercise performance and amplifies the negative consequences of strenuous exercise.

Without proper levels of magnesium you can’t make or process ATP (Andenosine triphosphate) optimally. ATP is the energy source the body burns during activity.  Athletes in sports with weight control, like jiu-jitsu and MMA are especially vulnerable to an inadequate magnesium intake.

Magnesium absorption from the diet is dependent on parathyroid hormone, vitamins B6 and Vitamin D. It’s also hindered by excess fat. Levels are decreased by excess ethanol, salt, phosphoric acids (soda), coffee, excessive sweating, and intense prolonged stress (once again, getting off the soda and onto the Vitamin D is important!).

Magnesium deficiency is associated with hypertension, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, liver disease, migraine, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, Alzheimer’s, bacterial infection, fungal infections, mood swings, cavities, hearing loss, diabetes, kidney stones, cramps, muscle weakness, impotence, aggression,  and potassium deficiency.

You should look to include at least 400mg/day of magnesium in your diet through foods or supplementation. It’s almost impossible to do that through diet alone, as some of the best food sources for magnesium are:
Milk – 33mg/cup
Oatmeal – 57mg/cup
Beets (canned) – 32mg/half cup
Broccoli – 51mg/half cup
Peas – 32mg/half cup
Banana – 33mg/banana
Almonds – 105mg/quarter cup
Cashews – 90mg/quarter cup
Sesame seeds – 101mg/oz

If you decide to supplement with magnesium, try to avoid magnesium oxide or magnesium sulfate. These are cheap options, but can cause stomach upset and are not as bio-available as other forms. Better options are magnesium citrate, magnesium chloride, magnesium glycinate, or magnesium taurate.

Another option for magnesium supplementation is transdermal. Magnesium can be directly absorbed by the skin when magnesium flakes are added to bath water or when magnesium oil is applied. This method can be harder to monitor in terms of dosage, but it is highly bio-available and won’t cause any gi distress.

Zinc
Zinc might be best known for helping strengthen the immune systems and fighting off colds, but it also plays key roles in energy production and building and repairing of muscle tissue. Research has also shown a relationship between zinc and testosterone, men with lower zinc levels were more likely to have lower testosterone levels. Additional studies have shown that supplementing with zinc in men with low starting levels has significantly boosted testosterone levels.

It’s estimated that about 25% of the worldwide population has some level of zinc deficiency. Those, especially at risk, are people who eat a diet high in whole grains and processed food and low in red meat.

Men should try to consume at least 11mg/day and women should try to consume 8mg/day. To increase your daily intake of zinc from food, look to these items:
Oysters  – 74mg/3oz serving
Beef – 7mg/3oz serving
Crab – 6.5mg/3oz serving
Cashews – 1.6mg/1oz serving

If you decide to supplement with zinc, look for supplements in the form of zinc orotate, zinc gluconate or zinc citrate for best bio-availability.

Conclusion
It’s very likely you are deficient in one of these key minerals. It can be very difficult to consume enough of each mineral through your diet alone. Even with careful meal selection, intensive agricultural practices mean foods are supplying less and less critical nutrients every year. Some dietary lifestyles, such as vegetarianism, make it extremely difficult to acquire enough magnesium or zinc through food alone. Supplementation is simple and inexpensive and can have a large impact on your performance if you are currently deficient in any of these nutrients.