Do you take high doses of single minerals like magnesium, calcium, or zinc?
If so, you may want to rethink your supplement routine. Minerals are great — they power every single cell in your body, and keeping mineral levels high is one of the best things you can do for your health and performance. But if you aren’t getting minerals in the right ratios, you can actually do your body more harm than good.
When it comes to minerals, balance is what matters more than almost anything else—and taking high doses of individual minerals can actually throw off your mineral balance, causing issues with everything from sleep to weight loss.
Here’s a look at how mineral balance works, and how you can balance your mineral levels to improve your mental and physical health.
What Is Mineral Balance?
Minerals are essential for more than a thousand biological processes, which is why a good mineral supplement can help with sleep, weight loss, mental clarity, and so many other things in between.
But minerals almost never work alone. In almost every case, your body uses multiple types of minerals at once, usually as a way to balance one another out. For example, your muscle cells contain pumps that constantly exchange calcium and sodium, keeping a balance between the two[*]. If the balance of calcium and sodium is disrupted—say, because you don’t have enough of one mineral, or too much of the other—your muscle cells stop functioning correctly, which is one of the major causes of muscle cramps[*].
Another example of mineral balance happens in your brain. Your brain cells use sodium-potassium pumps to constantly exchange the two minerals, which is what allows them to send electrical signals from cell to cell[*]. Without the right balance of sodium and potassium, your brain signaling won’t work properly, which slows down thought and can cause brain fog, headaches, forgetfulness, and even mental decline—again, a major reason why you want to maintain the right mineral balance.
When it comes to minerals, balance is key.
The Problem with Single Mineral Supplements
Megadosing individual minerals seems like a great way to replenish your mineral stores. That’s why so many people take daily capsules of calcium, magnesium, and so on.
But replenishing minerals is not the whole picture. You also want the right ratio of mineral stores. If you supplement with too much of any one mineral (or too little of any other), you can actually do your body more harm than good.
Zinc is a common example of this problem. A lot of people take zinc for its immune-boosting properties and for energy production. And it works great—numerous studies show that optimal zinc levels increase immunity[*] and improve mitochondrial function in your neurons, allowing your brain to make more energy[*].
But zinc doesn’t work alone, and over time, taking concentrated doses of zinc can lead to imbalances in other minerals. For example, zinc regulates magnesium levels, and taking only zinc can actually make it harder for your body to absorb magnesium, depleting your stores over time[*].
As a result, taking zinc on its own can lead to magnesium deficiency, which can impair your sleep quality[*] and make you more susceptible to stress[*].
Zinc is one of many examples of how high-dose individual mineral supplements can throw off your overall mineral balance, causing more problems than they solve.
Mineral supplements are a great addition to your wellness routine, but if you’re going to take them, you want to make sure you’re getting the full spectrum of essential minerals, all in the right ratios.
Balance Your Mineral Stores with Humic and Fulvic Substances
In the past, if you went to a functional medicine doctor about mineral balance, your doctor would test your mineral levels every few weeks, then prescribe a variety of individual minerals, at varying doses, until you were in the optimal zone for everything.
The problem is that most people can’t afford to constantly test their minerals through a doctor, or to spend hundreds a month on supplements. That’s one of the reasons I founded BEAM Minerals.
Minerals are fundamental to our health, and I want everyone to have access to them, without the price tag or time commitment of traditional mineral testing. That’s why we came up with an elegant solution: humic and fulvic substances.
Humic and fulvic substances are derived from humate, which is a component of soil. Humate is the result of plant matter that breaks down over thousands of years, leaving incredibly mineral-rich deposits in highly bioavailable forms.
We make humic and fulvic substances, which are extracted from humate. They contain the full spectrum of minerals your body needs to function, all in the ideal ratios for human cells. That means taking humic and fulvic will naturally balance your mineral stores over time—no need for constant testing or that cabinet full of individual mineral supplements.
Best of all, humic and fulvic substances absorb in minutes and are easy to take. They’re in liquid form and taste like water. You just take a shot of humic and a shot of fulvic every morning.
These supplements are simple, highly absorbable, and full-spectrum, which means they’re all you need to take to replenish your mineral stores. There’s a reason we have so many long-term customers—you’ll feel the difference within days.
If you’re worried about mineral imbalances (or you just want to look and feel better), give humic and fulvic substances a try. They’re a natural, elegant solution balancing your body’s minerals.