Your body requires essential minerals such as calcium and iodine to perform assorted vital biological functions. Calcium makes durable teeth and bones possible, for instance, and iodine enables your thyroid gland to work properly. Although dietary supplements can provide adequate amounts of both nutrients, the human body absorbs the minerals more effectively when you follow a nutritious diet and consume healthy food containing them regularly.
Significance
The most abundant mineral in your body, calcium not only promotes strong teeth and bones, but it also helps prevent conditions that weaken them, such as osteoporosis. The nutrient contributes to healthy glands, muscles and nerves as well, and it affects blood clotting, the regularity of your heartbeat and breast milk production.
Classified as a trace mineral in addition to an essential nutrient, iodine occurs in smaller quantities in your body than calcium. The presence of iodine in two kinds of thyroid hormones helps your body derive energy from food. Called metabolism, this process affects normal development and growth, especially in unborn children and babies. Other functions of iodine include discouraging an enlarged thyroid, or goiter.
Sources
Dairy products such as milk, cheese and yogurt are the best natural source of calcium, especially in healthier reduced-fat and fat-free varieties. Their effectiveness stems from the type of calcium they contain, which the human body -- specifically the small intestine -- can absorb efficiently. Additional good dietary sources of calcium include almonds, salmon, sardines, fortified products like orange juice and green vegetables with leaves, such as bok choy, broccoli and turnip greens.
Dairy products provide iodine as well, although the richest source in most diets consists of iodized salt, a mixture of normal table salt and added iodine. Seaweed such as kelp actually contains about six times more iodine than iodized salt in a comparable serving, but fewer people eat it routinely. Certain seafood like cod and haddock supply the mineral also, as does cod liver oil.
Suggested Intake
Infants up to 12 months old should get about 200 to 260 mg of calcium and 110 to 130 mcg of iodine a day. Children ages 1 to 8 need approximately 700 to 1,000 mg of calcium and 90 mcg of iodine every day. The daily requirements increase to 1,300 mg of calcium for children ages 9 to 18 and 120 mcg of iodine for those ages 9 to 13. Adults should consume at least 1,000 mg of calcium per day, and people age 14 or older should consume about 150 mcg of iodine a day.
Deficiency Considerations
Individuals of all ages can suffer serious consequences if their diet contains inadequate calcium or iodine for a prolonged amount of time. Symptoms of calcium deficiency include softening bones, or osteomalacia, in young people and decreased bone mass, or osteoporosis, in adults. An iodine deficiency can cause complications ranging from insufficient physical growth to retardation in children and a goiter to hypothyroidism in adults.
Member Comments