Yes in many instances they do know how mineral function and interact. But I don't think they know everything, it is difficult to ascertain what one does not know.
A good Biochemistry text book will describe many of the chemical pathways and functions of many minerals in the body. Some that are present in very low amounts have only been researched when the technology (and funding) came along to measure them. Since Reganomics much less funding has been available for basic research so but there is still some going on. Zinc is a good example of a trace mineral we knew little about until we were able to measure the low amounts it is present in. Once the research was in all the major vitamin companies started adding it to their blends, many Zn supplements appeared and people started talking about Zn containing foods. Silicon is at that early stage right now. The trace minerals in general are the ones we know the least about. According to The Elements 3rd Ed by John Emsley, a standard reference normal amounts in the human body are 2 mg total (Blood 0.003 mg/dm3, Bone 0.01-0.44 ppm, Liver 0.005-0.25 ppm, Muscle 0.009-0.28 ppm) . It is distributed mainly in blood, bone, liver and muscle. Total dietary intake is 0.0014 to 0.08 mg per day. It is present in the Earth's crust 0.07 ppm. Native Silver occurs naturally as crystals, but more generally as compact masses. It is often obtained as a by-product in the refining of other metals such as copper. Garnet On Thu, 2004-04-08 at 17:33, Thora Rasmussen wrote: > Humans need minerals. Do scientists even know exactly how they work, what > they do, how they change? If not, it may be difficult for us to figure out > which part of the silver does the work, and where. > > > -- > The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. > > Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org > > To post, address your message to: [email protected] > Silver List archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html > > Address Off-Topic messages to: [email protected] > OT Archive: http://escribe.com/health/silverofftopiclist/index.html > > List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]> >
