Prime Time Replay:
John Bogden, Ph.D.
on trace elements in nutrition and
the effect of metals in our diet and environment
MsgId: *breakthrough(1)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:18:39 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
Welcome to Breakthrough Medicine. Today John Bogden, Ph.D., of the department of preventive medicine and community health of the New Jersey Medical School, in Newark. It will be an in-studio interview.
MsgId: *breakthrough(2)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:19:21 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: Goodmorning.
MsgId: *breakthrough(3)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:20:49 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
Let's talk a little about metals. Just how toxic are they, and are there any that are beneficial?
MsgId: *breakthrough(4)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:22:14 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: All metals are toxic , even the 13 that are essential. Because if the dose of any of those 13 are too high, then they can have toxic effects. That's one of the most important things to learn. Even metals that are essential are toxic at higher doses.There are what we call four major electrolytes, four metals that are essential and are required in rather high amounts. Those are sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium. In addition, there are nine that are essential in small amounts, and we call these trace elements, or micronutrients.
MsgId: *breakthrough(6)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:24:21 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
Do we get any of these essential elements from the environment, without eating food?
MsgId: *breakthrough(7)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:26:14 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: Only in a limited way. We might inhale some of these, like manganese chromium, for example. They're present as very fine particles in air. The nine essential trace elements are iodine, iron, copper, zinc, manganese, molibdinum, selenium, chromium, and flouride. You get all of the nine from food. In addition, you may inhale very small amounts of some of them.
MsgId: *breakthrough(10)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:28:12 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
What happens when you don't get enough of them?
MsgId: *breakthrough(11)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:30:28 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: If we don't we can develop deficiencies which can result in very serious disease and even be fatal. With a severe deficiency of any of these, you can have serious problems. For instance, with iodine deficiency, especially if it occurs early in life, you can get reduced growth, you can develop a condition called goiter, which is an enlarged thyroid, and in addition, severe mental retardation, which is permanent. The mental retardation is called cretinism. Another example is in severe zinc deficiency, which occurs in a particular disease called acrodermatitis enteropathica. This congential disease is a failure of zinc to be absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract. If untreated it results in greatly compromised immune function, and usually death. With regard to selenium, there's a disease called Keshan disease that is a disease of the heart muscle, alias a cardiomyopathy, that was fairly widespread in China until it was recognized that the primary cause was selenium deficiency. And selenium administration prevents development of that disease.
MsgId: *breakthrough(14)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:35:55 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
What is the most prevalent deficiency in America, today?
MsgId: *breakthrough(15)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:38:31 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: The most prevalent deficiency in the United States is iron, which is also true world wide. In fact, if you take the two most prevalent, which are iron and iodine world wide, perhaps one third of the people in the world have a deficiency of both of those. With regard to iron deficiency, the major effect is the development of anemia.
MsgId: *breakthrough(16)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:39:28 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
With all the iron supplements available, and the iron added into food, why is the deficiency so prevalent?
MsgId: *breakthrough(17)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:42:00 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: Well, two reasons. One, that in spite of widespread food fortification of iron, some people still ingest inadequate amounts in their diets, and for women, monthly menstrual blood flow results in considerable iron loss because iron is present in hemoglobin, in the blood. So deficiency is much more common in premenopausal women than in men.
MsgId: *breakthrough(18)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:43:24 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
How do these deficiencies impact daily life? And what about deficiencies in the other trace elements? How do they impact?
MsgId: *breakthrough(19)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:45:26 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: Zinc deficiency during pregnancy can result in premature delivery and low birth weight. Inadequate zinc in the diet of a newborn can retard growth and development. In fact there are recent studies in the United States, done in Camden, N.J., and also in Alabama, that demonstrate these effects. Zinc deficiency was first identified in adolescent boys in the Middle East. In those studies done back in the 1960s the effects were greatly reduced growth and delayed sexual development, so that the teenage boys looked as if they were less than 10 years old, because of the severe retardation of growth and development.
MsgId: *breakthrough(21)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:47:51 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
Could they be treated in any way to cure these health problems?
MsgId: *breakthrough(22)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:50:05 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: With regard to zinc, providing adequate oral zinc can resolve the deficiencies that occurred in Middle Eastern adolescent boys. It also resolved the problems in the children with the disease acrodermatitis enteropathica. With regard to iodine in the development of mental retardation in children, once that develops it is too late,and providing sufficient iodine will not cure the disease.
MsgId: *breakthrough(24)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:51:23 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
How is it that the body has a great need for trace elements yet frequently can't get enough of them?
MsgId: *breakthrough(25)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:54:32 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
JDB: It can be explained by the process of evolution. Humans evolved eating foods that contained these trace elements, and thus developed a dependence on them. Whether you get them in your diet or not depends on your choices of foods and choosing foods that are inadequate in one or more trace elements can lead to deficiency. This is especially true in less developed countries where the diets in some countries tend to be very poor in iodine, iron and zinc, in particular.
MsgId: *breakthrough(26)
Date: Wed Nov 12 10:56:45 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.207.36
Animals instinctually seek the foods they need. Do people also seek trace elements.?
MsgId: *breakthrough(28)
Date: Wed Nov 12 12:03:03 EST 1997
From: moderator At: 152.163.197.242
JDB: There are somewhat instinctive human behaviors that people use in the face of deficiency. Women, in particular, who are iron deficient, have the tendency to ingest soil. And that may partially alleviate that deficiency. This has been well documented, in particular, in Southern Black women in the United States. But the habit of eating soil is actually very widespread. Wherever its been looked for its found.We had an interesting case of a New Jersey woman who had pica for soil. Pica is the habit of eating non-food items. In fact this is a very common habit. Because the ground is frozen in New Jersey in the winter, she would store up a supply of soil and keep it in her kitchen cabinet so she could have access to it in the winter. She was iron deficient, but she didn't recognize that the habit might have been related to her iron deficiency. Other commonly ingested items include paper, which is frequently ingested by children. Unfortunately paint chips are also frequently ingested by children, and this is a major cause of serious lead poisoning.
Its a fact that elements that are essential can be toxic when intakes are too high. As an example, severe zinc deficiency can be life threatening, but zinc intakes that are too high reduce the gastrointestinal absorption of copper, thereby causing copper deficiency. Copper deficiency can cause an anemia that is unresponsive to iron supplementation, because its not due to a lack of iron. If anemia develops from copper deficiency you can feel very tired and lethargic until its corrected.
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