Minerals are tiny but essential nutrients that help your child’s body grow, develop, and stay healthy. Unlike vitamins, minerals aren’t made by the body, so we need to get them from food. Minerals help with all sorts of important things—like building strong bones and teeth, keeping the heart and muscles working properly, and helping the brain and nerves do their job. Some well-known ones include calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium and potassium.
You might be surprised to learn that the three most commonly deficient minerals in children are zinc, magnesium and iron.
What you need to know: Zinc
✔ Zinc is needed, along with B vitamins, for methylation. Zinc is essential for all cellular growth and repair, and thus found in all seeds, nuts, beans and lentils, as well as eggs, meat and fish, but nothing beats oysters. Zinc is one of the most essential minerals in pregnancy, along with iron, and babies and children, due to their rapid growth, need more.
✔ Bear in mind that the vegetarian sources of zinc, such as nuts and seeds, also contain phytates, which inhibit zinc’s absorption, so those on an exclusively plant-based diet might need more.
✔ The basic calculation for our zinc needs to support growth is 7.5mg a day. (An oyster gives 5.5mg.) But is that really the minimum? What’s the optimum? Many children fail to achieve 10mg.
✔ Researchers in North Dakota gave 200 schoolchildren in the 7th grade zinc supplements and found that those taking 20mg of zinc a day, as opposed to those taking 10mg (the RDA) or a placebo, had faster and more accurate memories and better attention spans within three months. 1
✔ Children with ADHD tend to have lower levels of zinc, chromium and magnesium. Some have low levels of copper, according to research in New Zealand.2
What you need to know: Magnesium
✔ Magnesium is richest in green vegetables, and also the green pumpkin seed. Blood is red because of iron. Plants are green because of magnesium. Our blood carries oxygen as haemoglobin within iron in its core. That’s why red meat is a rich source of iron. Plants capture oxygen in chlorophyll with magnesium at its core. That’s why green foods are rich in magnesium.
✔ Magnesium calms things down including children. Both their muscles and mind are calmed down as muscles need magnesium to relax as does the overactive mind. Sufficient magnesium is therefore associated with promoting good sleep in kids.
✔ A placebo-controlled trial giving ADHD children magnesium together with vitamin D for eight weeks showed a major reduction in emotional, conduct and peer problems and improved socialization compared with children given a placebo.3
Andrew’s story: a wonderful example of how effective magnesium can be in supporting restless, hyperactive children:
When he was three years old, Andrew’s sleep-deprived parents brought him to our Brain Bio Centre. He was hyperactive and seemed never to sleep. Not surprisingly, he was grumpy most of the time.
We recommended that his parents give him 65mg of magnesium daily in a pleasant-tasting powder added to a drink before bed. Two weeks later, his mum phoned to say that he was sleeping right through every night and had been transformed into a delightful child during the day too.
How to Implement Change
Today’s Challenges: 1. Give a serving of nuts, seeds or beans every day and two servings of greens within three servings of vegetables. 2. Check the multivitamin you give them includes at least 50mg of magnesium, as well as 10mg of zinc. You can give up to 300mg of magnesium if your child has problems sleeping or is hyperactive or suffers from muscle cramps.
💬 Encouragement for Parents: Balancing B vitamins with zinc and magnesium is a winning formula for your child’s brain health. Keep up the fantastic work!
📌 Next email: Why B vitamins and Omega-3 work together