Many of the most common health complaints I hear from women are related to their mineral status. Both mineral deficiencies and excesses can lead to unwanted symptoms. If I had to choose the top ten most common mineral imbalances that I see that impact women’s health the most they would be the following:
Calcium is an important mineral that is most popularly known for its impact on bone health, but it’s also essential for muscle and nerve function, helps breakdown fat for energy, and carries ATP (our body’s main energy source) with magnesium to help our cells get energy. When calcium gets out of balance, whether that is high or low, it can cause problems in the body. When we don’t get adequate calcium in our diet we can experience calcium deficiencies, which can lead to bone loss, difficulty balancing blood sugar, histamine intolerance, allergies, and insomnia. If we are experiencing an excess of calcium, which is commonly see on hair mineral analysis, this can lead to calcification and cause heart problems, sluggish thyroid (too much calcium prevents thyroid hormone from doing its job), depression, fatigue, an muscle/joint pain. High calcium can be caused by supplements, certain medications, high dose vitamin D supplementation, excess copper/estrogen, chronic stress (especially big emotional stressors), low boron and magnesium, and impaired parathyroid can all lead to high calcium.
Calcium Sources
Dairy, cooked greens, sardines with bones, salmon, bone broth, egg shell powder, pearl powder
Magnesium is probably one of the most popular minerals. Most people know magnesium is good for them and many notice they feel better when they supplement with it. This is likely because magnesium is responsible for fueling over 3,000 enzymatic reactions in the body and helps us make ATP (with copper). It also helps support insulin sensitivity, improves bone mineral density (yes, we have a lot more than just calcium in our bones), and regulates blood pressure. Some signs of a magnesium deficiency are poor heart health, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, osteoporosis, PMS, inability to handle stress, vitamin D deficiency, and sluggish thyroid. When we have too much magnesium from supplements the main symptom you will see is diarrhea. I do find that there is a group of people that do not respond well to magnesium. This is those that have low sodium and potassium on a hair mineral test. Magnesium can further push down sodium and potassium, which is why I recommend waiting on oral magnesium supplementation unless you know your mineral status. Using a topical source like epsom salt or magnesium oil spray/lotion is fine for most. Magnesium is often depleted through stress. It’s one of the first minerals lost during the stress response. Magnesium is an intracellular mineral, meaning 99% of it is stored inside the cell. This is why serum magnesium levels on blood work are not accurate. You can do a magnesium RBC measurement, which is an accurate blood measurement but your doctor won’t automatically order this. They order serum typically, so you’d want to specify.
Magnesium Sources
Beans, lentils, cooked greens, salmon, dairy, avocado, cacao, coffee
Sodium is a mineral that once had a bad reputation of harming heart health, but now we know that we actually need sodium in order to regulate our blood pressure. We just need it to be in balance with other minerals like calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Sodium also balances out potassium, transports iodine into the thyroid (via the sodium iodide symporter), and is an essential component of stomach acid. Low sodium diets have also been shown to increase insulin resistance, so we know sodium is important for blood sugar balance as well. We can get depleted in sodium if we are not getting enough in our diet and have chronic stress. Sodium deficiency symptoms are low blood pressure, insulin resistance, cramping, and a sluggish thyroid. If we are looking at a hair mineral test, when we see high levels it’s a sign sodium is being used up and can correlate with high blood pressure and stress hormones.
Sodium Sources
Sea salt, mineral water, seaweed, kelp, dairy, fermented foods, adrenal cocktails, bone broth, carrots
Potassium is one of the most under appreciated minerals that I’ve seen help people the most when they intentionally focus on it. That’s likely because of how many systems of the body it impacts. Potassium helps us regulate blood pressure, so much so that deficient levels can contribute to high blood pressure. It is also important for supporting healthy blood sugar levels. It helps to get glucose inside the cell and when we don’t have enough we can struggle with insulin resistance. It’s also essential for supporting the uptake of thyroid hormone inside the cell. When calcium and potassium are both out of balance, it is considered cellular hypothyroidism. You may make enough thyroid hormone and have normal levels on your thyroid blood panel, but you can have difficulty getting those hormones inside the cell. This means you can still struggle with hypothyroid symptoms. If you’re interesting in learning more about supporting thyroid health, I have a very in-depth free training you can watch here. When it comes to testing potassium, like magnesium, most potassium is inside our cells since it is an intracellular mineral, which is why I prefer looking at a hair mineral test to see if a deficiency is present.
Potassium Sources
Potatoes, carrots, apricots, citrus, squash, beets, cooked greens, coconut water, mango, dairy, aloe vera juice, adrenal cocktails
If you’ve been in this community for a while you know I love talking about copper. Not only is it an important mineral, but it’s one where there is a lot of nuance. Let’s start off with what copper does in the body. Copper regulates iron status, improves lipid profile, maintains blood sugar balance, supports antioxidant defense, helps with energy production, collagen and soft tissue synthesis, thyroid function, immune system function, reproductive system, and kidney health. Where the nuance comes in is with what form copper is in in the body. We have both bioavailable copper, which is when copper is in a form that we can easily use it for all of those important functions I just listed. We also have a biounavailable form of copper, which is when it is not bound to a protein and then gets stored in the body. When we have excess biounavilable copper it can be inflammatory. How can we make sure we have bioavailable copper? Getting adequate vitamin A and vitamin C in the foods we eat is a big one. Also supporting our liver and adrenal health is another big area. There’s a lot more to this that I am going to cover in a deep dive copper podcast episode in a couple of weeks!
Copper Sources
Beef liver, citrus, chlorophyll, bee pollen, royal jelly, oysters, spirulina, cacao
Vitamin A rich foods: beef liver, kidney, fish, egg yolks, dairy
Zinc is another popular mineral that is well know for how it supports the immune system and acts as a powerful antioxidant in the body. Zinc is also important for bone health, wound healing, thyroid hormones (we need it to convert), making insulin the body to keep blood sugar balanced, brain development, sex hormone production (especially progesterone), making melatonin, which helps us sleep, DNA damage repair, and making glutathione, a powerful detox antioxidant. When we don’t have enough zinc this can show up as a sluggish thyroid, high blood sugar levels, osteoporosis, heart disease, mental impairment, and weak immunity. If we have too much zinc this can look like decreased HDL cholesterol (the beneficial cholesterol), reduced immunity (because it depletes copper, which is also important for our immune system), and altered iron metabolism (again, because it depletes copper and this is how we regulate iron). Unlike copper, zinc is not stored in the body, which is why it’s important to eat zinc rich foods on a regular basis. Zinc supplementation should be done with caution and a discussion with your doctor. Why? Because copper and zinc are antagonists. This means getting too much copper can deplete zinc levels and getting too much zinc can deplete copper. If you look at food sources of each mineral, they contain both because nature is smart. Some foods are higher than others though. For example, beef liver is very high in copper and has a lower amount of zinc and red meat and very high in zinc and has a lower amount of copper. This is why it’s important to get a variety of protein sources in.
Zinc Sources
Oysters, mollusks, clams, eggs, meat, beef, lamb, dairy, eggs
Similar to copper, there’s a lot of nuance with iron, but its importance is still widely known. Iron is essential for making red blood cells, which bring oxygen to our tissues. It also regulates oxidative stress (too much iron and hydrogen peroxide = inflammation), is important for electron transfer, and even helps with thyroid hormone production. When we don’t have enough iron we can struggle with fatigue and low energy because of how important iron is for thyroid hormone production and transporting oxygen to the tissues. When we have too much iron this can lead to heart disease, high cholesterol, inflammation, infection risk (pathogens and candida feed off iron), organ damage, and oxidative stress in the body. I like using a combination of hair mineral testing and blood work to look at iron status.
Iron Sources
Beef, beef liver, pork, oysters, clams, spinach (this is a non-heme source of iron, which means we absorb less iron. Pair it with a vitamin C rich food and it improves absorption)
Selenium is a lesser known mineral, but is important for many different functions in the body. A big one being thyroid hormone conversion. It helps take T4 (inactive thyroid hormone) and turn it into T3 (active thyroid hormone). This is the form that we use in the body for important things like storing glucose in the liver and producing sex hormones like progesterone. Selenium is also important for our immune system, protects the body against oxidative stress, prevents lipid peroxidation, and detoxifies heavy metals like mercury. When we have low levels of selenium it can impair thyroid function and lead to an accumulation of mercury, weak immunity, low glutathione levels, and high triglycerides/cholesterol. I often see high mercury levels on a hair mineral test when selenium levels are low. Too much selenium isn’t good either. It can lead to high blood sugar levels, insulin resistance, and nausea. This typically only happens if you are supplementing. I have also seen hair loss from too much selenium supplementation.
Selenium Sources
Oysters, clams, Brazil nuts, kidney, shrimp, salmon, beef, eggs, liver, beans
Iodine is another important mineral that I’ve talked about quite a bit in the past. We need iodine in order to make thyroid hormone. It’s also important for supporting metabolic health, mental development (especially in utero and postpartum through breastmilk), immune system function, and for maintaining healthy cholesterol levels. An iodine deficiency can look like hypothyroidism, low energy, osteoporosis, goiter, and high cholesterol or triglycerides. Too much iodine can contribute to higher autoimmune antibodies (it can also lower them–it really depends on the person and their stress), thyroiditis, and muscle wasting (if someone becomes hyperthyroid). There’s so much misinformation out there on iodine, especially for hyperthyroidism. If you want to nerd out more on iodine, I did a whole deep dive podcast episode you can listen to here.
Iodine Sources
Seaweed, kelp, nori, spirulina, salmon, fish, oysters, clams, milk, cheese, yogurt, iodized salt, eggs
Last but not least, let’s talk about boron. Boron is an important minerals for brain function, tumor suppression, antioxidant defense, vitamin D status (it improves the half life of vitamin D), testosterone and estrogen levels, elastase and collagen activity, and bone health. When we don’t have adequate boron levels this can look like a vitamin D deficiency, osteoarthritis, and inflammation. When we have too much (through supplementation) this can look like GI distress, kidney damage, goiter, and reduced iodine absorption. When looking at boron on a hair mineral test, low or high levels can indicate iron imbalance too since we need boron to regulate iron in the bones (hence the osteoarthritis that can be present if there is a deficiency). Boron also helps keep calcium and magnesium inside the cell to support bone health. If you want to learn more about boron, I did a deep dive podcast episode you can listen to here.
Boron Sources
legumes, beans, lentils, dried prunes, raisins, avocado, black currants, plums
I hope you enjoyed learning more about each of these minerals! I have a free mineral imbalance cheat sheet which you can download here.
It’s important to test and not guess when it comes to your mineral status. I prefer hair mineral testing (although blood work has its place, especially for iron status) and find that you can learn A LOT from just one test since it covers the last 3 months. I have a details Instagram post here that goes into what you can learn from a hair mineral test.
reminder: i’m currently taking on 1:1 clients. if you’d like to explore what it would be like to work together and if we are a good fit, fill out this form to get more details!
