In order to enable the magic of life, your cells require a full dose of macro, or “big,” minerals (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chloride, and sulfur), along with trace minerals (iron, manganese, copper, iodine, zinc, cobalt, and selenium) and ultratrace minerals.

What are trace minerals? Trace minerals are essential for your body to carry out its energy producing processes, but you need them in much smaller amounts than the big minerals. That doesn’t make them any less essential, though. Trace minerals act mainly as catalysts for enzymes so that you can make energy. Many of them have important antioxidant activity as well. As with the big minerals, both the amounts and the proportions matter, because many of them work together and too much of one of them may increase your need for another.