Boron is a dietary trace element found primarily in plants. Boron supplementation can markedly reduce urinary excretion of calcium and magnesium, and is a particularly important trace element for postmenopausal women. The bigger minerals receive most attention from the researchers, and to date very little research has been done on boron and little is known about the symptoms of boron deficiency.
Boron is a dietary trace element found primarily in plants. Boron supplementation can markedly reduce urinary excretion of calcium and magnesium, and is an important trace element for postmenopausal women.
The bigger minerals receive most attention from the researchers, and they have done to date very little research on boron and we know little about the symptoms of boron deficiency.
Increasing evidence suggests that boron is essential to human beings. Boron seems to assist in the proper absorption of calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus from foods, and slows the loss of these minerals through urination,” the centre admits, noting that preliminary research has linked high levels of boron consumption and lower incidence of osteoarthritis. In places where people consume 3 to 10 mg daily, the incidence of osteoarthritis is substantially lower than in places where people eat 1 mg or less a day. They have also found arthritic joints to contain less boron.
Experts believe that boron is not only essential for a correct magnesium and calcium metabolism, it is probably intimately involved in oestrogen and testosterone metabolism as well. There are a lot of reasons to suspect that a boron deficiency is involved in hyperthyroidism.
I can remember speaking with Dr. Peter Lester here in New Zealand a few years ago. We consider Peter an expert in animal and soil health and mentioned that about one in ten farms he visited in Hawke’s Bay had such marked boron deficiency in the soil that cattle were showing signs of leg fractures.
So, what was the secret? Lester used advanced, science- based systems focusing on the three key elements – soil, plant and animal nutrition. Q Labs Soils For Life
Farmers and horticulturists should know ordinary fertiliser only contain four of the sixteen elements that good soil requires. When we apply the same four chemicals to the soil year after year, those four elements become saturated, and none of the other twelve critical soil elements are monitored or replaced as needed.
Boron appears to work with magnesium and this may be one reason it benefits persons with hyperthyroidism or persons with thyroid disease who are experiencing low magnesium symptoms like rapid heart rate and muscle cramping. Boron both lessens the effects of a low magnesium diet but can amplify deficiency symptoms. These seem to be the typical characteristics of when one nutrient works with another. Boron thus seems essential for magnesium metabolism and administration of boron will lower magnesium levels because it is enabling more of the magnesium to be utilised.
Another interesting observation in this study is that fructose mimics a magnesium deficiency, which reminds me of the studies on copper deficiency which showed that the symptoms of copper-deficiency are worse if the animal is also consuming fructose. We have seen that “hypers” have increased symptoms after eating fruit, and this effect may be because of fructose increasing copper-deficiency symptoms. It would be very interesting to know how this fructose effect works perhaps not by increasing copper deficiency itself, but because it works like copper-deficiency in increasing the magnesium deficiency effects.
Actions of Boron include: