PET AGE Magazine / November, 1985
SKIN PROBLEMS?
Mineral Supplements, May Be the Answer
By Dr. Al Plechner
MENTION
NUTRITION to most people and they automatically think of vitamins. However,
they really ignore the role of minerals. Minerals really deserve better.
After all, there are 96 times more minerals, by weight, in a body than
vitamins. There could be no life without them and any body cell lacking in a
single mineral cannot function properly.
Minerals
are present in soil, in water, and even in air, and help minute vitamins to
form enzymes. They help transport oxygen into the bloodstream. They are the
building materials of strong bones, tissue, teeth, nails and the hair coat.
Minerals
are present in the soil, in water and even in air. In minute amounts they
are absorbed from the soil by plants. Herbivorous animals eat plants and
drink the water and in this way obtain the bulk of their mineral nutrients.
Carnivores get their quota through the mineral content of the flesh they
eat, the water they drink and the sporadic greens they chew.
Much
more is known about vitamin requirements than about mineral needs. This is
true for both humans and animals. That’s because nutritional science only
recently has developed the technology with which to study minerals.
Veterinary science has determined that certain minerals are required for
animals. For cats, the vital minerals are calcium, phosphorus, sodium,
potassium, magnesium, iron copper and iodine. Chlorine, manganese, zinc,
sulfur, cobalt, selenium, molybdenum, fluorine, chromium, silicon and
perhaps tin, nickel and vanadium are also assumed to be essential. For dogs,
mineral needs include calcium, phosphorus, iron, copper, potassium,
magnesium, sodium, chlorine, iodine, manganese, zinc, selenium, and perhaps
molybdenum, fluorine, tin, silicon, cobalt, nickel, vanadium and chromium.
Such
minerals should be included in the minimum standards for the maintenance of
adequate health. If a product claims to be “ “complete and balanced”, the
suggested serving for an animal must meet all daily minimum requirements.
It is
important to keep the word “minimum” in mind at all times. The Required
Daily Amount suggestion and “complete and balanced” claims are nothing more
than minimal requirements. They are not optimal in any sense. We haven’t
evolved so far as food mavens to design the best possible food diet for our
animals. Look how poorly we do for our own nutritional needs! At any rate,
veterinary science is doing its best, but has a long way to go.
SUPPLEMENTS
In my
practice, I have used both vitamins and mineral supplementation as methods
for preventing skin problems and aiding
in therapeutic programs. By far my best success has been with the use
of minerals rather than vitamins.
Generally speaking, I do not find allergic skin conditions to be very
responsive to vitamins. In fact, I have found supplementation with B –
complex vitamins frequently causing the allergy to become worse because
yeast is used as the most common commercial sources of natural B vitamins,
and yeast is a leading allergen.
Using
minerals, I have experienced consistently good results. I believe this may
relate to inadequate mineral levels in commercial pet foods. A deficiency of
minerals has been involved in at least 10 % of all allergy cases I have
treated.
The pet
food industry might lack knowledge as to what constitutes good mineral
levels for daily animal needs. Also, depletion of minerals in the soil is a
problem. According to the 1981 Ford Foundation report on nutrition in
America, modern farming methods alone account for much lost nutritional
content of food.
“Through
intensive farming, poor crop management, increasing use of pesticides,
erosion and other abusive factors, the soil in which are crops are raised
has been seriously depleted of nutrients,” the report said.
Such
practices rob the food chain of naturally-occurring essential vitamins and
minerals. Thus the food you and your animal eat is “short- changed”.
Illness, from these deficiencies may be from subtle to catastrophic.
Over the
years, veterinarians have linked deficiency diseases with a wide number of
minerals. They include nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, potassium, magnesium,
sodium, iron, chlorine, copper, manganese, zinc, molybdenum, cobalt, iodine
and selenium.
Mineral
research is a dynamic, rapidly developing science. Sophisticated techniques
are being honed to probe the biological roll of so called “trace minerals”,
(micronutrients), present in infinitesimal amounts in the environment. These
include dozens of lesser-known minerals with such exotic names as yttrium,
niobium, ruthenium, tellurium, scandium, osmium, dysprosium, gadolinium and
praseodymium.
Any of
these unheralded elements could be a vital missing link in deficient soils
and may mean the difference good health or disease, even at one part per
million or less, which is the level at which these minerals need to be in
the food.
The
body’s immune system is a particularly complex network that relies on
optimal nutrition for good function. If all the ingredients are not present,
the system will not work as well. A shortage of minerals can affect the
body’s enzyme systems, that are responsible for countless numbers of
biochemical reactions. Allergy or allergy like conditions can occur when
either of these systems do not receive proper nutrition.
Mineral
deficiencies may be involved with many common disorders suffered by dogs and
cats. I did not reach this conclusion through sophisticated analysis or
electronic gadgetry but through the simple medium of supplementing the diets
of animals with a trace mineral formula containing all the micronutrients.
Based
upon observations involving
approximately 3700 dogs and 900 cats, I found the trace mineral compound
added to their food or water for over a six-month period, the skin and hair
coat of these animals showed the following;
1.
Darker, thicker hair
coat, with increased luster.
2.
Reduced itching and
scratching.
3.
Reduced flaky skin.
4.
In geriatric dogs and
cats, increased activity, weight gain and improved condition
5.
Animals with heavy flea
and fly infestations appear less attractive to insects after three weeks of
supplementation.
6.
Plus, improvement in
overall general health.
Supplementation with a multiple nutrient of this sort is clearly a “shot
gun” approach. Attempting to determine individual deficiencies is not within
the realm of a clinician (It is the reserve of the academic researcher).
Never the less, the trace mineral approach has been effective alone or in
conjunction with other dietary modifications. It also enhances standard
therapy while treating many conditions.
In dogs, mineral supplements have been helpful in controlling food
allergies, flea-allergy dermatitis, exocrine pancreatic deficiency(
digestive enzyme deficiencies), endocrine immune imbalances, chronic active
hepatitis and inhalant allergies.
In cats,
it has helped control milliary dermatitis, food allergies, flea allergy
dermatitis, chronic active hepatitis, leukemia and feline infectious
peritonitis.
In quite
a few cases, vitamin supplements, special diets and standard medication did
not work satisfactorily until I included TRACE MINERALS.
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