The human body and the chemical elements
The human body and the chemical elements You are what you eat. But do you recall munching some molybdenum or snacking on selenium? Some 60 chemical elements are found in the body, but what all of them are doing there is still unknown. Roughly 96 percent of the mass of the human body is made up of just four elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, with a lot of that in the form of water. The remaining 4 percent is a sparse sampling of the periodic table of elements. Some of the more prominent representatives are called macro nutrients, whereas those appearing only at the level of parts per million or less are referred to as micronutrients. These nutrients perform various functions, including the building of bones and cell structures, regulating the body's pH, carrying charge, and driving chemical reactions. The FDA has set a reference daily intake for 12 minerals (calcium, iron, phosphorous, iodine, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, molybdenum