“Whatever the
nutritional potential of a food, its contribution is non-existent if it does not
pass the test of absorption. Those
nutrients that have not been transferred through the intestinal mucosal cell to
enter the circulation have, for all nutritional intent and purpose, never been
eaten. The variety of nutrients from the
organism’s environment that have been made available by absorption must be
transported through the circulatory system to the aqueous microenvironment of
the cells. There they serve their ultimate
purpose: participation in the metabolic
activities in the cells on which the life of the total organism depends.”
Ruth L. Pike and Myrtle
L. Brown
Nutrition: An Integrated
Approach
John Wiley &
Sons 1984 p 283
Minerals that depend on adequate stomach
acid to enhance intraluminal absorption in the small intestines:
Chromium
Copper
Iron
Magnesium
Manganese
Molybdenum
Selenium (selenite form is not pH
dependent)
Zinc
“Insofar as minerals in the diet are often bound to proteins, complexed
with organic molecules in food, or otherwise embedded in the matrix of
foodstuffs, the mechanic processes of mastication, dissolution, dispersion, and
often digestion are important preparative steps to absorption. Moreover, at the conclusion of the
aforementioned reductive processes, minerals generally emerge in the intestinal
lumen as charged ions, eg, Fe++, Zn++, PO4-,
SeO3-.”
I.H. Rosenberg and N.W.
Solomons
Absorption and Malabsorption of Mineral Nutrients
Alan R. Liss 1984 p2
Excessive alkalinization later in
the small intestines reduces the solubility of certain minerals and impedes their
absorption.
