Introduction:
Animal body contains about 3% minerals, which are constant constituents of animal tissues. These may be defined as those elements which remains mostly as ash when plant and animal tissues are burned. In animal body there are about 30-40 mineral elements which occur largely various parts of their body.
Calcium account for 3/4th of mineral elements in body (49% Ca, 27% P and 24% other elements. Most of the mineral material in the animal body is located in skeletal tissues (bones and teeth). Out of 30-40 mineral elements which are found in animal body, a large number of these are not essential for body processes.
Their presence in tissue may be purely adventitious (foreign), due to their ingestion with food, their imbibition in water, or their inhalation with air during respiration.
Essentiality of any mineral element is known from its metabolic role in animal body form the criteria mentioned below:
- It is present in all healthy tissues of all animals
- Its concentration from one animal to the next is fairly constant
- Its withdrawal from the body induces reproducibly the same structural and physiological abnormalities regardless of the species studied.
- Its addition either prevents or reverse these abnormalities.
- The abnormalities induced by deficiency are always accompanied by pertinent, specific biochemical changes; and
- These biochemical changes can be prevented or cured when the deficiencies are prevented or cured.