Macro and Micro Nutrients
↪ Human body requires food for smooth and proper function of life and to survive in different situations.↪ Nutrients are chemical substances required for the proper functioning of the body, includi...
Introduction
↪ Bioinorganic chemistry is an branch of chemistry that deals with the role of metal or compounds within biological and biochemical systems.
↪ Bioinorganic chemistry is a field that examines the roles of metals in biology.
↪ The scope of this branch, is amazingly a wide field as it explains the roles of different inorganic elements which are essential for life.
↪ It is important not only for chemists but also even for the biologists to understand the mechanisms of how biological system work.
⁕ It includes:
↪ The study of both natural phenomena such as the behavior of metalloproteins as well as artificially introduced metals (mix of biochemistry and inorganic chemistry).
↪ The study of naturally occurring inorganic elements in biochemical systems.
↪ The artificial introduction of metals into biological systems as probes to determine the function of biomolecules and as drugs to treat diseases.
↪ The investigation of inorganic elements in nutrition.
↪ The research on the toxicity of inorganic species ,etc.
Elements in Body
↪ It is interesting to know the content of the elements in a human body and the biological processes that the elements are performing in a healthy human body.
↪ If an average person weighing 70kg is considered, the elements that are present in the body are as follows:
| S.N. | Elements | weight (gm) |
| 1. | Calcium | 1050 |
| 2. | Potassium and Sodium | 105 + 13.5 |
| 3. | Magnesium | 35 |
| 4. | Iron + Zinc | 4.5 + 3.0 |
| 5. | Copper | 0.11 |
| 6. | Manganese | 0.02 |
| 7. | Cobalt | 1mg |
| Total weight | 11 |
| S.N. | Electrons | Weight (gm) |
| 1. | Oxygen | 45500 |
| 2. | Carbon | 12600 |
| 3. | Hydrogen | 7000 |
| 4. | Nitrogen | 2100 |
| 5. | Phosphorous | 700 |
| Total weight | 67900 |
↪ The rest of other metals that are essential for the biological processes does not exceed one gram.
↪ From above data, we can see that the human body possesses the metal content that is essential for the biological processes are just only near 2%.
↪ But the dependencies of human life on these essential elements are far more than this figure in our hand.
↪ The following table illustrates the elements according to their action in the biological processes.
| Essential | Traces | Non Essential | Toxic |
| Essential elements are absolutely for the continuation of life processes. | Traces elements are also important for the life process. Only their abundances are low. | Non essential elements are not essential for the life processes. If their abundance is zero, other elements serve similar function. | These elements are toxic in nature and give alteration on the natural functions of biological processes. |
| O, C, H, N, P, Na, K, Mg, Cl, Ca, S, etc. | I, Fe, Cu, Zn, Mn, Co, Mo, etc. | Al, Sr, Ba, Sn, etc. | As, Cd, Pb, Hg, etc. |
