Why These Minerals are Foundational for Your Child’s Brain & Development

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. I’m Dr. Nicole, and today we’re talking about minerals and how important they are for your child’s brain and body function. There are lots of minerals, maybe you’ve heard of some of them. Things like iron, zinc, magnesium, there’s lots and lots, and they’ve been shown in the research to play critical roles in brain development, learning, mental health and behavior. But people don’t often recognize how important it is to understand and optimize these mineral levels, especially if you or your child are struggling with symptoms. To help us understand why minerals are important, why we tend to not get enough of them and what kinds of supplements and strategies can help, I’ve invited my friend Caroline Alan on the show today, let me tell you a bit about her. Caroline is a health survivor and co-founder and CEO of Beam Minerals. Coming from a career in the corporate world, Caroline found herself struggling physically, mentally and energetically. As a result of her journey back to health, Caroline has become devoted to educating people about the benefits of plant-based mineral supplementation. Caroline’s research into why minerals are important in human physiology and how they work in the body has taken her deep into microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, agricultural soil science, and the study of plant decomposition. In the process, she found ways to help others understand how mineral depletion affects the body, and how plant-based supplementation can support healing and optimal health. Caroline, it’s so wonderful to see you. Thank you for being with us today.

Caroline Alan

Thank you for having me, Nicole. It’s great to be here.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

So I gave a little teaser about your backstory in your bio, but I think this is a really important starting point because like so many of the guests on this show, there’s a personal part of your life journey that led you to be doing the work that you’re doing professionally today. So I’d love to have you just start by sharing a bit of that with us.

Caroline Alan

Yeah, I think it’s a great place to start as well. So I’ve had quite an interesting health journey in my life. I grew up, had an autoimmune issue. I had definite intense gluten intolerance. So it was long ago, people didn’t know that. I had major skin problems. I used to wake up in the morning with crusting eyes, and I had headaches all the time as a kid, I was really not a healthy child. And then I grew up and I was really into health and I did a lot of things trying to get healthy. I was vegetarian for a while, I tried all sorts of different things. And so I’ve spent probably well over $150,000 on my health trying to get well. I was also a woman in business, I worked in the corporate world, I managed really, really large projects. And at a certain point, I burned out of that and I really started looking at my health, and at that time, I had headaches almost every day. I had inflammation throughout my body, particularly in my mouth, I had really bad gingivitis and gum problems. And I had gone to three or four dentists, and some of them said “You just need to brush your teeth more”, things like that. And I had deep pockets, fives and sixes and really badly receding gums. I had really bad gut problems, when I quit being in the corporate world, I had already been gluten free for seven years. So I had really done a lot of work on my gut, but I couldn’t gain that homeostasis and that health. So I also had flatlined adrenals, completely flatlined, they’d been flatlined for three years and I had been working with different doctors trying to change that. And I also have low thyroid, which is a genetic condition in my family.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

So you were probably feeling really tired, low energy and motivation, mentally not all there and yeah, in a bad spot.

Caroline Alan

Really struggling, really struggling to even meet the day. So I started on this journey. My business partner is a man named Dan Howard, and Dan has been involved in creating supplements, etc. for many years. That’s a separate story. But he said, “Try these liquid minerals, these plant-based minerals”, and I started taking them. And about two months later, I went to my dentist to get my teeth cleaned, which I had to do three times a year because they were so sensitive and challenged. So when the dentist came in to look at my mouth, she was like, “Oh, my gosh, what has changed? The tissue is no longer red and inflamed. It looks pink and healthy. The pH in your mouth is completely different, what are you doing?” And I couldn’t even think of it because I was just taking this little cap of liquid every day. And I said, “I think it’s these minerals.” So she said, “Well, keep taking them. This is really great.” So then about two months after that, so about four months in, I went to my naturopath and I did my testing for my adrenals and different things that we did, and when I went into the office, she opened up her book and she turned around, she was like, “Oh my gosh, look at this.” And before that session, she had asked me to take hydrocortisone, and she was a naturopath. So you can imagine how intense my issue was if a naturopath wants you to take that, and I had said no, I don’t want to do that, I’m not getting on that merry go round. And so at that point, my adrenals were 1/3 of the way up. So there’s kind of a chart, and mine had been below the bottom. And now they were 1/3 of the way up and they had kind of this sawtooth pattern, which is what they’re supposed to have. So this was an incredible improvement. And she said, “What are you doing?” And I said, “Well, I think it’s these minerals.” So I’ll also add, over a period of time, now, I just went to my dentist a few weeks ago, and I have completely healthy tissue in my mouth. My pockets, when they measure them, it’s ones and twos. I have one place where I have a three. So incredible change. So as a result of this experience, I started going, how can this little cup of liquid make such a difference in my life and how I feel? I was a real, not a sugar addict like candy and things like that, but I was a fruit sugar addict. I would sit down and eat like a couple pounds of grapes. I craved it all the time. And I started opening up in the fridge and going, “I don’t want that. I want a vegetable”, I just started being interested in different things. The brain fog started to clear and different things started to happen. So that’s what happened, because of the experience in my body, I had to go and find out why.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I love it. I love how you were like, “Okay, I’ll do this.” And then it was sort of other people saying, “Wow, what are you doing?” You’re like, “I think it’s what’s in this little cup that I’m drinking.” That’s awesome. And I think there’s a lot of people listening who can relate either with their own stuff or with their kids, they’ve been to see all kinds of people, and you start to wonder, “Is anything working?” The problems are just continuing. So when you find something where you’re like, “Wow, I’m feeling different”, or “Wow, my provider is noticing changes”, you go, “Okay, I need to understand more about that.” And so that really is what led you then down the rabbit hole of understanding what it is about these minerals. And I’d love to have you share that. Let’s create a foundation for our listeners around what we’re talking about when we say minerals. What do we mean by minerals? And why do we care?

Caroline Alan

Yes, exactly. I want to frame it by saying when I started down this path, I knew very little, if nothing. And since then I have given myself college level courses in many different subjects. And when I learned this stuff, my mind blew up and I was like, “Why don’t we know this?” So I’m going to give you the results, the little pearls that showed up for me. So the first one, the way I like to start is: When you’re talking about minerals, you have to talk about cells because at a cellular level, that’s where minerals operate. So now I want you to think about your entire body. Do you realize that your entire body is made of cells? There is nothing in your body that is not made of cells. You have about 37 trillion cells in an adult human, and every single cell requires minerals to function. Not a “nice to have.” It requires a whole myriad of minerals, not just magnesium and calcium, potassium, but you need copper and molybdenum, and phosphorus and a whole myriad of minerals. And the way that it works, is inside your cell, you have a mitochondria, and the lifecycle of this mitochondria has all these stages. And at each stage of its lifecycle, it requires a specific mineral to complete that portion of its lifecycle, and it works as a cofactor with an amino acid. So let’s say it’s phosphorus, with an amino acid to create a part of your heart muscle. Okay? So this is happening 37 trillion times, 20 or 40 because that’s how many stages of a life cycle, I don’t even know that number, I should, in the mitochondria. Okay, so here’s the interesting thing. So what happens to a cell when those minerals are not available? And this was the second huge A-ha. So when your cells have all the minerals required, I use this number, which is 12. Each one of those 37 trillion cells can generate about 12 units of energy called ATPs when they have what they need. And guess how many they can generate if they don’t have them? Only one. So the way I like to help people imagine it is, you know when you pick up a barbell, and you start pumping your arm? At first you can do a lot, and then after a while it gets sore. And at a certain point, no more, it hurts. That’s those cells moving into what’s called this anaerobic function, where they can only generate one unit of energy. That’s why your arm gets tired. It’s really simple. So when you feel that crash in the middle of the afternoon, it’s literally your cells saying, “I don’t have enough available to keep all of these autonomic actions, all of this brain activity going. I need a rest.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

That’s such a powerful way to describe it. And I think when a lot of people, they think, “Oh, mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. I remember hearing about that back in high school biology”, or whatever. And we tend to think about energy as the physical energy. So I think it makes sense to people, like, “Okay, I feel physically tired if I don’t have enough of that.” But I think it’s important for us to spotlight that energy created from these mitochondria working properly is about a lot more than just physical fatigue. It’s about every part of our brain being able to function, being able to think, being able to regulate our emotions and behavior, being able to carry out all the biological processes. And I think that’s important because a lot of times parents will say to me, “Well, my kid’s not low energy. In fact, my kids are bouncing off the wall.” And it’s like, right, that’s how that shows up in kids. It’s not just that the end result is you feel physical fatigue. This energy production is about fueling every part of how we feel and function, right?

Caroline Alan

I like to help people think of it this way: How do you feel when midday, you’re tired, but you’re also wound up? I call it hangry. You’re a little irritated, you’re a little on the edge. You have very little bandwidth emotionally, so things shoot you off quickly, those kinds of things. So imagine 37 trillion cells, and they’re hangry. What happens in your nervous system? You get wound up. So here’s a kid that is bouncing off the walls. And I’m going to tell you for myself, one of the huge impacts that I have had from becoming more mineralized through learning how to replenish the minerals in my body, is that my entire nervous system has calmed down. I can listen now, I can actually be more present, I’m not as reactive, I have an ability to be able to respond in my life much more so than I did before. And I hear this from person, after person, after person. And actually, in my studies, when you look at depletion, mineral depletion and electrolyte depletion in particular, many of the symptoms of electrolyte depletion are depression, anxiety, this wound up feeling, this irritability, these are electrolyte depletion symptoms. And a lot of us are also drinking now filtered water, either distilled or RO, reverse osmosis, which takes all the militant minerals out, you see. So we need, even more now, to add minerals. The other hidden thing here is that our food supply is lacking minerals. And it’s lacking minerals because of modern production farming. And there are several reasons, one of them is because of the glyphosate that is used on our foods, which actually deplete minerals. That’s actually how they kill a plant, is they actually suck the minerals out of the plant. That’s how they kill a plant. And because now, with these Roundup Ready seeds, they can actually spray the glyphosate right on the food, and it won’t kill the particular agricultural plant, but it’s still getting into the food, and that’s getting into your body. That’s a whole other conversation.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I’m glad you raised the glyphosate, though, and what it does from a mineral standpoint. There was a really fascinating interview that I did, probably a year and a half ago now, so those of you listening, if you want to learn more about this, I highly recommend it. Go back and find the episode of the show that I did with Dr. Stephanie Seneff from MIT around glyphosate. Fascinating, terrifying, but also action-oriented in terms of here’s what we need to be aware of and do. And Caroline, I think you’re raising an important point here around why it is that so many of us in our kids are not getting minerals. Even people who are like, “Listen, we eat a healthy diet, we have a lot of plants in our diet”, which is not typical for the families that I see or for kids, but even the ones that say that, there’s still reasons why we don’t get what we need from our plants that were eating.

Caroline Alan

And that is the sad fact: You cannot get the minerals that you need from the food you eat. This is a well-known scientific fact, this is not just me saying it. I looked at a report just last week that was put out by the World Health Organization, and it says that in the US, 100% of the people have mineral depletion, and 75% of the people have some form of deep mineral depletion in one area or another. So now if you think about it, they also say that modern humans have only about 30-37% of the minerals in our bodies that we need. So there’s actually a term for it, they call it the hidden hunger. And guess what a hungry cell seeks? Sugar, glucose. So this is fueling—I’m reading study after study about the correlation between mineral depletion, glyphosate use, gut problems, and diabetes and sugar, the whole sugar addiction issue. So this is the interesting thing: When you give your children a mineral replenishment that isn’t a whole bunch of pills and powders that are really hard to take, but a really simple full-spectrum mineral replenishment solution, they calm down, they stop craving as much sugar and they start being able to follow, track things. It’s really, really cool.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

It’s so interesting, because typically in the realm of mental health, neurodevelopmental issues, stuff that we see in kids, the focus is on this psychiatric model of “Well, there’s a neurotransmitter deficiency, we need to resolve with medication”, or whatever. I’ve done lots of episodes on that topic. Most listeners know I’m not anti-medication, but I think it’s widely overused, and you’re getting at one of the issues why. Talking about neurotransmitters or just using pharmaceuticals, that’s way downstream. We need to back up and say, okay, even if we want to say that there’s neurotransmitter issues or whatever for kids with these problems, why? Let’s back up and look at a cellular level, what’s happening? What needs to be different there? What does this child’s brain and body need that it’s not getting? Because your kids don’t have a Ritalin deficiency, they don’t have a Prozac deficiency. Those things may help them in some way, but let’s back up even further and look at what they are getting, and you’re making a great case here that one of the things they aren’t getting on a cellular level is the minerals needed to allow them to function properly.

Caroline Alan

And really, what I hear you pointing to, which is so beautiful and it’s really what I have seen, is that the human body, and particularly young human bodies, naturally have the ability to gain and maintain homeostasis. That’s what your body is constantly doing, every minute of the day, every minute of the night. It has all sorts of phenomenal, miraculous processes, for cleaning, clearing, balancing, etc. It’s phenomenal. So now when you think about that body, and I’m going to go back to this thing, which is 37 trillion cells, every single cell, if you’re able to give them those mineral cofactors so that they can actually get a leg up, and all those autonomic processes can now be fueled, imagine what’s possible because of the issue with the neurotransmitters or whatever, the autism, these are symptoms. These are not causes. So I’m not saying that minerals are going to heal someone miraculously, although I have certainly had huge positive impacts, but what I’m saying is that at the very foundation of health — I had a great opportunity, maybe a few months ago to sit on a panel, and the panel was about longevity. There were about six different practitioners from different backgrounds. Some people had certain products that they were focusing on. And it was so interesting, by the end of the panel, as they would ask a question, and each person would speak up, each person kind of focused from their perspective, and then they said, “And of course, it’s the minerals.” So there was agreement by the end of the conversation that if you don’t have the minerals, nothing else works. Yeah, they drive the electrical system in your body, and that’s where we could geek out. We don’t need to. So this is what I say to people: Just imagine you only have about 30-37% of the minerals in your body you need. What if you just try to provide mineral replenishment in an effective manner, and just watch and see what happens? So that’s where I’d really love to go in and talk a little bit about replenishment because that is the next hugely empowering piece for people.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Absolutely. I think it’s really important. And one of the questions that is probably coming up for people is, “Okay, wow, Caroline, this makes a lot of sense. I’ve never understood it in this way.” I think probably people are wondering, “Okay, so is there a test for this? Do I need to do something to find out about this? Can I just move into trying something with it?” So let me have you speak into that, and then I do want to get into what we can do about this and how we can replenish this.

Caroline Alan

Yeah, so that’s always my first question. People say “How do I know if I’m deficient?” And I say “You are.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

You gave us the stats, right? 100% of us are depleted in some way.

Caroline Alan

Exactly. So there are tests you can do, and we could go into a whole bunch of things about testing. But what I want to say from an empowerment perspective is: You are deficient. And the first thing you want to do beyond finding out where you’re deficient, and now starting to take a whole bunch of pills and powders or whatever to try and fill that deficiency, that specific deep deficiency, let me explain how replenishment works in the body, because this is the key. So I’m going to start it by saying, I know that probably most of your listeners, and probably you have a cupboard at home, filled with pill bottles that you no longer take. And a lot of them are minerals. I know plenty of biohackers who take up to 70 pills a day. A friend of mine just said that his wife takes 65 pills a day or something. And I said, “Oh my gosh.” First of all, this is my thing: I hate taking pills. I’m not good at taking them, I really don’t like it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

For kids, that gets tough. I sometimes have families who come in, and they’ve been to see all these people, and their kids are on all these things. And I’m like, “We need to simplify that, you know you’re too far down the wrong rabbit hole if you’ve got all these things, you don’t even know what’s doing what, and you’re trying to get your kid to take all of this stuff everyday. That just doesn’t work. So I’m so glad you mentioned that, because we need to simplify it.

Caroline Alan

And it’s a fight. It’s just the wrong thing. So let me let me talk about this, this is the most exciting thing for me, okay? Because it’s incredibly empowering. So we tend to think about our body like a gas tank, or like a car, I mean you put gas in the gas tank, you put oil in the oil reservoir, or maybe some brake fluid, whatever, okay? But the body does not work like that at all. So there’s this buzzword, and I’m going to explain it because this is how we’re going to walk into this area. They call it bioavailability. Everybody’s looking for the most bioavailable zinc or the most bioavailable calcium or whatever it is. And I’m going to talk you through this. So bioavailability has three stages: The first is digestion. Most of us think we know about digestion, “I take something, and it gets digested.” But the fact is that unless something gets digested all the way down to its ionic chemical components, it cannot be absorbed in a healthy gut. In a leaky gut, it will and that’s not good. In a healthy gut, it will not get absorbed. It just goes straight through. So that is the first piece, most of the mineral supplements that you take in pills, powders, and even flavored drinks, they never get digested down to that. Only 10-12% of their content actually gets digested.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

And that’s assuming that someone has good digestion, right? I mean, most people have very compromised digestion.

Caroline Alan

Exactly. So they’re already not absorbing correctly. Exactly. So if you’re lucky, 10-12%. So that’s the first stage, only the first stage of bioavailability. The second stage is absorption. And I’m going to describe it. So inside your gut, the lining of your gut is these finger-like structures, and they’re called villi. And so and on the surface of these villi, are these epithelial cells, they’re completely covering, and on every cell are all these receptors, and the receptors are specific to specific elements. Can you believe that? I had no idea. So now, if let’s say, I take a pill of magnesium because someone said I have cramping, and I need magnesium, so I take magnesium, and it’s 320mg of magnesium, and only 10-12% of it actually ever gets digested down to the point where it could be absorbed by those little receptors, and I only have so many magnesium receptors. Now, the truth is I have a lot of magnesium receptors because that’s one we need a lot of, but you also have receptors for very important things like copper, molybdenum, phosphorus, chromium, zinc, and there are fewer of those, but when you take a large amount in milligrams of that particular mineral, it’s not necessarily going to ever hit those receptors because of the time that it takes for it to digest, if it ever gets digested. And what you’re actually doing and this is the thing that is that I’m calling it the dirty little secret of mineral supplementation in pill and powder form: What you’re actually doing is you’re creating an incredible imbalance in your gut. I was talking with a scientist friend of mine, and they said, “Think about how much energy your gut has to actually put out to eliminate all the excess magnesium or calcium or potassium when you drink that drink that’s got a whole bunch of stuff in it. You’re actually creating an imbalance.” So that’s the biggest thing. It has to be digested all the way down, and second, it has to be absorbed. The absorption process is very specific. It’s not just flooded with a whole bunch of this and it will all get in. No, it doesn’t work like that.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I think also to mention there, if you or your child has celiac or some other condition that impacts that lining, you automatically have a problem with absorption, then, because you don’t have the normal number of those villi, you don’t have those receptors, and that’s one of the big problems too for people with those kinds of conditions. So just another thing to be aware of there.

Caroline Alan

And the glyphosate issue only exemplifies this because it affects that whole system, the Cytochrome P450. We don’t have to geek out. So now we’re only through two stages of bioavailability. Remember, those minerals actually have to get inside your cells to do their work of being those cofactors for all those building blocks in life. So now you have some of the minerals in your bloodstream. Now they have to get into your cells. So the way that works is through this process called diffusion. The way I like to imagine it for people is, if you take a pinch of salt, you put it in a glass of water and you see the crystals on the bottom, you come back an hour later, you don’t see the crystals because it’s dissolved, and it’s completely spread out equally through the glass, and the whole glass tastes salty. That’s diffusion happening in the cells, in the water. So the problem that we’ve got is that we need more openings in the cell wall to happen so that more healthy things can come in and biowaste and toxins can come out of the cell. And those things are called flavonoids. You’ve heard of that term. Many people who have gotten into health have heard of this word, flavonoid. So what is a flavonoid? It’s what I call a cotransporter. The way I like to imagine it is a really easy thing. So everybody’s in a room right now. Imagine if your room had more windows and doors that were open, and you had a really big guy who could carry six people on his back and carry them out, and six people on his back and carry him in. That’s what a flavonoid is, they cotransport the things attached to them, and they carry them through the cell wall. So that is a really important piece of this bioavailability. So this is the thing, most of those pills and powders and things that you took and you never felt any differences, is because guess what? They weren’t making a difference. I’ve had this time and time again, people said, “Well, I took all these things and I went and did a test, and it was just the same before as it was after”, because those three stages of bioavailability were not all present.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

It’s got to get into the cells, and you just laid out for us the process where so many things can go wrong along the way and are going wrong for people. And I see that sometimes in kids who have been diagnosed with various types of deficiencies, they’re taking the stuff, and their labs stuff. It’s like we’ve got a bigger problem, we’ve got to back up here. You’re not breaking things down, they’re not getting to where they need to be. So just continuing to give more of the same thing isn’t going to help.

Caroline Alan

So now I’m going to take us back. Just think about your body and think about how well you digest rocks, shells, bones. We do digest salt well. We are actually freshwater beings, and if you’ve ever spent a lot of time in salt water and seen what happens to your skin, it’s actually an irritant too when you take lots of those Gatorade drinks. Those drinks that have lots of salts, or people who make do it yourself electrolyte drinks that are salt-based, it’s actually irritating to the bladder and kidney when you do that regularly over time. So now think about Mother Nature, and think about how minerals are delivered to all the trees and plants. And guess what they use? Plant-based minerals. These two substances, they’re called humic and fulvic. These are ubiquitous, everywhere on Earth. And they are the tools, Mother Nature’s technology for mineral replenishment. And guess what? Your body has evolved to metabolize plants very easily. And plant-based minerals don’t have any of those antigens or whatever those things are that people aren’t supposed to get in plants, because they’re already broken down. So imagine an entire rain forest that’s been slowly decomposed over millennia into a crystalline, incredibly mineral rich substance called humate. And Humate has these two components, fulvic and humic. And they have amazing capacities. When I started learning about this, I was like, “People need to know about this.” Because this is the answer, the solution is right there in front of us, and it’s incredibly easy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

It’s really helpful to think about it in this way. And so are you saying that the humic and the fulvic, are solutions to actually taking these things in a form that can get in ourselves?

Caroline Alan

Yes, without lots of pills, and powders and all of that, okay? And not only that, these substances carry all of the minerals that your body needs, all of the minerals that your body needs, okay? And there’s a whole bunch about minerals and how they work in the body that we don’t have to get into, but this is the main key. So if you’re taking zinc, and you’re taking chromium, and you’re taking selenium and you’re taking iodine, and you’re taking magnesium, you’re taking calcium, and you’re taking potassium, and you’re taking — I mean already, that’s seven. And we know that from what we’ve just talked about is that they’re not bioavailable, so only a very small amount is actually getting in. So what I like to talk about a little bit is how these capacities of the humic and fulvic because this is the heart of it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Yeah. Tell us because everyone’s wanting to know now. Tell us about this.

Caroline Alan

Yeah. So I’d like to talk about the fulvic first. The fulvic is a very, very small molecule. It’s much smaller than a cell, and it’s the flavonoid. It carries, as part of the molecule, 70+ minerals that your body is made of and needs.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Can I just pause there? I think this is something a lot of people don’t realize. They think about the main ones, the ones you and I have been listing off. And yet there are actually dozens and dozens of these trace minerals that play important roles in tiny amounts, that don’t get a lot of press, we don’t think about them, but we actually need them. And so I just think that’s an important point to make here. There’s a lot on our radar that we don’t even know the names of or think about, but our bodies actually need them.

Caroline Alan

It’s super important, and I like to call them micronutrients. So there are the big ones that we use a lot, and then there are the micronutrients, which maybe in 100 years they’ll have studied why we need some particular one in a very small amount. They’re starting. There used to be five, and now there’s 14, that they go, “Yeah, this really affects — we show a deficiency when somebody has this disease”, they show correlations. They don’t really know how it works, but they see correlations. Most people don’t take copper, as an example, but if you’re pregnant and you are gestating, you need copper because it’s extremely important for development of the brain in the baby, and children need it. So you need to make sure, but what, are you going to go figure out how to take a pill or whatever? That’s not going to work.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Well, and also I think the important thing there, you talk about copper, and zinc. What we see a lot in psychiatry is when those get out of balance, if you start supplementing with one and not having the right balance, you can cause problems. And so what you’re saying here is in the fulvic, this is as nature intended. This is automatically the proper balance of these things, right? And what can happen sometimes with targeted individual supplementation is we get way too high in one, and it gets out of balance. And so this is sort of a beautiful way of making sure that they’re all in the right balance to each other, right?

Caroline Alan

Well, in the way I think about it, again, I want to bring it back to nature because we are natural beings of this earth, right? And when you see in nature a place where there’s a huge bolus of a particular mineral, what do we call that? We call that a toxic site. So in nature, when you have too much of something in one place, like in your gut, we would consider that not a good thing. So it’s not so much that the plant-based minerals have exactly the right amounts, because this whole concept of having the right amount comes out of deficiency. We have to do a paradigm shift. So when you’re replenishing minerals in your body using trace minerals, they’re delivered in very, very micro amounts, extremely micro amounts, and you each day, replenish, you each day put in these ionic — meaning they’re already dissolved, ready for absorption, these liquid minerals. So now, they’re washing through your gut, and they’re being absorbed. So imagine that they’re just available now. So now you have all those villi and those epithelial cells and those receptor sites. And they’re going “Yeah, I need chromium. Oh, there it is!”, in a very micro, ionized amount that’s needed right then, you see. So think of it like making a really good soup or something. You’re wanting to put those things in on a regular basis, and keep replenishing all of them in very micro amounts the way nature works. And then what happens is now your body starts having all of that myriad of trace minerals available for all those cofactors, for all those autonomic and natural homeostasis-gaining processes, and suddenly, chronic issues naturally start to resolve. I will say that there are times, because of lots of issues, that people end up with a very deep deficiency in one specific area. And that’s another piece, and we could talk about that another day.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Well, you’re talking about the foundations, how we create the foundations of having enough of these foundational minerals and the levels of them to allow the processes to work. I think of that saying, that something’s necessary but not sufficient. What you’re saying is it’s required, it’s necessary for us to have the foundational levels of all these, depending on your issues or your kid’s issue, you may need some other things on top of it, but this is what creates the foundation for ourselves and all these processes to work. That’s how I’m thinking of it as you’re talking.

Caroline Alan

Exactly. Well, and the idea that we could manage and maintain some sort of balance in the incredibly complex, miraculous balance of systems in our body is really silly. So to think that I could figure out how much copper to take to balance that deficiency is actually ludicrous. The fact is your body actually knows. So if you can provide the myriad of minerals, because minerals, this is the other thing that’s so interesting to know, and we won’t get into it, it is very complex, minerals work in balanced pairs. They’re all connected. It’s a whole, a matrix. And, calcium, that’s why people take Cal-Mag. People have calcium magnesium, because that’s a balance. And there’s phosphorus and calcium, there are these different balances. But guess what? Your body actually knows how to balance. If you give the minerals in these trace amounts, rather than these large megadose formatted amounts, then your body’s trying to go “Okay, well, wait, I have to get rid of all this. No, no, now I need it. Now I’ve got to get rid of it”, now you’re constantly creating imbalance.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

So that’s really what you’ve done with BEAM Minerals, right? You’ve taken all of this science, and this is really what you’ve done with the minerals, which I’ve had the opportunity to try, and they’re awesome. I want you to explain a little bit about that, and then I want to talk about why I think they’re particularly good to use for kids.

Caroline Alan

Yeah, I will. And actually, I forgot that I only talked about the fulvic, the really small molecule. And I want to complete the picture for people because it’s really important. So the other piece of plant based mineral minerals is called humic. And it’s a very large molecule that hangs out in the bloodstream. I mean, relative to a cell, it’s large. And the way I like to describe it is that it’s like a Velcro ball. And it’s very sticky on the outside because it’s a strong electrolyte. That’s actually a technical term. And what it does is it binds with free radicals. It’s exponentially, thousands of times the strongest antioxidant that you can put in your system. Thousands of times different. It binds with biowaste in your body naturally, it just hangs out. I call it nature’s janitor because it’s constantly grabbing these things. And it also chelates heavy metals. And that is very important, considering all of the environmental toxins that we’re dealing with. So it chelates with heavy metals, binds with free radicals and biowaste. And at a certain point, it gets so heavy at a molecular weight, that it falls out of solution and it leaves your body through the normal channels. And this works on your house plants. The marijuana growers actually know quite well about this. When we’ve gone to shows, they come up and talk to me, and they’re the ones who explained to me how it works. It’s a whole interesting thing. So if you have your system flooded with these humic molecules, you have constant, gentle detoxification happening every day, all day, every day. And it helps bowel elimination issues, it helps people get regular.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Awesome, because so many of the kids that I see with symptoms, poor detoxification is a piece of that. And so this is really fascinating that we can support that by using the humic part of that, that’s amazing.

Caroline Alan

We’re working on a study with a chelation expert from China, and she wanted to do this study because she’s from China where they have major heavy metal issues, and just from taking our product for one month, she was able to move the dial on some of the heavy metals in her system, just from taking the minerals. So those are the main things. We’ve already talked about how hard it is to take a lot of pills, and it’s not effective. So what we’ve done at BEAM Minerals is we’ve taken this humic and fulvic, and we’ve actually separated them so that you can take a product that’s primarily fulvic, and that’s about energy production in your system because what it’s doing is it’s enhancing the nutrient uptake of everything you put in your mouth. So if you’re somebody who’s tired, or if you have issues with feeling like you’re actually getting the nutrition from the foods you eat, the fulvic is extremely important. Then, the humic, which we call our MICRO-BOOST, it’s the micronutrients supplement. It is the humic one. So that’s Mother Nature’s janitor. And so for anybody who already knows that they’re having toxicity issues, you would take that one. What we say is you actually take them together, and the reason that you take them together is that if you just take the fulvic, you’re actually allowing your cells now to finally get the toxins out of inside them. And for most of us, where the toxins really are is inside the cells. And most chelation programs actually only get it out of the bloodstream. So getting the heavy metals, toxins, biowaste out of ourselves, using that fulvic molecule is incredibly helpful. But now you want to get it out of your bloodstream, so you wouldn’t just want to take electrolytes, at least over a long period of time, sometimes I’ll say it’s a great way to just get started. Take electrolytes, because now you’re giving your system the energy to deal with stuff, then you would start introducing the MICRO-BOOST to provide that human component, to start detoxing and getting rid of all of that stuff. And also that the other beautiful thing about the MICRO-BOOST is it also has amino acids and B vitamins in those trace amounts, so it’s already ionized, immediately bioavailable B vitamins and amino acids.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Awesome. It’s really providing everything that the body needs to do what it needs to do, and what I think strikes me so much, I mean, aside from all the science and all the great stuff about this is people often say it’s so hard to get kids to follow these protocols because of the texture and the taste and whatever of things. I’d love for you to touch on that because people go, “Oh, my kid will never take it”, but they will do this.

Caroline Alan

And then what they do is they often create things that have flavors, and then the kids don’t like the flavors, right?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Or they add a bunch of sugar into the supplements, which then totally defeats the purpose.

Caroline Alan

Exactly. So to me, the biggest thing is when we go to a show and we put our, our samples out for people to taste, it invariably happens that the kids come by, and they kind of look and particularly in the dark, they look and then they drink it, and they kind of go, “Oh. It tastes like water.” And then invariably, they come back two or three times, and say, “Can I have another? Can I have another?” So we have so many parents who wind these cups up every morning, and the kids come by and they take their minerals. We have little kids who come out and say, “I want my minerals.” And this is the thing, I actually say I’m the best example because I hate taking supplements. I hate taking pills, and I really am not good at taking supplements that taste bad. I’ve done a lot of it in my life, lots of horrible tasting things, and I’m just done with it. And that’s one of the reasons that I felt that this was so successful, is because I actually took it. Imagine a supplement that you can give your kid, you could put it in their water bottle. Because it tastes like water, they will never even know they’re getting it. They won’t even notice it. The other thing is for parents. We hear a lot of stories of kids who are doing sports, and they’re coming off the field with cramps because they’re having major mineral depletion. Guess what? Particularly for sports, the electrolytes are put in water bottles, we’ve actually even done some tests with some sports teams. We said, “Okay, why don’t you just go to your tournament and just put electrolytes in all their water bottles. No cramps.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

It’s awesome. My daughter is a dancer, and we’ve run into that. The product is awesome. I have about 8 million other questions I want to ask. We may need to do a part two at some point, because this is fascinating. But I want to let people know where they can find them, because these are great options. I know there’s lots of people who are going to want to try them. So where can people go to learn more and to see what all you have available?

Caroline Alan

So we only sell on our own website, and that’s beamminerals.com. I think we’ve set you up so that if they use the code “drnicole”, they’ll get 20% off on the whole site.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Thank you for that. That’s awesome, Caroline, we appreciate that.

Caroline Alan

I want to say one last thing because I think it’s so important, because you did say that some people who listen to your show might be practitioners. We do work with practitioners, if anyone’s interested. I also do have lots of scientific studies that I’ve compiled into a document. If anyone’s interested, please have them contact me, and we can get that out to them. But what practitioners are telling me that work with me, is that many of my practitioners are now telling their patients and clients, “If you’re going to work with me, I want you to take these minerals”, because the clients that have the most intransigent problems start to really gain momentum and homeostasis, and they start going, “Wow, this is really working. I’m really feeling better”, because it’s so hard to get your patients to take minerals.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Yeah, awesome. Well, I know you’ll have practitioners interested because they are a part of the community here. And Caroline, this has been fascinating. I learned a lot. I know all of our listeners learned so much. Thank you for your passion around this, for all the research and all the time you’ve spent, and for creating such great products. We appreciate you, and I very much appreciate you spending the time with us today. Thank you.

Caroline Alan

I appreciate you and what you’re doing in the world. I can’t tell you how important it is. It’s such a time when what you were doing is greatly needed. Thank you.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Thank you so much. And thanks as always, to all of you for being here and for listening. We’ll catch you back here next time.