How soil health impacts physical health
Soils are also a major source of nutrients, and they act as natural filters to remove contaminants from water. However, soils may contain heavy metals, chemicals, or pathogens that have the potential to negatively impact human health.
A mere 11 elements constitute 99.9% of the atoms in the human body. These are typically divided into major and minor elements. The four major elements, H, O, C, and N, make up approximately 99% of the human body, and seven minor elements, Na, K, Ca, Mg, P, S, and Cl, make up another 0.9% of the body (Combs 2005). Approximately 18 additional elements — called trace elements — are considered essential in small amounts to maintain human life. However, human health experts do not universally agree on the exact number and identity of these trace elements. Out of the approximately 29 elements considered essential for human life, 18 are either essential or beneficial to plants and are obtained from soil, and most of the other elements can be taken up from the soil by plants (Brevik 2013a). The exceptions include H, O, and C, which plants obtain from air and water (Kirkby 2012). Therefore, soils that provide a healthy, nutrient-rich growth medium for plants will result in plant tissues that contain most of the elements required for human life when the plants are consumed (Combs 2005; Committee on Minerals and Toxic Substances in Diets and Water for Animals, National Research Council, 2005).1
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Footnotes
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Brevik, E. C. & Burgess, L. C. (2014) The Influence of Soils on Human Health. Nature Education Knowledge 5(12):1, https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-influence-of-soils-on-human-health-127878980/ ↩