Rats treated with chromium supplements lived an average of two and a half years, one-third longer than their average life span. In humans, that would be equivalent to extending an average life span from seventy-five years to one hundred two years.

Selenium supplements can help protect you from cancer, heart disease, infectious viruses, and other signs of rapid aging.

Without enough magnesium in your diet, you're running higher than necessary risks of heart failure, heart attack, chronic high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and unstable blood sugar.

Even if you're eating a balanced diet, your body may not be getting enough of the vital minerals it needs. Today, we are bombarded with overprocessed, low-nutrient foods and polluted environments, which make it difficult for us to get the proper amount of vitamins and minerals from diet alone. USDA scientists have estimated that in order to get just 200 mcg of chromium (the amount that most anti-aging specialists recommend), you'd have to consume more than 12,000 calories a day from foods typical of the American diet.

Yet, it's not enough simply to start taking supplements. Some forms of mineral supplements are more difficult for your body to digest or absorb than others. And, like most substances in the body, minerals don't act alone. They engage in a complicated series of transactions with other minerals, vitamins, and hormones. In order to choose your supplements wisely, you need to know how each one works and how it interacts with the other nutrients you consume.

A study published in The Lancet reported that elderly people taking multivitamins with minerals had improved immune function and had 50 percent fewer sick days.