Boron: 3mg

1. Speeds up wound healing

Boron is great for speeding up and improving wound healing. A 1990 studythat is still widely cited today found that a 3 percent boric acid treatment on deep wounds reduced the overall healing time by two-thirds.

Since then we’ve seen that boron helps wounds through specific action on the most common enzymes in animal tissues – collagenase, alkaline phosphatase, and elastase. Similar to how boron activates the osteoblasts in the bones, it also activates fibroblasts of the skin and tissues.

2. Improves gum and teeth health

Boron helps keep your teeth and gums healthy through reducing inflammation and improving bone and tissue repair. There’s an interesting study that came out in 2013 that found boron would helps the tooth building cells in such a way it’s believed that boron could be used in bone and tooth tissue engineering. This is a long way off from becoming a reality but a fascinating possibility nonetheless. A healthy dose of boron could help to prevent gum disease naturally. 

3. Prevents vitamin D deficiency

First of all, you need to know that vitamin D is essential to your overall health. Vitamin D is so important I wrote a four part series on it. The fact that boron is so good at preventing vitamin D deficiency is worth discussing. And the way in which boron prevents vitamin D is fascinating. It actually increases the biological half life of vitamin D levels in your body. Meaning, it prolongs the amount of time vitamin D stays in your body in a useful form.

You may have noticed a theme when it comes to boron and other minerals and vitamins – it’s great at improving your natural absorption of many.

4. Reduces inflammation

Boron is effective at reducing certain inflammatory markers called cytokines – specifically, hs-CRP and TNF-α. These two cytokines have been associated with breast cancer, obesity, insulin resistance, lung cancer, heart disease, depression, and more.

In fact, because of its role in both reducing inflammation and activating healing cells of bones and joints, boron is considered an effective natural treatment for osteoarthritis.

5. Balances hormones

We’ve touched on this briefly, but boron’s influence over our hormones is worth a deeper look. Boron is important in both men and women. Studies indicate that boron supplements cause an increase in estradiol and testosterone.

Due to this, you’ll come across a lot of advice, especially in men’s health forums, recommending boron supplementation. This advice usually points out that boron does indeed boost testosterone levels. However, what these usually fail to mention is that boron also increases estrogen levels, which isn’t great for men in general. This is one nutrient I believe is best to mostly get from your diet and forgo supplementation unless you’re doing so under the supervision of a doctor.