The 91% of Human Biology That Has Not Been Studied.. Yet?

We’ve explored space, split atoms, and mapped genes — but not the 91% of what gives us life. Why modern science still studies only the visible tip of the biological iceberg.

For my mineral minions, this post also appears as Chapter 5 in the Table of Contents of “From Volcanoes to Vitality.”

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Encouragingly, interest is growing in the biology of trace elements not yet deemed “essential.” Journals, nutrition societies, and public-health groups—much like this book—are calling for rigorous studies, especially where population patterns or biochemical pathways implicate so-called “nonessential” minerals.

My central point is that the science around trace minerals, as well as enzymatic function, is still in its infancy. Paper after paper suggests this is a field with far more questions than answers, and a growing number of researchers are calling for deeper study into how diverse enzymes interact with trace elements, cells, and physiology.

How Little We Actually Know

The below review highlights how far we still have to go:

“Although the mechanisms of several hundred enzymes have been fully characterized experimentally and are well understood, they represent only a small fraction of the total number of enzymes found in nature… many of these enzymes are hypothetical or poorly understood (at best).”

Just how small is that “fraction” that has been “fully characterized?”

From the above study in Nature:

“The DAR (Disease and Reaction) database presently contains 1,496 human enzymes—representing only about 9% of the estimated total enzyme content of the human reference proteome.

We have only “fully characterized” nine percent of the enzymes/trace minerals that power human physiology? From the most recent version of a decades old standard reference textbook, Clinical Laboratory Diagnostics: