By Dr. Mercola
Magnesium is a crucially essential mineral for optimum well being, performing a big selection of organic capabilities, together with taking part in an essential function in bone well being. The truth is, of the 25 grams of magnesium present in a mean grownup, as much as 60 p.c of it’s present in your bones.1
A number of research have proven that larger magnesium consumption is related to a better bone mineral density in each women and men,2 and up to date analysis from Norway has even discovered an affiliation between magnesium in ingesting water and danger of hip fractures.
Magnesium Might Decrease Your Threat of Hip Fractures
Norway, just like the US, has a excessive fee of hip fractures, however the researchers famous that its incidence varies by area, with these residing in city areas extra prone to have hip fractures than these in rural locales. They steered this could possibly be on account of naturally various ranges of minerals like magnesium within the ingesting water, though this did not develop into the case.
What they did discover, nevertheless, was that whereas concentrations of magnesium (and calcium) in ingesting water had been typically low, there was an inverse affiliation between focus of magnesium and danger of hip fracture in each women and men.3 The researchers concluded:
“Magnesium in ingesting water might have a protecting function towards hip fractures.”
The discovering is critical contemplating how debilitating a hip fracture might be, particularly among the many aged. A damaged hip carries an amazing danger of issues and often requires extended specialised take care of restoration. It is estimated that 25 p.c of aged individuals struggling a hip fracture die as a direct end result.4
Magnesium Is Concerned in Bone Formation and Well being
It is estimated that 80 p.c of People are poor in magnesium, which may have a dramatic affect on bone well being. Magnesium influences actions of each osteoblasts (cells chargeable for bone formation) and osteoclasts (the cells that break down your bone).
Magnesium is assumed to play a task in stopping and preventing osteoporosis. Based on the Nationwide Workplace of Dietary Dietary supplements:5
“Magnesium additionally impacts the concentrations of each parathyroid hormone and the lively type of vitamin D, that are main regulators of bone homeostasis…
Analysis has discovered that girls with osteoporosis have decrease serum magnesium ranges than ladies with osteopenia and people who wouldn’t have osteoporosis or osteopenia. These and different findings point out that magnesium deficiency is perhaps a danger issue for osteoporosis.”
The truth is, one research discovered that postmenopausal ladies with osteoporosis had been capable of suppress bone turnover (which suggests bone loss decreased) simply by taking 290 mg/day of magnesium for 30 days.6
Your Calcium-Magnesium Ratio: Are You Taking Too A lot Calcium?
Over the previous 30 years, ladies have been informed to take supplemental calcium to keep away from osteoporosis. Many meals have additionally been fortified with further calcium to stop calcium deficiency among the many common inhabitants.
Regardless of such measures, osteoporosis has continued to climb, and this could possibly be, partially, due to an imbalanced calcium-magnesium ratio. Based on Carolyn Dean, a medical and naturopathic physician:
“I’ve heard statistics like a 700 p.c rise in osteoporosis in a 10-year interval, even whereas taking all this calcium. The parable that is been created about calcium is that we’d like twice as a lot calcium as we do magnesium. Many of the dietary supplements replicate this. We have got a scenario the place individuals are taking 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium and perhaps a couple of hundred milligrams of magnesium.
The two:1 ratio—that was a mistake; a mistaken translation from French researcher Jean Durlach, who stated by no means ever transcend two components calcium to 1 half magnesium in your meals, water, or complement consumption mixed.”
This was misinterpreted as which means a 2:1 ratio was an acceptable ratio, which it isn’t. A extra acceptable ratio of calcium to magnesium is 1:1. This will not solely pose a danger to your bones but additionally to your coronary heart. You probably have an excessive amount of calcium and never sufficient magnesium, your muscle groups will have a tendency to enter spasm.
So extreme quantities of calcium with out the counterbalance of magnesium can result in a coronary heart assault and sudden dying. Fairly merely, with inadequate quantities of magnesium, your coronary heart merely can’t operate correctly.
For Optimum Bone and Coronary heart Well being, You have Acquired to Stability Magnesium with Nutritional vitamins K2 and D
When balancing calcium and magnesium additionally remember that these should be balanced with nutritional vitamins K2 and D. These 4 vitamins carry out an intricate dance collectively, with one supporting the opposite. Lack of steadiness between these vitamins is why calcium dietary supplements have turn out to be related to elevated danger of coronary heart assaults and stroke, and why some individuals expertise vitamin D toxicity.
A part of the reason for these opposed unwanted side effects is that vitamin K2 retains calcium in its acceptable place. In case you’re K2 poor, added calcium could cause extra issues than it solves, by accumulating within the incorrect locations, like mushy tissue.
Equally, in the event you go for oral vitamin D, it’s essential to additionally devour it in your meals or take supplemental vitamin K2 and extra magnesium. Taking mega doses of vitamin D dietary supplements with out ample quantities of K2 and magnesium can result in vitamin D toxicity and magnesium deficiency signs, which embody inappropriate calcification that will harm your coronary heart.
Magnesium and vitamin K2 complement one another, as magnesium helps decrease blood strain, which is a crucial element of coronary heart illness. So, all in all, anytime you are taking any of the next: magnesium, calcium, vitamin D3, or vitamin K2, it’s essential to take all of the others into consideration as properly, since these all work synergistically with each other.
What Else Is Magnesium Good For?
It might be deceptive to easily classify magnesium as a mineral in your bones or your coronary heart. Researchers have now detected 3,751 magnesium-binding websites on human proteins, indicating that its function in human well being and illness might have been vastly underestimated.7 Magnesium can also be discovered in additional than 300 completely different enzymes in your physique and performs a task in your physique’s cleansing processes, making it essential for serving to to stop harm from environmental chemical substances, heavy metals, and different toxins. Even glutathione, your physique’s strongest antioxidant that has even been referred to as “the grasp antioxidant,” requires magnesium for its synthesis. Latest analysis additionally confirmed that larger intakes of dietary magnesium had been related to a decrease danger of colorectal tumors.8 Up to now greater than 100 well being advantages of magnesium have been recognized up to now, together with therapeutic advantages for:9
Fibromyalgia Atrial fibrillation Kind 2 diabetes Premenstrual syndrome Heart problems Migraine Growing old Mortality
Watching Out for Signs of Magnesium Deficiency
There is no lab check that provides you with a very correct studying of the magnesium standing in your tissues. Just one p.c of the magnesium in your physique is distributed in your blood, making a easy pattern of magnesium from a blood check extremely inaccurate. Some specialty labs do present an RBC magnesium check, which in all fairness correct, and different checks that your physician can use to guage your magnesium standing embody a 24-hour urine check or a sublingual epithelial check. Nonetheless, these can solely offer you an estimation of your ranges, and docs usually want to guage them along with the signs you exhibit.
In case you suspect you are not getting sufficient magnesium, you must maintain a watchful eye out for signs of deficiency. In case you eat a poor weight-reduction plan, together with one which’s largely processed meals, this might apply to you. Additional, if any of those situations beneath apply to you, you might wish to take further precautions to be sure you’re getting a ample quantity of magnesium in your weight-reduction plan, or, if wanted, from a magnesium complement, so as to keep away from magnesium deficiency.>
An unhealthy digestive system, which impairs your physique’s potential to soak up magnesium (Crohn’s illness, leaky intestine, and many others.) Alcoholism — as much as 60 p.c of alcoholics have low blood ranges of magnesium10 Unhealthy kidneys, which contribute to extreme lack of magnesium in urine Age — older adults usually tend to be magnesium poor as a result of absorption decreases with age and the aged are extra prone to take medicines that may intervene with absorption Diabetes, particularly if it is poorly managed, might result in elevated magnesium loss in urine Sure medicines — diuretics, antibiotics, and medicines used to deal with most cancers can all lead to magnesium deficiency
In her ebook, The Magnesium Miracle, Dr. Dean lists 100 components that may make it easier to resolve whether or not or not you is perhaps poor. Early indicators of magnesium deficiency to be careful for embody lack of urge for food, headache, nausea, fatigue, and weak spot. An ongoing magnesium deficiency can result in extra critical signs, together with:
Numbness and tingling Muscle contractions and cramps Seizures Character adjustments Irregular coronary heart rhythms Coronary spasms
What Are the Finest Dietary Sources of Magnesium?
Many individuals are low in magnesium. With a purpose to make sure you’re getting sufficient, you first should be positive you are consuming a assorted, whole-food weight-reduction plan just like the one described in my vitamin plan. Inexperienced leafy greens like spinach and Swiss chard are glorious sources of magnesium, as are some beans, nuts, and seeds, like almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds. Avocados are additionally a great supply. Juicing your greens is a wonderful possibility to make sure you’re getting sufficient of them in your weight-reduction plan.
One essential level to say, although, is that the degrees of magnesium in your meals are depending on the degrees of magnesium within the soil the place they’re grown. Natural meals might have extra magnesium, as most fertilizer used on typical farms depends closely on nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as a substitute of magnesium. One other one of many main advantages of getting your vitamins from a assorted whole-food weight-reduction plan is that you simply’re far much less prone to find yourself with an excessive amount of of 1 nutrient on the expense of others. Meals basically include all of the cofactors and wanted co-nutrients within the correct quantities for optimum well being, which takes out the guesswork. While you’re utilizing dietary supplements, it’s essential to turn out to be a bit savvier about how vitamins affect and synergistically have an effect on one another.
In case you are , one other means to enhance your magnesium standing is to take common Epsom salt baths or foot baths. Epsom salt is a magnesium sulfate that may be absorbed into your physique immediately by way of your pores and skin. Magnesium oil (from magnesium chloride) may also be used for topical utility and absorption.
The 8 Types of Magnesium Dietary supplements: What Kind Is Finest?
In case you go for a magnesium complement, remember that there are a number of completely different types of magnesium. The rationale for the big variety of magnesium dietary supplements available on the market is as a result of the magnesium should be sure to a different substance. There is no such factor as a 100% magnesium compound complement (besides pico-ionic magnesium). The substance utilized in any given complement compound can have an effect on the absorption and bioavailability of the magnesium, and will present barely completely different, or focused, well being advantages. Following is a common information that will help you kind by way of the eight completely different formulation you are prone to come throughout:
Magnesium glycinate is a chelated type of magnesium that tends to supply the best ranges of absorption and bioavailability and is often thought of preferrred for these who’re making an attempt to right a deficiency Magnesium threonate is a more moderen, rising kind of magnesium complement that seems promising, primarily on account of its superior potential to penetrate the mitochondrial membrane Magnesium chloride / magnesium lactate include solely 12 p.c magnesium, however has higher absorption than others, reminiscent of magnesium oxide, which accommodates 5 occasions extra magnesium Magnesium sulfate / magnesium hydroxide (milk of magnesia) are usually used as a laxative. Be conscious that it is easy to overdose on these, so ONLY take as directed Magnesium carbonate, which has antacid properties, accommodates 45 p.c magnesium Magnesium taurate accommodates a mix of magnesium and taurine, an amino acid. Collectively, they have an inclination to supply a chilled impact in your physique and thoughts Magnesium citrate is magnesium with citric acid, which has laxative properties Magnesium oxide is a non-chelated kind of magnesium, sure to negatively charged oxygen (oxide). It accommodates 60 p.c magnesium and has stool-softening properties
