magnesium
The following is a summary of Dr. Carolyn Dean’s work on Magnesium along with some research by Dr. Morley Robbins. Carolyn Dean has written over 50 books and is considered one of world’s leading experts on Magnesium supplementation. My favorite book she has’s written on magnesium is called, “Magnesium, the missing link to total health.” If you don’t have time to read it, here’s a great summary to start learning about all the amazing benefits of magnesium.
Top Facts about Magnesium
• Magnesium is responsible for performing over 80% of the body’s known metabolic functions making it the most important nutrient in the body. If you are deficient in magnesium your body is operating without enough fuel and energy to do a proper job of just about every aspect of your body’s performance. Without Magnesium the body can’t function properly.
• Magnesium is as basic as food and water. Estimates reveal that because of soil depletion and modern day farming techniques, mineral content of vegetables has declined by as much as 80-90% in the last 100 years. Farmers no longer use mineral fertilizers because many of the chemicals used as herbicides and pesticides bind up minerals, especially magnesium. Supplementing has become crucial to stay healthy.
• Magnesium deficiency lowers the production of ATP (ATP is the process by which our cells make energy.). Without enough magnesium cells simply do non’t work.
• Magnesium is God’s natural “chill pill.” Magnesium provides us with “calm energy.”
There i’s an inverse relationship between cortisol and magnesium. Stress depletes magnesium stores and when magnesium is depleted more and more stress hormones are depleted. The body doesn’t differentiate between “kinds” of stressors. Environmental, physical, emotional, EMFs, nutritional deficiencies…. All stress depletes magnesium.
• More than 90 percent of people are magnesium deficient. At the turn of the century dietary magnesium was about 500 mg/day now it’s between 175-225 mg/day.
• Magnesium deficiency is a major factor in 68+ conditions (including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, migraines, IBS… further the drugs that “treat” these conditions deplete more magnesium making symptoms worse).
• Calcium depletes Magnesium and causes premature aging. Too much calcium will push magnesium out of the way creating magnesium deficiency and body-wide calcification conditions such as heart disease, kidney stones, gall stones, cataracts, hypertension and breast tissue calcification. Body-wide calcification is a huge factor in aging and chronic disease.
Here’s how magnesium protection works. Magnesium keeps calcium dissolving in the right places. This is a dynamic you want to happen in our bloodstream, heart, brain, kidneys and other tissues—except your bones. You want calcium to dissolve in your blood stream and be directed to your bones and teeth, not rather than precipitate out into soft tissues as calcium crystals. Magnesium dissolves calcification and along with Vitamin K2 directs calcium to your bones and teeth. If you don’t have enough magnesium to keep calcium dissolved, you develop muscle spasms, fibromyalgia, calcified arteries, and dental cavities. Calcium deposited throughout the bladder can make it rigid leading to frequent urination.
Magnesium controls calcium channels allowing only a certain amount of calcium to enter the cells. If magnesium is deficient, calcium floods into the blood vessels causing spasms and constricted blood vessels in turn causing high blood pressure and other heart problems. There is 10,000 times more magnesium in a healthy cell than calcium. It i’s no surprise that it’s the calcium supplementation without sufficient magnesium supplementation that’s increasingis what is increasing heart disease. Calcium build-up in the cell membrane damages the cell. Calcium overload is one of the main reasons for body-wide inflammation.
On the flip side, magnesium opens the cells to calcium to create muscle activity and nerve firing. In the right balance and amounts they work together perfectly.
Most doctors are trained to add calcium when individuals are diagnosed with osteoporosis. But thiThiss actually causes MORE calcification. Bones are notn’t just made of calcium. The two major nutrients people need are magnesium and K2 because again these direct calcium to the bones and teeth. Sixty percent of the magnesium in the body is located in our bones. Magnesium is what is’s most needed in bone loss.
• Magnesium is one the most anti-inflammatory nutrients in existence. Ironically most of the anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids bind up magnesium ultimately creating more inflammation. High Calcium diets (many foods and water are fortified with calcium) lead to escalating amounts of unabsorbed calcium.
• Research shows that ancient diets contained a 1:1 ratio of calcium to magnesium compared to a ration of 5:1 to 15:1 in present-day diets. With an average standard American diet of 10:1 calcium to magnesium, it’s no wonder we have a widespread magnesium deficiency.
• Magnesium is vital for a healthy microbiome. The gut is the most important part of the immune system. The second major cause of chronic disease is yeast overgrowth. If you have yeast overgrowth in your gut or leaky gut you won’t make enough serotonin. Magnesium helps make serotonin.
Supplementing more picometer magnesium clears yeast overgrowth. Yeast overgrowth can release up to 78 different toxins which can invade every organ and tissue in the body. (Eating fermented foods and taking a quality probiotic also help lessen candida overgrowth).
• Magnesium is needed for healthy skin. Magnesium has hydrating properties; magnesium deficiency causes dull, dry skin or brittle, dry bones.
• People with magnesium deficiency symptoms are often misdiagnosed and treated with drugs leading to further magnesium deficiency. Every drug people take depletes magnesium because of the body’s efforts to detoxify from the drugs.
Magnesium deficiency causes:
• Diabetes. Insulin resistance is synonymous with magnesium deficiency. Adrenals help regulate blood sugar. The adrenals require magnesium to produce adrenaline.
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Heart Disease
• Neck and upper back pain
• Lower back pain
• Charley horse leg cramps
• Headaches
• Insomnia
• Heart palpitations
• Low energy: if you’re lacking energy, you’re lacking magnesium.
• Anxiety and panic attacks. Magnesium supports the adrenal glands which are overworked by stress. Serotonin the “feel good” hormone depends on magnesium for its production and function. Lack of magnesium is linked to sleep disorders which in turn increases anxiety.
• Asthma. The smooth muscle of the bronchial tubes go into spasms when they are magnesium deficient. Magnesium is an antihistamine.
Benefits of Magnesium:
• Lessens cravings. Once people’s cells become saturated with magnesium, they no longer “crave” coffee, sugar, alcohol, and carbohydrates.
• Cellular health. There are 100 trillion cells in our body and magnesium is vital to cell health. You’re only as healthy as your cell. To get well you have to treat the cell! Supports Glutathione. Glutathione is a natural antioxidant that acts to detoxify chemicals and is produced in the cells. It’s job is to detoxify the body. Cells grown in magnesium-deficient conditions have lower glutathione.
• Helps keep minerals in balance. Experts consider magnesium the “conductor of the body’s mineral orchestra.”
• Heart health. Magnesium keeps calcium flowing into the bones and teeth.
• Heals the microbiome/gut health. There is a competition in the small intestine for the absorption of heavy metals or minerals. If there is plenty of magnesium present, the toxic heavy metals like aluminum won’t be absorbed.
• Improves skin
• Relaxes body
• Helps keep muscles healthy. Regulates the amount of calcium that enter each cell which prevents cramping, tightness, spasms, and soreness.
• Increases energy and overall immune system
• Helps regulate sodium, potassium and calcium
• Helps regulate the central nervous system
• Prevents blood clots. Magnesium is not a blood-thinning drug. Instead it prevents calcium buildup in the blood which triggers clots.
• Prevents bowel disease. Helps with constipation and IBS.
• Acts as an overall anti-inflammatory. All disease is rooted in inflammation. Having ample amounts of magnesium prevents and counters inflammation in the body.
• Helps with cholesterol. Magnesium is necessary for the activity of the enzyme that lowers LDL cholesterol and TGL and raises HDL. Magnesium is a natural statin.
• Helps with Cystitis (Bladder Infection). Magnesium deficiency causes bladder spasms that cause frequent urination that is often misinterpreted as a bladder infection. And magnesium deficiency can cause calcium to build up in the lining of the bladder and urethra causing irritation that mimics cystitis and incontinence.
• Helps depression.
• Helps detox heavy metals. Magnesium is crucial for the removal of toxic substances and heavy metals. It helps with detoxification systems in the liver. As magnesium enters the cells, it stimulates the cellular detoxification and dumps toxins and heavy metals from the cells into the lymphatic system and blood stream.
• Headaches. Magnesium helps relax the muscle tension and spasms causing headaches.
• Improves sleep! It relaxes restless, twitchy muscles that keep you from falling into deep sleep. Binds to GABA and increases its effects. GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter of the central nervous system. Sufficient magnesium keeps the sleep-regulating melatonin pathways working properly. Magnesium reduces the heart rate response to sympathetic nervous system which helps your body stay in parasympathetic state.
• Helps with diabetes. Magnesium is necessary to make and secrete insulin. Magnesium facilitates carbohydrate metabolism. Seven of ten enzymes needed to metabolize glucose are magnesium-dependent.
• Prevents kidney stones which are linked to calcification.
• Seizures and convulsions. Excess calcium in damaged cells can cause brain cells altered by trauma chemicals or severe stress to be permanently turned on. Repeated firing in nerve cells can result in seizures. Magnesium keeps calcium in check preventing seizures.
• Helps prevent premature labor.
• Protects brain cells against damaging effects of heavy metals. Heavy metals compete with magnesium to enter the brain cells; saturated magnesium levels keep heavy metals from crossing the blood brain barrier.
• Helps prevent Parkinson’s Disease. Dopamine deficiency results in Parkinson’s Disease and magnesium is a cofactor in the production of dopamine.
• Helps sports injuries. Magnesium helps alleviate pain, inflammation, muscle tension, scarring etc.
Supplying the body with highly absorbable nutrients sets the stage for healing on all levels. Taking picometer magnesium increases ATP energy production, calms the gramophone of thoughts in the brain, relaxes muscles to allow deeper sleep and acts as anti-inflammatory decreasing pain. With more energy, deeper sleep and less pain you are well on your way to better health.
What kind of magnesium should I take?
The right kind of magnesium is vital. Do not use magnesium oxide (or magnesium citrate) This kind is a serious laxative; it’s only 4% absorbed which means 96% flushes through the colon pulling in all the water it can causing diarrhea. No surprise a magnesium oxide company donated truckloads of money to magnesium researchers to make this the forerunner for magnesium supplementation.
The wrong kind of magnesium causes the laxative problem. Even if a doctor or functional practitioner recognizes a magnesium deficiency they often prescribe the wrong kind of magnesium causing diarrhea. As a result, most of the magnesium-deficiency issues never get resolved because most brands on the market cause the laxative effect so before people get any relief, they quit taking the desperately needed magnesium. The result is — more chronic disease sets in.
Example: A study of 500 mg of magnesium oxide showed that this large amount contained 300 mg of elemental magnesium. Out of this only 4% of the magnesium in the magnesium oxide (only 12mg) was absorbed into the blood stream, not even into the cells.
You want to use a picometer-sized, stabilized, magnesium ion formula. It’s small size allows it to be absorbed higher in the GI tract avoiding the laxative effect. This kind causes the magnesium to be absorbed at the cellular level which is where you need your magnesium—at the cellular level. Health and healing take place at the cellular level. Remember you’re only as healthy as your cells.
Fail-Safe for magnesium is that when you ARE taking the right kind and you get too much the right kind of laxative effect kicks in and the excess is lost in the urine and the stool.
If you are needing a higher dosage to saturate your cells, be sure to start with150-300 mg of Picometer Magnesium called ReMAG from RNARESET.com. This base allows for best results. You can add some of the following to get extra magnesium if you don’t want to only take liquid magnesium.
Jigsaw MagSRT (B-Free) time release tablets, 500 mg of magnesium malate
Organic 3, Inc Goodnight Maggie
Doctor’s Best Magnesium (Bisglycinate)
Magnesium L-Threonate from Dr. Mercola
What dosage should I take?
Don’t we get enough in our diet? No, because the soil and water is so depleted of minerals and magnesium that we can no longer get even close to enough magnesium without supplementing.
If you have a magnesium deficiency, it’s good to saturate your cells with magnesium for a while to build the deficiency back to normal levels. Many people take 1200 mg of picometer magnesium for 6-12 months and then drop to 450- 600 mg a day for maintenance. Adding picometer potassium helps keep these minerals in balance as well.
If you are magnesium deficient like 90 percent of people, you will want to work your way up to 1200 mg a day, ie don’t take too much the first day.
Put some of the liquid magnesium in a liter of sea-salted water (adding a ¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt to your water gives you the other minerals needed for the overall benefits). Sea Salt contains upwards of 72 minerals which can help replace the minerals lacking in our drinking water and food. Sip throughout the day; do not take it all at once as this could cause a laxative effect because the cells become overloaded too fast. Also you can add some whole food vitamin C powder to alleviate magnesium taste if this bothers you.
Interesting studies:
In one study in the 1930s cattle and goats reacted the following way to magnesium-depleted soil. When animals ate magnesium-deficient grass, they became irritable with staggers, tremors, and spasms. Most dramatically, animals fell down in convulsions when they were startled by sudden loud noises, or were frightened or excited.
Later high potassium became the fertilizer of choice. Why? Because it’s cheap, easily obtained, readily absorbed by plants and it makes them look green and healthy. However, potassium is SO easily absorbed that plants favor it above magnesium and calcium. Crops grown with excessive amounts of potassium potash have deficient magnesium and calcium. Potassium fertilizer prevents the absorption of magnesium.
Farmers should use a full spectrum of minerals in their fertilizer.