Feeling
tired, run-down, wiped out, knackered? Maybe you’re low in magnesium
Magnesium is an unsung hero. But why, when it is so
unbelievably important for so many functions in the human body?
One of the cynical answers to this question is this: magnesium
has no lobby. Unlike vitamin C, it has no citrus growers to tout its virtues;
unlike calcium, it doesn’t have herds of cattle farmers backing it. What’s
more, magnesium is just an “ordinary” ubiquitous mineral and therefore can’t be
patented, so there are no reps from pharma giants foisting glossy brochures on
doctors informing them of the wonders of magnesium.
One of the reasons why being low in magnesium affects
your energy levels is because magnesium is needed to manufacture adenosine
triphosphate (ATP), which is the fuel your body uses on a cellular level. It’s
quite simple, really: if you haven’t got enough magnesium in your system, you
won’t have much ATP available and you’ll be low in energy.
Magnesium is also important for thyroid function, so
if you have a magnesium deficiency, then your thyroid will be underpowered,
which, in turn, will affect your energy levels.
How do I find
out if I’m low in magnesium?
Here I’ll stick my neck out and tell you NOT to run to
your doctor to get a magnesium test done. Why? It is all the rage today for
doctors to run blood tests for every conceivable ailment, but these blood tests
are far from infallible and often give misleading results. Testing magnesium
levels by using blood tests is a case in point. If the information I have read
(see references below) is correct, then only 1% of your body’s magnesium is
found in your blood; most of it is in your bones and muscles. Therefore, trying
to ascertain if you have ‘enough’ magnesium in your system by measuring what is
in the blood is a bit like trying to extrapolate the size of the population of
the USA by using Rhode Island as an example.
Dr Carolyn Dean, author of “The Magnesium Miracle”,
recommends the following strategy: start taking magnesium and upping the
magnesium content of your water and food and see what happens! If you feel
better, if you notice that certain problems you had have gone, then you can
conclude that it could well have been the lack of magnesium that was causing
them! For nearly everybody, no harm can be done by taking magnesium supplements
or by increasing the amount of magnesium in your food and drinks (the exception
to this ‘rule’ is people with severe kidney disease whose bodies can’t get rid
of excess magnesium): your body will simply excrete what isn’t needed.
What kind of
magnesium should I take?
Here in Germany you can get magnesium supplements at
any drugstore, but, caveat emptor!!! As far as I have been able to tell, the
magnesium supplements at places like the “DM-Markt” are all, without exception,
made of magnesium oxide. This is extremely cheap and therefore popular with the
drugstore chains, who, presumably, make a nice profit on these products. The
standard dosage is 400mg and the label will tell you, I believe, that this
covers your daily requirements. Sadly, this is rubbish. This claim is based on the
premise that you will absorb every single milligramme of the product and that
your body will be able to use it all. This is not the case, particularly with
magnesium oxide. One statistic is often quoted in articles on magnesium you
might find on the internet: only 4% of magnesium oxide is absorbed. (By the
way, this claim is based – as far as I can tell – on one single study
which I found on pubmed). This statistic may seem very alarming, but, once
again, this is a rather absurd assertion. With magnesium, the body takes what it
needs and, particularly at a cellular level, tries to keep this level stable.
If somebody who is very low in magnesium uses magnesium oxide, they may well
absorb more than 4%, however, it seems that many people do not absorb it well. In
fact, in low-carb circles, its favourite use is as a laxative. If you are
constipated, then by all means buy some cheap magnesium oxide tablets, but if
you want to actually increase your body’s magnesium levels, there are better
products out there.
At pharmacies here in Germany, you will find slightly
superior products, most of which are made of magnesium citrate. These are
somewhat better absorbed, but also tend to work well as laxatives, too.
My experience was that magnesium oxide tablets had no
effect on eliminating my obvious signs of magnesium deficiency.
Once I had finally realized this, I bit the bullet and
started trying out more expensive kinds of magnesium. First of all, I tried
magnesium malate and magnesium taurate (very expensive and the tablets were so massive
that, even with a tall glass of water I’d find myself barely able to swallow
them). Neither of these worked very well, either, sadly.
I then tried chelated magnesium glycinate. (I even
still have records of that first purchase, made back in 2010). This has been
one of the best kinds of magnesium for me. The brand I use is made according to
the “Albion” method of chelation, which does seem to make a difference. I once
bought a different kind of magnesium glycinate that didn’t have the “Albion”
stamp on it from the UK and I had the feeling it didn’t work half so well as
the brand I had tried before.
This is the one I have used over the last few years:
I have just bought my first batch made by a different
company, which contains a somewhat higher dosage:
http://www.iherb.com/Bluebonnet-Nutrition-Chelated-Magnesium-90-Vcaps/14198
(If you decide to use iherb.com for your supplements, please use this code: AMA 168 and you'll get a $5 discount on your first order. It is my way of trying to get a small financial bonus from passing on my experiences.)
(If you decide to use iherb.com for your supplements, please use this code: AMA 168 and you'll get a $5 discount on your first order. It is my way of trying to get a small financial bonus from passing on my experiences.)
These seem to work well, too. I have noticed that I
had a stiff neck around 10am over the last couple of days. I have then taken
one of these capsules and the stiffness has then gone in an hour or so.
The next instalment on magnesium will be coming soon!
Nice work, Amanda!!
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