Magnesium deficiency can be hard to recognise but it is important. Magnesium performs many important functions in the body. You need it for normal electrical activity in the nerves in the brain and the heart. It is involved in chemical reactions all over the body.
The recommended daily requirement for magnesium is up to 420 mg for men and 360 mg for women. Most people are getting much less than this. As a result, magnesium deficiency is quite common.
There are four different ways you can become magnesium deficient.
Magnesium deficiency from decreased intake
If you don’t eat enough magnesium in your diet, you may develop a deficiency. There are several ways this can happen:
- The soil has been depleted from years of over-farming and it contains fewer nutrients than it did before
- Eating a lot of processed food can also decrease your magnesium intake. Magnesium is one of the many nutrients stripped away when food is processed to make it more palatable and addictive.
Decreased absorption of magnesium
You may not absorb enough magnesium into the body even if you take enough in your diet.
- The acid in the stomach is needed to absorb magnesium into the blood. Anything that decreases stomach acid affects magnesium absorption. This include drugs like omeprazole used to treat peptic ulcers.
- Drinking a lot of carbonated, fizzy drinks and sodas can decrease magnesium absorption from the gut.
Increased demand for magnesium
Increased demand for magnesium can create a relative deficiency. If you’re using up a lot of magnesium, the supply cannot keep up with demand. You will not have enough for your body’s needs.
Several conditions can cause this. These include:
- stress – You use a lot more magnesium when under stress.
- sleep – When you don’t get enough sleep, your magnesium requirements increase.
- a high sugar diet – you need magnesium to convert sugar into energy. The more sugar you eat, the more magnesium you need.
Increased loss of magnesium
Another way to become deficient in magnesium is through increased loss of magnesium from the body. This loss takes place through the urine:
- drinking lots of coffee and tea increases the loss of magnesium in the urine.
- water pills, known as diuretics, stop the kidney from re-absorbing magnesium back into the blood. As a result, you lose more of it in the urine.
Common symptoms of magnesium deficiency
Symptoms of magnesium deficiency are a little bit vague and somewhat non-specific. These could be signs and symptoms of many different kinds of diseases that can occur in the body. They include:
- tiredness,
- being anxious and jumpy all the time,
- depression,
- difficulty falling asleep,
- difficulty staying asleep,
- leg cramps, particularly at night,
- palpitations and
- raised blood pressure
What does magnesium do?
Imagine you accidentally slam your finger in a door. Several things will happen:
- you will almost immediately feel pain,
- after a while, your finger will turn red,
- it will also feel hotter than the surrounding skin,
- it will swell up and
- you won’t be able to use it.
These are all signs of acute inflammation.
Now imagine this process is going on all around your body all the time but at very low levels. This is called low grade, chronic inflammation.
Many modern diseases are linked to chronic low-grade inflammation. Magnesium is anti-inflammatory – it calms down this inflammation.
Magnesium helps to relax blood vessels. This is very important in hypertension, where the blood vessels become narrowed.
Relaxation of blood vessels increases the blood flow to vital organs in the body. This helps them to function better because they get more nutrients and more oxygen.
Magnesium has a relaxing effect on the brain. It helps to relieve anxiety and helps with sleep.
Magnesium has a relaxing effect on the muscles. This can help with cramps, particularly leg cramps, which are common in magnesium deficiency.
Testing for magnesium deficiency
Most of the magnesium in the body is in the bones and inside the cells. Estimating the amount of magnesium in the body is not easy. Seeing as magnesium supplementation within the recommended daily allowance is relatively safe, one way to assess deficiency is to supplement with magnesium and see if existing signs and symptoms improve.
How do you increase magnesium levels in the body?
- Avoid processed, packaged food that has had all its nutrients stripped away. Eat more natural food rich in magnesium like sesame seeds, cashews, black beans, spinach, sunflower seeds, coconut milk and coconut water.
- Avoid drugs like omeprazole and avoid fizzy sodas and soft drinks.
- Manage your stress levels and make sure you get enough rest for sleep. This will help to reduce chronic inflammation and your magnesium requirements will go down.
- Limit the amount of tea and coffee that you drink each day.
Magnesium supplements
Supplementing with magnesium within the recommended daily allowance is safe for most people. As usual, you have to consult your doctor, especially if you have kidney disease.
There are many different types of magnesium supplements on the market. The magnesium has to be in a form that can be absorbed and used by the body.
A prime example is magnesium oxide. Magnesium oxide is one of the worst forms of magnesium to use for supplementation. It is one of the cheapest and most abundant forms of magnesium. Magnesium oxide passes right through the intestines, hardly any of it gets absorbed into the body. So if you’re trying to supplement with magnesium oxide, you are literally flushing your money down the toilet.
You are better off spending a little bit more money and getting the kind of magnesium that can actually be absorbed and subsequently used by your body. There are lots of different options, some of which are better for certain things than others.
The different types of magnesium supplements include magnesium citrate, magnesium glycinate, and magnesium threonate.
You can use magnesium chloride to make “magnesium oil”, which you apply to the skin.
A potential side effect of magnesium supplements is more frequent bowel movements which is worse with some forms than others.
My favourite forms of magnesium are magnesium glycinate and magnesium taurate. They are both very well absorbed. These forms of magnesium are great if you have problems with hypertension, abnormal heart rhythms and palpitations. They are easy on the bowels and don’t usually cause diarrhoea.
Have you used magnesium supplements before? Which is your favourite type? Let me know in the comments.