Magnesium
Daily Value: 400 milligrams
Good Food Sources: Brown rice, avocados, spinach, haddock, oatmeal, baked potatoes, navy beans, lima beans, broccoli, yogurt, bananas
Imagine a product that not only may help prevent a heart attack but also may successfully ease premenstrual syndrome, high blood pressure, heart arrhythmia, asthma and kidney stones.
This single-source solution to some of our most vexing health problems doesn't come from the high-tech laboratory of some pharmaceutical company. It's magnesium. And the more studies researchers conduct, the more impressive this mineral looks.
"There's no question that magnesium is the most looked-at mineral in nutrition today," says Herbert C. Mansmann, Jr., M.D., professor of pediatrics and associate professor of medicine at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "The research papers on this topic are increasing exponentially."
Investigators may be breaking new ground, but magnesium has a long healing history. Epsom salts--first discovered in Epsom, England, and essentially made of magnesium sulfate--has long been the key ingredient of soothing hot foot soaks. Magnesium in this form has the ability to draw water from inflamed muscles and tissues.
Inside your body, magnesium serves several crucial roles, including helping to turn food into energy and helping to transmit electrical impulses across nerves and muscles. These impulses generate what's called neuromuscular contraction, literally causing your muscles to flex. Take away magnesium, and muscles--even the smooth muscles that routinely squeeze blood vessels--will cramp.
Magnesium is also vital for making sure that calcium is used properly. Too much calcium, however, can cause you to lose magnesium in your urine.
Prescription asthma drugs, diuretics (water pills), digitalis and other cardiovascular medications, alcohol and caffeine are notorious for removing magnesium from your body. People with diabetes who have high blood sugar lose a lot of magnesium in the urine. Even stress can remove magnesium from your system.
"It's very easy to not get enough into the system or to lose what's in there. And that's rarely recognized until someone has advanced magnesium deficiency, with a low blood level of magnesium," says Dr. Mansmann. But this much is known: Up to 40 percent of the American population gets less than 75 percent of the Daily Value of magnesium, says Dr. Mansmann. Just how many suffer needlessly from magnesium deficiencyrelated health problems is anyone's guess.
Symptoms of magnesium deficiency include nausea, muscle weakness, irritability and electrical changes in the heart muscle.
Using Magnesium Safely
Picking a magnesium supplement may not seem like a decision worthy of intense study. But select the wrong one, and you may find yourself in the bathroom more frequently. Dose for dose, magnesium gluconate causes one-third of the amount of diarrhea of magnesium oxide and one-half of the frequency of diarrhea of magnesium chloride, according to Dr. Mansmann.
Other benefits of magnesium gluconate: It can be taken on an empty stomach, while the other two forms can cause stomach upset in some people. Magnesium gluconate is absorbed more quickly than other forms. And you don't have to take quite as much, since the amount of magnesium per capsule that your body can use is higher.
As a general rule, you need about six milligrams of magnesium for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight. That means that if you weigh 150 pounds, you should be getting about 400 milligrams a day. If you develop diarrhea, simply take your magnesium in divided doses throughout the day, or reduce the dose by 20 to 25 percent until normal soft bowel movements return, says Dr. Mansmann.
If you have kidney or heart problems, always check with your doctor before taking supplemental magnesium.
