Harvard Medical School writes, “If you’re concerned about low magnesium, ask your doctor for a blood test. To maintain a healthy magnesium level, it’s best to get this mineral from food, especially high-fiber foods such as dark green leafy vegetables, unrefined grains, and beans. The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of magnesium for adults is 420 milligrams (mg) per day.”
If Harvard is a bit stupid about magnesium imagine the rest of the wonderful world of medicine. Sorry to have to use the word stupid, could have said ignorant, uninformed, foolish or just plain boneheaded. First thing to know about magnesium is that blood tests tell us almost nothing about a persons magnesium status because the blood will rob the cells blind of magnesium in a desperate attempt to keep blood levels stable so a person does not have a heart attack.
Harvard Medicals second line of advice suggests its best to get magnesium from food. Actually its best to get magnesium from water. With nutritional values of food deteriorating dramatically over the last five decades it is very difficult to eat enough dark leafy vegetables, unrefined grains and beans to get enough magnesium. And that advice is only appropriate for a completely healthy person who already has their magnesium tank topped off. If one is deficient, which the vast majority are, probably at least 90 percent if not more, then its impossible to eat one’s way out of a magnesium deficiency.
It does seem like they are teaching something other than medicine in medical schools. Magnesium is to humans as oil is to a properly functioning car. If you go to any gas station in the world they will know not only of the need for oil but where to put it. I wish doctors did not deserve for me to say this, but doctors are not as intelligent as gas station attendants, they almost know nothing about the need for magnesium and how best to get it into the body, especially when the need (magnesium deficiency) is great.
Magnesium ignorance (deficiency) causes a lot of pain and suffering. Since doctors will not address, in any kind of serious way, magnesium deficiencies its up to us to save ourselves. The first step in that is to stop listening to medical experts like Dr. Bruce Bistrian, chief of clinical nutrition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who says magnesium deficiency in otherwise healthy individuals eating a balanced diet is rare. “The kidney has an extraordinary ability to reduce magnesium loss in urine, and thus achieve magnesium balance on a wide variety of intakes,” he explains.
Looking at statistics in the United States tells us that otherwise healthy individuals hardly exist. Also rare are people who are eating a balanced diet of wholesome organic food, and even then, it is still difficult to get enough magnesium from one’s diet. A healthy kidney does have an extraordinary ability to reduce magnesium loss in urine but how many people have completely healthy kidneys when the kidneys themselves depend on full magnesium and bicarbonate sufficiency.
Harvard Medical continues: “Even with an adequate diet, some people are at increased risk of magnesium deficiency, including people with digestive disorders, such as celiac disease and chronic diarrhea. Also certain medicines (including some “water pills” and antibiotics) can lower blood magnesium levels. In these situations, magnesium supplements may be necessary, but taking too much can cause or worsen diarrhea. People with chronic kidney disease should not take supplements unless prescribed by their doctor.”
A more intelligent statement would be, “Even with an adequate diet, most people are at increased risk of magnesium deficiency.” And we should object to their warning about taking too much. The universe truth about magnesium, and what this essay is trying to illustrate, is that we are almost always taking too little.
Doctors at Harvard make fools of themselves saying, “Magnesium supplements are sometimes marketed as “super-pills” that can fix a long list of ailments such as muscle tension, low energy, and trouble sleeping in people with adequate total body magnesium. The evidence to support the claims just isn’t there.” The evidence is there for anyone who bothers to look, that magnesium deficiencies are at the root of many disease in an equal fashion that water is at the root of dehydration.
Doctors are deluded by their pharmaceutical masters who have enslaved their minds, and thus their heart and souls; meaning they are not real but fake doctors practicing pharmaceutical terrorism. The truth is that there is a ton of evidence to support the claim that magnesium is the super medicine they are pretending it not to be. It is a beautiful medicine, as the ancient Chinese had to say about the mineral. Basically, no other medicine should be given unless magnesium is given first or in conjunction with other treatments. It is a prime medicine of the first order.
What we have is a collision of beliefs but only one side can be right. It is hard to have to have remind doctors, medical schools and governmental institutions about the most basic things in health and medicine. For instance:
Low serum and intracellular magnesium concentrations are associated with insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance, and decreased insulin secretion. Magnesium improve insulin sensitivity thus lowering insulin resistance. Magnesium and insulin need each other. Without magnesium, our pancreas won’t secrete enough insulin–or the insulin it secretes won’t be efficient enough–to control our blood sugar. Insulin resistance and magnesium depletion result in a vicious cycle of worsening insulin resistance and decrease in intracellular Mg(2+) which limits the role of magnesium in vital cellular processes.
With the emergency in health as diabetes, cancer and other chronic diseases continue to explode, you would think they would address magnesium deficiencies in the general population with solid recommendations. Instead of force-feeding the public with toxic fluoride they would put much needed magnesium in the water instead. That alone would cut down on heart disease.
Do Not Follow Doctors Typical Advice on Magnesium
If one is interested in using magnesium as a supplement the common advice is:
In general, for healthy adults the recommendation is between 310 and 420 mg per day. Males tend to need more than females, although females will need to increase intake during pregnancy and lactation.
Keep in mind that you likely already get some naturally – sources of magnesium include foods from your diet and/or from your multivitamin. Many multivitamins will contain around 100mg of magnesium, which is about ¼ of the recommended daily amount.
If one is interested in using magnesium as a medicine that one needs to think at much higher dosages, somewhere between one to three grams depending on one’s medical needs.
Magnesium is a Medicine
Dr. Hymen writes, “I remember using magnesium when I worked in the emergency room. It was a critical “medication” on the crash cart. If someone was dying of a life-threatening arrhythmia (or irregular heart beat), we used intravenous magnesium. If someone was constipated or needed to prepare for colonoscopy, we gave them milk of magnesia or a green bottle of liquid magnesium citrate, which emptied their bowels. If pregnant women came in with pre-term labor, or high blood pressure of pregnancy (pre-eclampsia) or seizures, we gave them continuous high doses of intravenous magnesium.”
The standard you will read: Oral magnesium supplementation is safe in adults when used in dosages below the upper intake level of 350 mg per day (elemental magnesium). However, higher dosages have been studied and may be used.
Magnesium supplementation is safe in adults when used at almost any dose. Unless one has advanced kidney disease the kidneys will clear excess magnesium from the blood. For most people the worst that can happen is that one will get diarrhoea, which will have the effect of cleaning out the colon, not a bad thing in and of itself, especially if one’s tendency is toward constipation.
What Are the Benefits of Magnesium?
Magnesium is a very important mineral that serves a lot of purposes in our body. With its involvement in 300+ biochemical processes, it would be impossible to list all the magnesium benefits here, but to start, we’ll take a look at the most significant health benefits of magnesium:
- Helps to increase energy
- Calms nerves
- Improves sleep quality
- Helps improve digestion
- Relieves muscle aches & spasms
- Helps to regulate calcium & potassium levels
- Important for heart health
- Regulates steady heart beat
- Prevents migraines
- Helps prevent osteoporosis
- Fights the effects of magnesium deficiency and low magnesium symptoms
- May boost exercise performance
- Helps fight depression
- May help in the treatment of type 2 diabetes
- Regulates blood pressure
- Anti-inflammatory
- Improves PMS symptoms
- And more!
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