Magnesium Chloride Product Analysis

Magnesium is nothing short of a miracle mineral in its healing effect on a wide range of diseases as well as in its ability to rejuvenate the aging body.

Magnesium chloride is one of the best kept secrets, not only in naturopathic medicine but in the world of allopathic medicine where it is used in emergency rooms to save lives. Magnesium chloride has a dramatic effect on cell life and is vastly safer to use than aspirin. Why is magnesium chloride so effective in so many medical situations? “Magnesium is necessary for the normal function of over 300 enzyme systems, for muscle relaxation, immune function, cardiac function, clotting, nerve conduction etc. Indeed I cannot think of a bodily department in which magnesium is not essential. It prevents heart disease, cancer, blood pressure, kidney stones and improves energy, sleep etc.” reports Dr. Sara Myhill.

Those who consumed the most magnesium had about a 31-percent reduced risk of developing metabolic syndromes. Metabolic syndrome is a collection of conditions, including high blood pressure, high triglycerides, lower levels of HDL, or good cholesterol, higher waist circumference, and higher than normal blood sugar. People with metabolic syndrome are at significant risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Magnesium chloride is a versatile medicine we can all put in our medicine cabinets. It boosts almost all aspects of cell physiology and can be used orally, intravenously, and transdermally. Magnesium chloride treatments address systemic nutritional deficiencies, act to improve the function of our cells and immune system, and help protect cells from oxidative damage. It’s a systemic medicine as well as a local one bringing new life and energy to the cells wherever it is applied topically. Minerals like magnesium help with everyday body processes, reduce risk of certain cancers, strengthen muscles and tissues, and help develop organs and tissues as well as keeping them from deteriorating.

The biggest benefit of topical/transdermal magnesium chloride administration is that the intestines are not adversely impacted by large doses of oral magnesium.

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studies show that as many as two thirds of all Americans do not consume enough magnesium. The latest government study shows a staggering 68% of Americans do not consume the recommended daily intake of magnesium, which is set way too low meaning these statistics are understatements. Even more frightening are data from this study showing that 19% of Americans do not consume even half of the government’s recommended daily intake of magnesium.

Magnesium chloride is a potent substance that penetrates the cells with stunning result on cell biochemistry.

There is no mystery in the idea that it’s always good to eat the most pure whole foods we can find and the same can be said about magnesium chloride solutions. There are many magnesium chloride products on the market and some new ones arriving on the scene. Some are natural ones taken from the sea and other surface bodies of water, others are taken from brine flows at certain lakes, and now we find an large sea of it 1500 meters underground in the Northern Europe that is hundreds of millions of years old and as pure as can be.  Then there are the unnatural types that are pharmaceutical powders and crystals that are made by industrial process using hydrochloric acid. These magnesium products come in different grades.[1]

Most magnesium chloride hexahydrate available today is the manufactured form made with hydrochloric acid, and added to water. In this process magnesium chloride is regenerated from magnesium hydroxide using hydrochloric acid.Mg(OH)2(s) + 2 HCl ? MgCl2(aq) + 2 H2O(l)

Oral magnesium chloride is well tolerated and gets absorbed very quickly and is inexpensive. Magnesium chloride hexahydrate can be purchased from most chemical supply houses without a prescription.

What is of concern to us all is the relative purity or level relative level of contamination. My official position on the pharmaceutical stuff, which often contains 25 times the heavy metal pollution than natural seawater evaporation solutions, is that it’s a thousand times better than nothing. Often in many countries it is the only magnesium chloride product one can find. My complaint against these pharmaceutical materials is that they have high levels of lead, and other undesirable elements. They do not feel the same on the skin as natural solutions, but to do without when in need of magnesium supplementation is like not breathing air when living on earth because of the pollution.

A typical magnesium chloride hexahydrate solution might have about ten parts per million of heavy metals.[2],[3] Some synthetic products only have about 5ml/kilo meaning only five parts per million of heavy metals.[4] In general these industrial made magnesium chloride products are inexpensive when purchased in bulk and can be dumped in your bathtub for relaxation and medical treatment. Most technical grade hexahydrate solutions usually maintain in solution about 25 percent magnesium chloride whereas the natural brines are up at around 32 percent sometimes peaking out at 35 percent before we find magnesium crystals forming at the bottom of the container.

The problem with oral magnesium is that all magnesium compounds are potentially laxative.

Lead is a problem not only in children’s toys and household plumbing but also in magnesium products. Jamieson™, Natural Sources Calcium Magnesium is not approved by Consumer Labs because it contains 1.9 mcg of lead per daily serving. Weil™, Andrew Weil, M.D. Balanced Cal-Mag is also not approved by Consumer Labs because it contains 2.3 mcg of lead per daily serving.[5]

Mercury is also a problem in some of the available magnesium products and it’s a growing concern on earth today. There is at least one company selling magnesium chloride brine from the Great Salt Lake but federal scientists studying the lake have found some of the highest levels of mercury ever measured anywhere. Concentrations of methylmercury, the element’s most poisonous form exceeded 25 nanograms per liter of water. Fish consumption warnings have been issued when there was just 1 nanogram per liter. “We thought we would find some high levels of methylmercury,” said David Naftz, the USGS research hydrologist who is heading the Great Salt Lake project, “but not some of the highest (the USGS) has ever found.”

The deepest waters of the Great Salt Lake may contain even more toxic mercury than previously known. That’s according to water tests done by Kennecott Utah Copper a few years ago, two years after samples that triggered alarms about mercury throughout Utah.[6] The large surface area of the lake may collect a lot of mercury from atmospheric deposition. Once in the lake, sulfate-reducing bacteria that live in the deep brine layer may facilitate the creation of methylmercury. Preliminary analyses indicate that methylmercury levels in the deep brine layer of Utah’s Great Salt Lake are among the highest ever measured by the USGS.[7]

One needs to be seriously concerned about purchasing products coming from the Great Salt Lake and companies making claims about purity yet have no documentation to prove support their assertions.. There are very few producers of transdermal magnesium products that actively test their product with standardized labs tests, let alone disclose these tests to the public.  It is not advisable to take someone’s word on such matters.

Magnesium Oil, a solution gathered by salt water evaporation has been our favorite magnesium chloride solution until now but we found after a few years of experience that is was not pure enough for medical or health use. Certainly it could never be taken orally as the pharmaceutical stuff can be. Though it can be filtered fairly well if it is bottled in a certified laboratory and bottling company it can still smell and sting when put on the skin. I now only recommend magnesium oil products that come from certified laboratories and bottling companies and even then do not suggest sea water magnesium oil from open and unprotected ponds. These kinds of ponds where created to produce magnesium chloride in large quantities for use as a road salt and for crop dusting. It makes a wonderful fertilizer for the soil.

For the very purest magnesium oil we now have to turn to Europe. Deep underground is a 250 million old inactive sea of magnesium chloride oil that has never been touched by modern day pollution and there is enough of it down there to last humanity hundreds of years. It is so pure that I use it as a mouthwash and then swallow what is in my mouth for oral supplementation. It is ideal not only for oral intake but practically insures that skin reactions will be absent even at full strength. This is the magnesium chloride oil I recommend along with an iodine for all skin cancers as well as breast cancer. This magnesium oil is called Ancient Minerals.

Special Note for Health Care Practitioners: In critical situations where heavy application is a must, one needs the confidence that patients will be able to tolerate without discomfort the application of the magnesium chloride all over the body. To have an emergency situation where a patient is in desperate need we need the purest available.

To gaze on 64 ounces of it is to gaze on the purest, most powerful medicine obtainable anywhere in the world. Its pure healing power and versatility of its use make it a non-option in every medicine cabinet and in every doctor’s dispensary. It certainly would be the product of choice for skin beauty care and for straight oral supplementation. Beauty and health are in reality highly related subjects. Rarely do we see an unhealthy person who is beautiful or a beautiful person who is grossly unhealthy. As we lose our health our beauty is diminished by the diseases we fall victim to. In ancient China magnesium is called the beautiful metal and it will bring nothing but beauty to one’s life, body and skin.

One of Hawaii’s fastest-growing exports is based on a commodity the state is soaking in: seawater. Super-cold water sucked up from thousands of feet below the Pacific Ocean’s surface is being marketed as healthy, pure, mineral-rich drinking water. Japanese consumers are paying top dollar for desalinated Hawaiian deep-sea water being marketed as a dietary supplement that aids weight loss, stress reduction, skin tone and digestion. So valuable do they find this that they are willing to pay a cool $2,144 a gallon for a concentrated form of this deep sea water. Two-ounce bottles of Hawaii Deep Marine’s Kona Nigari seawater mineral concentrate (to mix with regular water) sell for $33.50 at the Key of Life store in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, reported USA Today.[9]

However, the magnesium oil from this ancient deposit in Northern Europe will be a hit in the Far East where they appreciate the purity and quality of such products especially because the cost is dramatically lower than the price from Hawaii.  If purchased by the half gallon, Ancient Minerals magnesium oil comes in at about $3.75 per 2 fluid ounces, and it gets my vote for all time purest, most powerful, useful medicinal substance in the world. Lesser quality evaporated seawater magnesium oil would come in at an average of about $1.60 for two ounces (when purchased by the gallon) but there are certain limits we have to put on contamination with heavy metals and other contaminants with any medicinal.

Most toxic industrially created magnesium chloride products would weigh in around 80 cents for two ounces and we readily recommend them when nothing else is available. The Ancient Minerals bath flakes take the cake in this regard though. In this product you get both great quality and low price. It weighs in terms of dry ounces at only 49 cents an ounce. So this brand offers it all, in their oil the unbeatable purest medicinal in the world and in their flakes the second best quality (next to their oil) but an unbeatable price. Medical doctors and all healthcare professionals have to be concerned with the price of products without dropping the ball on quality.

*Special Note about “Pharmaceutical Grade” magnesium chloride products: Recently there have been several manufacturers of transdermal magnesium chloride products on the web, simply stating the purity of their product as “pharmaceutical grade.”  Unfortunately, this is insufficient.  It does not give us any real information or insight into the quality of the product.  First and foremost, many of them cannot or will not supply laboratory proof to support their claim.  Secondly, the standards for pharmaceutical grade magnesium chloride are too relaxed.  A producer can refer to their magnesium chloride products as pharmaceutical grade provided that it does not contain more than 10 parts per million of heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, lead, etc), which is definitely not considered to be a product suited for medical use.

There are many other excellent products high in magnesium content, one of special note is the Dead Sea Salt. It is both high in magnesium and potassium and is good for strong mineral baths. One will not find that it replaces a high potency magnesium chloride but it is a healing agent in its own right. There are actually many such salt and brine works and salt is a huge subject in and of itself. Himalayan Salts, Real Salt, Celtic Salts are some of the finest in the world and are worth their weight in gold.

Epsom Salts are wonderful for many applications and one can put hundreds of pounds of it in isolation chambers so you can float easily in them. They have soothing but limiting health and healing effect in comparison to magnesium chloride, which could never be put in great quantities in the water you bathe in. For some reason magnesium chloride is hugely more absorbable through transdermal means than magnesium sulfate (Epsom Salt). Though magnesium sulfate is equally effective in the emergency room, saving cardiac arrest patients with ease, it does not come anywhere near to the level of medicinal potency of magnesium chloride in the transdermal world of application and approach. The real value in Epsom Salts is not the magnesium, which is not easily absorbed or retainable in that form. It’s the sulfur and the best way to get sulfur into the body is with MSM or sodium thiosulfate.