THE MIRACLE OF MAGNESIUM + Symptoms of Magnesium Deficiency

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THE MIRACLE OF MAGNESIUM

_http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/the_miracle_of_magnesium_

(http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/the_miracle_of_magnesium)

By Dr. Carolyn Dean, MD, ND

 

 

The following is an excerpt from The Miracle of Magnesium by Carolyn Dean,

MD, ND, published by Ballantine Books, New York; 2003. This excerpt is

from Chapter 1 entitled “The Case for Magnesium: The Personal History of an

Elementâ€:

 

 

Mary joked that she felt as though she was constantly being run over by a

slow-moving bus. Cramping in her legs startled her awake at night, making

her an insomniac, and she had heart palpitations daily. Her doctor also

found that she had high blood sugar — not bad enough to need injections of

insulin, but he prescribed pills to try to stimulate more insulin production.

Finally, frightening panic attacks came out of nowhere and made this vibrant,

fun-loving woman afraid to go outside.

 

 

To try to relieve her leg cramps, Mary began taking calcium at night,

having read that it was good for cramps and sleep. At first, the calcium seemed

to help, but after a week or two, the pains got worse. If she yawned and

stretched in bed, her calf muscles would seize up and catapult her to the

floor, where she would lie frantically massaging her muscles to try to release

the spasm. All the next day, she would limp about with a very tender,

bruised feeling in her calf.

 

 

Although Mary’s heart palpitations had improved somewhat after she’d

given up her three cups of coffee a day, they too resumed after a few weeks.

Every time the palpitations occurred, which was several times a day, they

made her cough slightly and catch her breath. She found it frightening, even

though her doctor said her stress tests for heart disease were fine and she

didn’t need further testing with an angiogram.

 

 

Both Mary’s parents had adult-onset diabetes, and Mary knew that she

should watch her diet, but she was overweight and craved sugary and

high-carbohydrate foods that were hard to resist. When the panic attacks hit on

top of

everything else, Mary knew she had to seek help, and came to my office. She

was only fifty-three, far too young to be feeling so bad, and was worried

about her future health.

 

 

Sam was only forty-nine and experiencing chest pains. At first, he thought

they were indigestion, but sometimes the pains would occur in the middle

of the night. Concerned, he went to a cardiologist, who found two slightly

blocked arteries, not serious enough for bypass surgery. Sam’s cholesterol

was somewhat elevated, as was his blood pressure, which he attributed to his

high-stress occupation and the fact that he had not exercised regularly

for the past six months, when he was sidelined with back pain. The

cardiologist observed that his arterial blockage would almost inevitably worsen

over

time and eventually necessitate surgery. The doctor offered him medication

for his high cholesterol, told him not to eat butter or eggs, and gave him

nitroglycerine to take whenever he had the pain. If the symptoms got worse,

he would prescribe other medications. Sam couldn’t imagine having to wait

to get worse before doing something about his chest pain; he knew there must

be something more he could do to avoid surgery and came to me for advice.

 

 

At thirty-five, Jan had actually begun to look forward to going through

menopause. That’s how bad her PMS symptoms were. As soon as those horrible

feelings lifted, she was hit by the sledgehammer of menstrual cramps. She

also had migraines, which for years had come before her period but now were

occurring once or twice a week. She was so miserable that she was considering

a complete hysterectomy, with removal of her hormone-producing ovaries, but

wondered whether the migraines, since they were happening all month, were

not hormonal.

 

 

Different as their symptoms are, Mary, Sam, and Jan all suffer from

magnesium deficiency. While women and men seem equally susceptible to magnesium

deficiency, women may become deficient faster than men due to hormonal

fluctuations because pound for pound, they have fewer circulating red blood

cells, which carry magnesium, and so perhaps less magnesium available. There are

a few other gender differences. Because of magnesium’s effect on hormonal

regulation and vice versa, women can have deficiencies in pregnancy, when

breast-feeding, with premenstrual syndrome (PMS), and with dysmenorrhea

(painful periods). Osteoporosis, which affects more women than men, is evidence

of a deficiency of both calcium and magnesium. An overactive thyroid,

which afflicts more women than men, increases the metabolic rate, which uses up

magnesium-requiring ATP (adenosine triphosphate — the energy packets made

in each cell in the body). Without magnesium, ATP would not be produced.

 

 

Let’s follow Mary, Sam, and Jan and see how they overcame their magnesium

deficiencies.

 

 

When Mary visited me, I charted her health history in detail, according to

procedures commonly used by naturopathic doctors, and found several

symptoms of magnesium deficiency. In her case it had been made even worse by too

much calcium, so simple magnesium supplementation wouldn’t be enough for

Mary. Her diet and lifestyle needed a complete overhaul.

 

 

I gave Mary a list of magnesium-rich foods that she needed to start

eating, which included nuts, beans, greens, and seeds such as sunflower and

pumpkin. Mary realized that she’d been avoiding almost all of these foods:

She

thought nuts were fattening, beans gave her gas, and greens never seemed

fresh enough at the supermarket. She had never even thought about eating seeds.

 

 

After a week of enthusiastically eating a lot more magnesium-rich foods,

Mary felt somewhat better. To make sure she could get fresh organic greens

regularly, she tracked down a local community-supported agriculture (CSA)

program and bought a share in a neighboring organic farm. Mary also learned

how to soak and cook beans to prevent them from causing gas, and began

eating nuts and seeds rich in magnesium and healthy oils, such as almonds,

walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds.

 

 

After her second visit I recommended that she begin taking magnesium

supplements. Starting with a dosage of 200 mg a day, we added another 200 mg

every two days to build slowly to 600 mg. I cautioned her that it could take

months to eliminate magnesium deficiency symptoms and that not all her

symptoms would necessarily respond. Within two months, however, Mary was singing

the praises of magnesium. Her palpitations and panic attacks had

disappeared. Her cravings for sweets were fewer, she was able to control her

blood

sugar with diet alone, and tests for blood sugar were normal. Her leg cramps

were gone, and with them her insomnia. At three months we added calcium

along with magnesium so that she would not develop an imbalance of the two.

Mary’s internist was quite surprised at her improved health and told her to

keep up the good work with her diet and supplements.

 

 

Sam had an inquiring mind, and I encouraged him to start reading about

heart disease. He found that up to 30 percent of angina (chest pain) patients

do not have badly blocked arteries but may be suffering from an electrical

imbalance that is driven by mineral deficiency, most commonly magnesium. An

astonishing 40 to 60 percent of sudden deaths from heart attack may occur

in the complete absence of any prior artery blockage, clot formation or

heart rhythm abnormalities, most likely from spasms in the arteries (magnesium

is a natural antispasmodic). Moreover, he found that magnesium deficiency

has been linked to sudden cardiac death. Sam didn’t want to wait around for

that to happen to him; he was determined to find out what was causing his

problem and treat the cause. The more he read, the more intrigued he became.

When he read that magnesium deficiency is also associated with muscle

pain, especially back pain, that really got his attention, since he had begun

having back pain four or five months before he began to develop chest pains.

 

 

With a packet of information on magnesium, Sam went back to his

cardiologist. Before the doctor saw him, however, a nurse took Sam’s blood

pressure;

it was unusually elevated, even though at home it was usually only a few

points above normal. (Doctor-induced hypertension is commonly reported by

patients.) The cardiologist swept into the room and immediately began talking

about blood pressure medication. Sam countered with magnesium. The

cardiologist visibly cooled and said that magnesium was used to control

hypertension that occurred in pregnant women because there were no side effects,

but

that there were plenty of effective drugs for everyone else. When Sam said

he would rather not have side effects either, the cardiologist gathered up

his file and told him to come back when he was ready to take medications for

his heart disease.

 

 

When Sam came back to see me, he was still pretty upset by this encounter;

he didn’t like the specialist refusing to discuss a possible magnesium

deficiency as part of the picture. Sam and I agreed that magnesium seemed the

best treatment for him to initiate at this time since he was not willing to

take medications.

 

 

Sam began adding magnesium to his diet by eating magnesium-rich foods.

After a week he felt much calmer, but he still had chest and back pain. So he

added magnesium and calcium supplements, and in about three months he felt

almost normal.

 

 

Among the studies Sam read was one that looked at the correspondence

between type A personalities and magnesium deficiency. From the description,

Sam

realized he was a type A, an aggressive guy who lived on adrenaline, time

pressure, and stress. This type of behavior drains the body of magnesium

and can lead to disorders such as heart disease, muscle spasms,

hypersensitivity, and irritability. Prolonged psychological stress raises

adrenaline,

the stress hormone, which depletes magnesium. Both Sam’s back and chest pain

would hit when he was under stress. So Sam worked on ways to control his

stress and added more magnesium when he knew he couldn’t avoid it. On days

when he exercised, Sam added an extra 200 mg of magnesium to his diet, since

sweat loss during heavy exercise (cycling and jogging) and working in the

heat deplete magnesium. Just drinking water won’t replace all the minerals

lost. By paying attention to the many factors that affected his mind-body

health, Sam lowered his cholesterol and stress levels and reduced his chance

of a heart attack and of needing surgery to unblock his arteries.

 

 

Jan heard that yoga might help her PMS and painful periods, and she really

needed to learn to relax, so she took classes at a local health club. The

teacher also ran regular detox and cooking classes, which Jan decided to

join when she realized she didn’t have to “give up everything†and become

a

vegetarian. One of the first things Jan learned in the detox class was the

importance of having regular bowel movements. Jan was lucky if she had one a

week. If the bowel doesn’t empty once a day, toxins can be reabsorbed back

into the body from the colon. The longer debris sits in the colon, the

more fluid is reabsorbed, making stools solid and difficult to pass. PMS and

endometriosis, which causes painful periods, are considered by some natural

health experts to worsen with constipation and toxicity.

 

 

During cooking classes, Jan faced the fact that she was a junk food

addict. Magnesium is necessary in hundreds of enzymes in the body but is almost

totally lost during the processing of packaged and fast foods. The older

women in their class were suffering from a variety of problems that included

cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis. Is that how she would end up in ten

or twenty years if she didn’t take care of her health now? Learning how

many basic nutrients she lacked in her diet made her marvel that she wasn’t

even more ill. Her new diet included greens, beans, nuts, and seeds, which

cleared up her constipation and almost eliminated her PMS and painful

periods. When she came to see me on the advice of her yoga teacher, it was

clear

she was on the right track. I recommended that she begin taking a magnesium

supplement along with calcium and a multiple vitamin; with all her

lifestyle changes, she felt like a new person.

 

 

The Body is Electric

 

The impulses for any and all movement in the body arise from electrical

transmission. These microcurrents of electricity that pass along the nerves

were first measured in 1966. Scientists soon discovered that the conductor

for these bodily electrical currents was calcium and that magnesium was

necessary to maintain the proper level of calcium in the blood. More recent

research indicates that calcium enters the cells by way of calcium channels

that are jealously guarded by magnesium. Magnesium allows a certain amount of

calcium to enter a cell to create the necessary electrical transmission,

and then immediately helps to eject the calcium once the work is done. Why?

If calcium accumulates in the cell, it causes toxicity and disrupts cell

function. Too much calcium entering cells can cause symptoms of heart disease

(such as angina, high blood pressure, and arrhythmia), asthma, or

headaches. Magnesium is nature’s calcium channel blocker.

 

 

About 60-65 percent of all our magnesium is housed in our bones and teeth.

The remaining 35-40 percent is found in the rest of the body, including

muscle and tissue cells and body fluids. The highest concentrations are in

the heart and brain cells, so it is no wonder that the major symptoms of

magnesium deficiency affect the heart and brain. These are also the two organs

that have considerable electrical activity measured by EKG

(electrocardiogram) and EEG (electroencephalogram). Our blood contains only one

percent of

the body’s total magnesium.

 

 

Magnesium mostly works inside our tissue cells, producing ATP energy

packets for our body’s vital force and triggering production of all the

body’s

protein structures by revving up messenger RNA. It is also a requirement

for the production of DNA, our genetic code. Both of the basic building blocks

of life, RNA and DNA, are dependent on magnesium to maintain stable genes.

In addition to its stabilizing effect on DNA and the structure of

chromosomes, magnesium is an essential cofactor in almost all enzyme systems

involved in the processing of DNA. Research shows that without sufficient

magnesium, DNA synthesis becomes sluggish.

 

 

What Does Magnesium Do?

 

Magnesium’s hundreds of activities in the human body can be divided into

five essential categories:

 

1. Magnesium is a cofactor assisting enzymes in catalyzing most chemical

reactions in the body, including temperature regulation.

 

2. Magnesium produces and transports energy.

 

3. Magnesium is necessary for the synthesis of protein.

 

4. Magnesium helps to transmit nerve signals.

 

5. Magnesium helps to relax muscles.

 

 

1. Cofactor in Chemical Reactions – Enzymes are protein molecules that

stimulate every chemical reaction in the body. Magnesium is required to make

hundreds of these enzymes work.

 

2. Producing and Transporting Energy – Magnesium and the B-complex

vitamins are excellent examples of energy nutrients, because they activate

enzymes

that control digestion, absorption, and the utilization of proteins, fats,

and carbohydrates. Because magnesium is involved with hundreds of

enzymatic reactions throughout the body, deficiency can affect every aspect of

life

and cause a score of symptoms. Of the 325 magnesium-dependent enzymes, the

most important enzyme reaction involves the creation of energy by

activating adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the fundamental energy storage

molecule of

the body. ATP may be what the Chinese refer to as qi or life force.

Magnesium is required for the body to produce and store energy. Without

magnesium

there is no energy, no movement, no life. IT is that simple.

 

3. Synthesizing Protein – Magnesium is used in synergy with dozens of

other vitamins and minerals to create structural components of the body. Under

the direction of magnesium, enzymes and nutrients modify the building

blocks from food to create the body. Without magnesium, there is no body. RNA

and DNA, which contain the genetic blueprints for the formation of all the

protein molecules in the body, are also dependent on magnesium.

 

4. Transmitting Nerve Signals – Magnesium permits calcium to enter a nerve

cell to allow electrical transmission along the nerves to and from the

brain. Even our thoughts, via brain neurons, are dependent on magnesium.

 

5. Relaxing Muscles – Calcium causes contraction in skeletal muscle

fibers, and magnesium causes relaxation. When there is too much calcium and

insufficient magnesium, you can get sustained muscle contraction: twitches,

spasms, and even convulsions. Smooth muscles directed by too much calcium and

insufficient magnesium can tighten the bronchial tract, causing asthma;

cause cramping in the uterus and painful periods; and cause spasms in blood

vessels, resulting in hypertension.

 

 

The Dance of Calcium and Magnesium

 

Calcium and magnesium share equal importance in our bodies. Newton’s law

says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and

calcium and magnesium dance within this law. Neither can act without eliciting

a reaction from the other. At the biochemical level, magnesium and calcium

are known to act antagonistically towards each other. Many enzymes whose

activities critically depend on a sufficient amount of intracellular magnesium

will be detrimentally affected by small increases in levels of cellular

calcium. Growth of cells, cell division, and intermediary metabolism are also

absolutely dependent on the availability of magnesium, which can be

compromised if excess calcium is present.

 

 

To understand how you can create a calcium/magnesium imbalance in your own

body, try this experiment in your kitchen. Crush a calcium pill and see

how much dissolves in 1 oz of water. Then crush a magnesium pill and slowly

stir it into the calcium water. When you introduce the magnesium, the

remaining calcium dissolves; it becomes more water-soluble. The same thing

happens

in your bloodstream, heart, brain, kidneys, and all the tissues in your

body. If you don’t have enough magnesium to help keep calcium dissolved, you

may end up with calcium-excess muscle spasms, fibromyalgia, hardening of

the arteries, and even dental cavities. Another scenario plays out in the

kidneys. If there is too much calcium in the kidneys and not enough magnesium

to dissolve it, you can get kidney stones.

 

 

All the muscles, including the heart and blood vessels, contain more

magnesium than calcium. If magnesium is deficient, calcium floods the smooth

muscle cells of the blood vessels and causes spasms leading to constricted

blood vessels and therefore higher blood pressure, arterial spasm, angina, and

heart attack. A proper balance of magnesium in relation to calcium can

prevent these symptoms. Calcium excess, stimulating the cells in the muscular

layer of the temporal arteries over the temples, can cause migraine

headaches. Excess calcium can constrict the smooth muscle surrounding the small

airways of the lung, causing restricted breathing and asthma. Finally, too

much calcium, without the protective effect of magnesium, can irritate

delicate nerve cells of the brain. Cells that are irritated by calcium fire

electrical impulses repeatedly, depleting their energy stores and causing cell

death.

 

 

The Calcium Distraction

 

The irony of the calcium-magnesium story is that without magnesium calcium

will not work properly. Both our current diet and tendency to

oversupplement with calcium, however, make getting enough magnesium almost

impossible.

Research shows that the ratio of calcium to magnesium in the paleolithic or

caveman diet — the ancient diet that had evolved with our bodies — was

1:1, compared with a 5:1 to 15:1 ratio in present-day diets. With an average

of ten times more calcium than magnesium in our current diet, there is no

doubt about widespread magnesium deficiency in modern times.

 

 

(Editor’s Note: The rest of Dean’s book The Miracle of Magnesium contains

essential information on other aspects of magnesium supplementation,

including factors governing absorption, antagonistic elements, types of

magnesium, etc. So it is highly recommended that you get a copy before

commencing

supplementation. It is available in bookstores and some health food stores

across Ontario, or visit Dr. Dean’s website at _www.carolyndean.com_

(http://www.carolyndean.com/) . Publisher’s website: _www.ballantinebooks.com_

(http://www.ballantinebooks.com/) )

 

 

 

Read more from about signs & symptoms of magnesium deficiency ...........

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tml_

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Signs & Symptoms Of Magnesium Deficiency

 

* ADHD

* Allergies

* Arteriosclerosis

* Asthma

* Cancer

* Cardiovascular disease

* Certain form of allergy

* Compromised immune system (with secondary problems as a result)

* Confusion

* Depression

* Development of _anxiety and panic_

(http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/magnesium-deficiency-symptoms-5033.html#\

) attacks

* Diabetes

* Epileptic seizures

* _Erectile dysfunction

 

_

(http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/magnesium-deficiency-symptoms-5033.html#\

) * Fasciculation

* Feeling of tightness in the chest (erratic)

* Frequent tension headaches

* Higher levels of irritability

* Hypertension

* Impaired protein metabolism

* Increase in restless behavior

* Increased sensitivity to stress

* Increased susceptibility to high blood pressure

* Inexplicable pain in the jaw

* Insomnia

* Involuntary muscle twitches

* Irregular heartbeat

* Kidney damage & kidney stones

* Migraine

* _Muscle cramps_

(http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/magnesium-deficiency-symptoms-5033.html#\

)

* Nervous irritability

* Numbness and tingling in the extremities

* Osteoporosis (brittle bones)

* Palpitations or angina

* Premature wrinkles

* Restless leg syndrome

* Sense of stiffness in the neck

* Some forms of cancer

* Vitamin K deficiency

* Wide range of aches and pains

 

Random Magnesium Deficiency Symptoms

* Sudden change in behavior (like relaxed and confident people may

become high-strung)

* Unusual craving for salt or chocolate

* Tenderness in the breasts (in case of women)

* Changes in the menstrual cycle (in case of women)

* Marked apathy in behavior (especially in case of anxiety and panic

attacks)

 

 

 

 

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_www.mgwater_ (http://www.mgwater/)