Magnesium initiates hundreds of metabolic responses in the body's delicate tissues. It plays an important function in the conversion of energy from animal starch, (muscle fuel) Magnesium helps to build proteins, maintain proper body temperature, and aids in the operation of nerves and muscles.
The physiological role of magnesium is to assist bone development and the performance of nerves and muscles, including regulation of a conventional cardiac rhythm.
It also helps with tooth enamel, holds the body's metabolism constant, and, in larger amounts, behaves as a laxative.
Magnesium Has Many Additional Benefits
Beneficial sources of magnesium include nuts (especially sweet almonds and cashews), seafood, molasses, soy products, sunflower seeds, wheat, and dark-green, leafy vegetables.
Magnesium inadequacy has been tied to many forms of mental disease. In a February 1992 report in Prevention Magazine, Mark Bricklin described that physicians at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine had ascertained that patients who exhibited symptoms of natural depression, unrest, and delusions were missing high amounts of magnesium.
A reexamination study disclosed that antipsychotic medicines often diminish magnesium tiers in patients. It is directly believed that a few patients who don't react well to medicinal drugs demonstrate mental symptoms that perhaps are induced partly by suppressed magnesium levels.
Further experimentation will be essential to affirm if magnesium supplements can amend mental functioning, and, in grave instances, help to handle schizophrenia and depressive disorder.
Likewise, magnesium supplementation may assist people with osteoporosis. Osteoporosis patients generally have more depressed magnesium levels than those who do not have this condition. Magnesium inadequacy is cross-linked on excessive ingestions of dairy farm foods fortified with vitamin D.
People with osteoporosis may consequently require higher doses of magnesium, in addition to calcium additives that are not extracted from dairy items.
Studies Have Proven the Power of Magnesium
Magnesium insufficiency has been coupled to premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Erythrocyte magnesium levels in adult females with PMS have been depicted to be significantly lower than in adult females who do not have PMS. In one clinical test, magnesium pills were given to PMS patients and ensued in a reduction of nervousness (89%), of breast tenderness (over 90%), and of weight increase (95%), according to R. S. London in the October 1991 edition of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.
A magnesium insufficiency is most common in alcoholics, owed chiefly to alcohol-induced deprivation of this mineral via the kidneys, an action occurring with alcohol withdrawal.
Magnesium deficiency may play a massive role in some instances of angina pectoris. It has been shown that gentlemen dying abruptly of heart attacks have significantly depressed levels of magnesium, in addition to potassium than similar controls.
Magnesium supplements have proven to be helpful in the management of irregular pulsations of the heart, and many reports suggest that it could be a minimal treatment of angina pectoris , when the disease is caused by coronary arterial blood vessel spasm, according to an account by P. Turlapaty in the March 1980 issue of Science.
Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease gives a report regarding 930 patients who exhibited hearty benefits in ingesting magnesium to care for acute myocardial infarctions. The magnesium-treated population showed 49% fewer grievous arrhythmias, 58% fewer cardiac arrests, and 54% fewer deaths than the control population. As this experiment indicates, magnesium prescribed after a heart attack enables patients to live longer.
In a later, more significant study of 2,316 volunteers who had experienced heart attacks four weeks before, there were 24% fewer deaths amidst those who had taken magnesium. A follow up of the same group demonstrated that the death rate of magnesium-treated subjects was decreased by 16%, and the diminution for ischaemic (oxygen-deprived) cardiopathy was 21%.
Ornish also expresses that magnesium lessens hypertension, especially in people who are magnesium-deficient. Magnesium can also forestall migraine headaches, particularly those related to the menstrual cycle. In an experiment of 20 adult females, those who acquired magnesium established a substantial diminution in cephalalgias and other premenstrual complaints.
Magnesium is also helpful in addressing patients going through acute onrushes of bronchial asthma. One clinical trial, covered by E. Brunner in the September 1985 Journal of Asthma, confirmed that magnesium significantly amends breathing in asthmatics. The level of improvement inevitably correlates with blood serum magnesium amounts.
Magnesium deficiency is rife in people with irritable bowel syndrome. Patients with depressed magnesium amounts frequently have symptoms of muscle inactivity, anorexia, depressed blood pressure, disarray, and hyper-irritability.
Magnesium levels are significantly lessened in diabetics, and magnesium supplements are commonly used in therapeutic instances, according to A. Careiello in Diabetes Care, published in 1982.
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Naheed Ali - Naheed Ali, M.D., is a nationally recognized author, speaker and health advocate who began writing professionally in 2005. Additional info ...
