Magnesium Benefits and Holistic Cures
Magnesium is considered an essential mineral for maintaining good health. A nutrient involved in more than 300 metabolic reactions in the body, magnesium is responsible for maintaining and regulating a wide range of internal processes in the body. The nutrient’s applications range from transmitting nerve impulses to detoxifying the body and producing energy, making it an effective health treatment for a variety of conditions.What is Magnesium?
One of the three most important minerals for good health, magnesium supports a wide range of bodily processes. Every organ in the body uses the mineral magnesium in some form. The heart, muscles, and kidneys are particularly reliant on the nutrient.
Magnesium functions in activating enzymes, producing energy and regulating nutrient levels. This mineral helps maintain constant levels of calcium, zinc, copper, potassium, vitamin D, and other nutrients in the body. It also optimizes the use of these nutrients and prevents irregularities in the body’s processes.
Magnesium is found in a variety of foods including nuts, whole grains, wheat germ, fish, and leafy green vegetables. Even so, most individuals do not get an adequate amount of the nutrient daily. Magnesium can also be found as an independent dietary supplement and as a component of many multivitamins.
Health Benefits of Magnesium
Even though most individuals do not get an adequate amount of the nutrient daily, magnesium imbalance is more pervasive of a problem than magnesium deficiency. Either way, individuals generally suffer adverse effects when not consuming appropriate amounts of the nutrient. Agitation, anxiety, restless leg syndrome, sleep disorders, irritability, nausea and vomiting, blood pressure problems and even seizures are common effects.
Conversely, getting an adequate amount of magnesium can effectively treat a variety of conditions. Magnesium plays a role in treating such conditions as asthma, depression, diabetes, fibromyalgia, noise related hearing loss, heart failure, and high blood pressure. The nutrient can also be used to treat migraine headaches, osteoporosis, preeclampsia and eclampsia, premenstrual syndrome, and restless leg syndrome.
Considered one of the three most important daily nutrients, magnesium is a vital nutrient in a daily diet. As a regular or added supplement, it can prevent and treat a wide range of health conditions.
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Got Magnesium? Why the Calcium-Magnesium Ratio is Important
Studies across the globe are showing that the ratio of calcium to magnesium is more important than the independent levels of each mineral like most of us originally thought. In America, there have always been numerous ads about the importance of calcium to build strong bones and teeth. This led to a huge focus on calcium intake, ignoring the importance of other mineral levels in our body.The average Chinese diet, on the other hand, includes very little sources of calcium and the importance of the mineral is often ignored. In both cases, having too much and too little calcium is proving to have negative effects on our bodies because of its relationship to other vital minerals, like magnesium.
Calcium and magnesium work well together but if one is consumed in excess to the other it may lead to imbalances that can lead to health complications. Comparing the two, calcium works outside of the cells, exciting the body and plays a role in blood clotting, bone health and muscle contraction. Magnesium, on the other hand, works inside the cells, calming the body and plays a role in blood flow, soft tissue health and muscle relaxation.
The importance of this ratio was discovered in a Chinese study. The study discovered that when both calcium and magnesium levels are assessed in relationship to one another, you could more easily predict the health of the body. Calcium levels alone could not be correlated with death or disease, but lower death rates were recorded for Chinese men who had an appropriate calcium-magnesium (Ca:Mg) ratio.
Balancing the Calcium:Magnesium Ratio
Balancing these mineral levels will start with your diet. Good sources of calcium include green, leafy vegetables like kale or spinach, dairy products cheese and yogurt, and seeds such as chia, sesame, and poppy seeds. Magnesium is found in dark chocolate, avocados, nuts such as almonds, cashews or brazil nuts and whole grains like wheat, oats or quinoa. Again, consuming foods high in calcium in the morning and high in magnesium at night is going to be the easiest way to avoid competition of the minerals in your body.
Doing your best to maintain a 2:1 ratio, consuming twice the amount of calcium to magnesium will help your body function at its optimal level. If you think you may need to consider supplementation, make sure that you are not over-supplementing one mineral over the other based off your current diet.
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Whenever we do supplementation it can get a little complicated.
If we all ate nothing but natural foods high in nutrients it is possible that there wouldn't be much need for supplementation, possibly. But it is hard to maintain that level of intentional diet.
I could certainly do better.
Mine is Magnesium Malate at 1500 mg, and I'm sticking with it. Just have to be consistent!
I will add here that half of my birth family is diabetic, or was, and I am not. I have always taken Magnesium irregularly, but I bet that's why my metabolism has stayed normal.
*O*
In addition I will add that once long ago when my dad was working at Boeing he brought home a lot of Magnesium shavings, bright shiny curls of metal. We kids found out that they burnt really well. So of course while he was not around we were burning those things. Wowie! Probably was not super safe.
Magnesium is definitely a metal!
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