The most common cause of anxiety and depression. Seriously. I think that at least half of the cases treated for years by doctors can be cured with magnesium.
Magnesium is an intracellular ion, so determining its level in the blood is a complete misunderstanding. You can detect in this way at most some disorders of its economy, such as diabetes, or some extreme deficiencies. In the blood there is only a little of all our magnesium, the rest is “hidden” in the cells of the body and in the bones.
Causes of magnesium deficiency
To begin with, perhaps I can explain where deficiencies come from. That from a poor diet is obvious, but why? First of all, white bread. White flour is completely devoid of minerals, including magnesium. Let’s take a look at the content of bioelements in 100 grams of bread and in 28 grams of bran (bran is what is left after the production of white flour and what is usually thrown away), as a percentage of the daily requirement: Bread, 100 grams: 6% magnesium Bran, known as garbage, 28 grams: 43% magnesium In comparison, whole grain bread, 100 grams: 25% magnesium.
More on this topic can be found here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5786912/
It is a fact that bran slightly impedes the absorption of magnesium, but it is also a fact that without it, the body uses up calcium and magnesium from the body’s stores in the process of digestion.
Similarly, fat and sugar, these were not in the diet of our ancestors, or at least not in such quantity. Both are almost completely devoid of vitamins and minerals.
The second reason is soil depletion, there is less and less magnesium in the products we eat. The farmer produces just as much as he can, just as cheaply as he can, and we don’t pay much attention to quality either.
What does a progressive deficiency look like? At the beginning everything is OK, we are young, we eat a lot of relatively healthy food, we don’t drink coffee, we don’t drink cola (well… now kids drink a lot, in my time there was no such thing). We have a certain reserve of magnesium in our body, in a healthy person it is about 20 grams. We flush it out, we flush it out… gradually the saturation decreases. We can not flush out much, the body starts to activate defense mechanisms, but there are no miracles. If we lose more than we gain, the deficiency gradually increases, we lose 20-30 mg a day. In the end, after a few years or so, we have – let’s assume – only 10 grams of magnesium. It’s a rough ride, which I’ll write about shortly, but please remember this number – 10 grams, I’ll use it in the next chapter. It’s probably not accurate, but it doesn’t matter, it will help me to present the problem of supplementation quite vividly.
Symptoms of magnesium deficiency
- first of all, loss of vitality, bad mood, waking up without energy
- Then comes anxiety and depression. Yes, they basically always appear with magnesium deficiency
- With really serious deficiencies begin problems with the nervous system, such as “twitching” muscles, a sudden feeling of warmth on the skin, the impression that something is scratching our scalp, characteristic eyelid twitch, but remember, they are not “evidence” of a deficiency, they also occur in many other cases
- resistance to infections decreases significantly
- heart rhythm disorders, suddenly our heart seems to “curl up” and we feel that for a moment, one or two beats it stops working or works too fast
- along with the loss of magnesium the level of potassium also decreases, which leads to such symptoms as cracking joints or memory disorders
Of course, such symptoms also occur in many other diseases or deficiencies, so their presence is not 100% certain diagnosis, but when they appear in magnesium deficiency, they indicate that we have in the body really little of it.
According to some of the researchers involved, one of the clearer and easier to identify symptoms is the reaction to vitamin D3. People with very low levels of magnesium, even if they take a small dose of the supplement, will have quite characteristic symptoms such as constipation, dry mouth, frequent urination, severely increased muscle tension, insomnia and severe nervousness. This is due to an excess of calcium in the blood, which in turn is caused by a lack of magnesium. This is not a 100% reliable test, it circulates in the scientific community, but more as an opinion than a proven fact.
First of all, chocolate or nuts are not enough – not with such an acute deficiency. If an element has been flushed out of the body for 10 years, we cannot make up for it in a week or two, and certainly not with a few chocolates. Unfortunately you have to go to the pharmacy and buy magnesium with vitamin B6, and for further instructions see the next chapter.