Why Magnesium Matters: A Holistic Health Perspective
Achieving optimal wellness requires a holistic perspective that accounts for lifestyle, diet, environment, and genetics. In particular, magnesium proves critical for over 300 enzymes and thousands of protein structures underlying cellular health.
Meeting daily magnesium needs elevates energy, improves bone mineral density, and strengthens muscles, sharpens cognition, balances mood, and maximizes metabolic function. With a widespread deficiency, addressing shortfalls through food sources, strategic supplementation or both drives overall vitality. Taking a comprehensive approach allows us to realize our highest potential for human flourishing.
What Magnesium Is
Magnesium proves essential for human life, representing a positively charged ion involved in hundreds of biochemical reactions daily that drive foundational physiology. As an electrolyte and “spark plug” mineral, magnesium contributes electrons to provide biological energy. It also regulates the movement of positive calcium ions in and out of cell walls in nerves, muscles, and other tissues.
Structurally, magnesium occupies key binding sites on proteins, enzymes, DNA, and RNA critical for transferring genetic instructions underlying tissue repair and renewal.
We have about 20-28 grams of magnesium, with 60% stored in bones and teeth. The rest exists in muscles, the heart, the brain, and other tissues. It's absorbed in the small intestine and excreted or reabsorbed by the kidneys to maintain balanced levels.
Simply put, magnesium constitutes a fundamentally essential mineral for promoting cellular, tissue, organ, and whole-body health day-to-day.
Causes Behind Depletion
Multiple colliding variables make deficiency surprisingly prevalent, estimated to affect three-quarters of adults across modern populations:
Agricultural soils in the United States have become significantly depleted of minerals like magnesium because of modern, industrial fertilizer-focused, farming practices emphasizing yield over nutrition. This means even when adequately fertilized, crops passively take up less magnesium from soil lacking this elemental micronutrient.
Medications like diuretics, antacids, and hormonal contraceptives chronically hinder absorption pathways when taken continuously long-term without offsetting depletion through diet and magnesium supplementation.
The ongoing stresses that people face every day slowly drain the magnesium stores in the body. Magnesium helps the body make energy, brain chemicals, and antioxidants to deal with stress.
Toxins increasingly prevalent like water fluoridation and glyphosate herbicide residues actively displace magnesium from binding sites at the cellular level.
Even people who try to eat very healthy diets today often do not get enough magnesium. The level of magnesium we need is more than what most diets provide, compared to the diets of our ancestors. This leads to deficiency building up quietly over time.
Why Optimizing Matters
Having adequate magnesium helps hundreds of key chemical reactions that are important for the body's basic functioning:
Energy & Metabolism: All enzymes that produce cellular energy require magnesium. Low levels cause fatigue by reducing the creation of energy molecule ATP. Boosting energy holistically begins with magnesium status.
Nerve Function: Magnesium regulates the flow of calcium ions, controlling nerve cell excitability. Without this, nerves fire randomly and frequently, disrupting sleep and attention. Holistic neurology focuses on mineral balance.
Muscle & Heart Health: Up to a third of our magnesium enables muscle contraction and heart pumping. It prevents muscles from constant contraction, reducing cramps and pain. It also regulates blood pressure. Cardiovascular health has much to do with mineral nutrition.
Protein Production: Making new proteins and enzymes like those involved in energy, nerves, and muscles requires magnesium. Holistic practitioners focus on nourishing the body’s innate capacity to renew itself.
Mental Health & Sleep: Neurotransmitters relaying signals between brain cells depend on magnesium. Imbalances from low levels cause anxiety, depression, and poor sleep. In taking a holistic approach, we correct deficiencies contributing to imbalances.
Deficiency manifests in a range of ways:
Migraines/headaches
General fatigue
Muscle cramps
Pituitary and sex hormone irregularities
Exercise intolerance
Hypertension
Anxiety, depression, and much more
Heart rhythm abnormalities/heart disease
Magnesium Intake & Health
Because magnesium is involved in so many important processes, getting enough may help prevent and treat health problems like Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, ADHD, high blood pressure, and more.
Those supplementing typically aim to:
Improve sleep
Treat constipation
Reduce migraine frequency
Enhance athletic performance
Improve heart health
Increase insulin sensitivity
Reduce migraine frequency
Reduce restless leg syndrome (RLS) frequency and intensity
Assessing and Addressing Deficiency
Eating magnesium-rich foods can provide well-absorbed magnesium. But soil today has much less magnesium than in the past. So even healthy diets often do not meet our daily magnesium needs.
Taking supplements with types of magnesium that studies show get absorbed efficiently can help make up the difference between diet and the higher levels needed. Forms like glycinate, malate or threonate can be taken at personalized doses aimed at restoring balance. This can be determined by testing and evaluating symptoms over time.
A holistic approach also focuses on lifestyle habits - improving diet, sleep, and stress management. Allowing adequate time for tissue saturation brings gradual yet lasting improvements by working synergistically with innate holistic biochemistry.
Forms & Bioavailability
Multiple forms exist, from inorganic salts like magnesium oxide to organic options like glycinate and citrate. Key factors influencing bioavailability include:
Solubility - how readily the magnesium ion separates to allow absorption
Elemental load - the amount of magnesium compared to the attached compound
Magnesium status – deficient individuals absorb more than those with adequate levels
Research shows organic salts absorb better than less soluble inorganic forms. However, findings remain mixed, and individual variability means testing different options makes sense from a holistic perspective. Targeted applications also exist, like magnesium threonate to support brain health or citrate to act as a laxative. Be aware of loose stools as a side effect of taking too much.
A Holistic Approach
As a board-certified holistic doctor, I utilize testing of blood, urine, or red blood cells to gain insight into a patient's magnesium status. Work with a holistic doctor to determine if supplementation makes sense for you. Dietary focus comes first from a holistic lens, but strategic supplementation can optimize overall health too. My patients in The Woodlands and Houston see great benefits from this comprehensive approach.
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