Magnesium

[echoe]

I wanted to pass along information about specific natural treatments.

I'll try to cover magnesium here, and maybe in another I'll get to olive oil, coconut oil, and other vital health foods that help our bodies.

Magnesium deficiency is now linked (you'll start to see it come up more and more in health topics, as they "discover" magnesium) to 3 of the worst health problems in the U.S.: heart attacks/strokes, cancer and diabetes.

Magnesium deficiency is also directly linked to a host of other health problems: cataracts, glaucoma, ADHD, hearing loss due to noise, neuropathy (of all kinds) mental disorders such as bipolarism, depression, among others. It's linked to chronic fatigue to a low pain threshold, to asthma, to allergies, to muscular atrophy, to skin disorders such as psoriasis, eczema, acne, and rosacea, to liver damage, to high blood pressure, to low potassium, to muscle twitches and tics, to high cholesterol. It's linked to obesity. Did you know magnesium makes us burn fat? It also converts protein to ATP which the heart needs to stay strong, and it burns carbohydrates as well.

I'll provide the medical links, the scentific ones, not the natural health food claims, shortly. I wanted to help explain why magnesium is so important. It's cheap, it's not patentable and therefore not taught by pharmacies, but the evidence is still substantial and available. It's proven.

Magnesium (henceforth Mg or MgCl) is needed to activate over 300 enzymes in the body. Those enzymes have a host of jobs, some digest the food you're eating, and paradocxially, if you're lacking in magnesium, you can't digest the foods that carry it properly, so you can't recuperate it that way. It has the job of balancing hormones, when you have an adrenaline rush due to stress, magnesium is sent directly from the sac around the heart first, to help keep you calm in that moment of stress, whether it be from danger, or from fright, or from frustration. Mg balances the levels of calcium in your body. If you have too much calcium, your gall bladder will coat any crystals of it that form, and continue to coat those crystals until you have gallstones, the same occurs with kidney stones formed from too much calcium in the blood stream. Calcium is also responsible for the hardening of arteries. This can cause a rise in blood pressure, it can cause heart damage, and blockage to the blood vessels. It can cause migraines, and can cause clotting which pose a risk of a host of other problems in the body. Magnesium acts as a glue to calcium, it binds it, and either puts the excess into the filtration system to be removed from the body, OR it will put the calcium into the bones and cartilage where it is needed most. Low potassium levels are a direct result of low magnesium. Excess calcium also causes deposits in the lenses of our eyes, known as cataracts. Excess calcium is also directly related to breast cancer. Without that magnesium calcium gets lost and instead of doing the job it should, it wreaks havoc on the rest of the system trying to do what it is supposed to, just in the wrong places.

One of the big jobs that is overlooked is reduction of inflammation. That includes bronchial, muscular, arhtritic, TMJ, pleurisy, swelling of glands and lymph nodes, intestinal inflammation, and that list goes on.

Magnesium is responsible for helping to balance out the nervous system. Calcium is what causes our muscles to contract, but magnesium causes them to relax.

Without magnesium, the DNA and RNA in our body can't replicate properly. DNA and RNA will replicate incompletely, or brokenly. This is exactly what a cancer cell is, an inappropreate replication of cells. Restore the magnesium and cells begin to replicate again.

Whenver we become ill, our immune system acts, but without magnesium, there isn't much of an immune system that can act. So we become sick with every passing cold or flu or any illness at all that comes within a few miles. A lack of immune system can also show up in the skin, as toxins pour out of the skin in the body's last line of filtration and excretion through an organ.

Magnesium is also responsible for keeping our insulin sensitive. Insulin resistance is type II Diabetes and it is preventable, shown by the studies on magnesium treatment. Magnesium also helps prevent tooth decay (makes sense since it puts calcium where it should be.) and osteoporosis.

Magnesium is proven to be as effective as some antidepressants and also proven to make antidepressants more effective. If you have low magnesium, many experience an inability of an antidepressant to work well. Mental disorders are righted as the hormones in the body and the electrolytes come back into balance.

Stroke victims experience higher rates of healing with immediate magneisum treatment following the stroke, degenerative nerve diseases have been heped by magnesium treatment as well. Indeed, intrusion of random, and sporadic thoughts will disappear with magnesium balancing the electric shootoffs in the brain.

I ahven't covered all that magnesium can affect, but the treatment is so simple, and the body excretes excess the same way it does for vitamin C. Taking a bath in magnesium salts daily, if you're experiencing illness, or 2 or 3 times a week, if healthy will help enhance your life. I don't recommend ordering from on-line sites, they'll charge ungodly rates, hundreds of dollars even, for a gallon of this salt water extract. It's not that hard to harvest! If you go to a local hardware store, you can find 50 1b bags of it for around $15.00 U.S. and make your own Mg oil aka MgCl (magnesium chloride) and it's sold as a de-icer for sidewalks and driveways in the winter. In the summer, pester your local garden center to order it, they'll assume it's for your plants, which also benefit from occasional treatment. You can also go for Epsom salt, but that's magnesium sulfate, which the body must convert to MgCl. And it's sold more expensively than MgCl.

Just a mere 2-4 cups daily in a bath as hot as you can stand it for a minimum of 30 minutes daily will improve your health tremendously. For all the hard athletes, it's not for nothing the trainer says to soak in Epsom salts. Magnesium is depleteed in regular hard exercise, it needs to be replaced.

Here is a general link to published medical journals and studies, you can freely search whatever topic you wish, and you can combine words for more specific searches, such as fibromyalgia and magnesium, breast cancer and magnesium, heart attacks and magnesium etc. You can look up coconut oil, diabetes, anything you wish. There are tons of different subjects. Magnesium has over 5000 entries under the heading.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

Following are some of the studies regarding magnesium and health issues:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed (a nice long list of the effects of magnesium after a person has suffered a heart attack)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed (magnesium therapy for various types of cancer)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed (magnesium supplemtation for ADHD)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed (magnesium to prevent diabetes, for treatment of diabetes)

You begin to get the idea. Look up magnesium deficiency and you may see a long list of symptoms that all have a connection that you may suffer. Or not.

But here, magnesium is a naturally occuring mineral of the earth. It is abundant in the primordial slime that we oozed from (scientifically;) the ocean and it is scientifically substantiated to be important for treatment of numerous disease and illnesses. How can this not be a winner? covers both the natural and the scientific, right? It's catching on in the medical communites as doctors study it a little more. ANd this little girl is heading for bed. I was hoping to help some here, who are suffering problems that can be helped with magnesium.

IF you must supplement with pills the best form is magnesium sulfate. You're better off to drink the liquid MgCl, by making 1/2 gallon of pure water mixed with 2/3 cup and drinking no more than 1/2 cup daily, you WILL have diarrhea, but magnesium binds to toxins in the blood and in the liver so this is expulsion of those toxins. It's also the body learning to relax the muscles of the intestine and colon again, which can cause diarrhea. Be prepared and don't drink this before heading off to a friend's. Drink lots of water after that magnesium to keep hydrated! It makes the Mg work better too.

If you have a doctor who does a magnesium load test and confirms you are deficient, you can ask to have shots administered. But it's invasive and more likely to cause infections than a simple bath.

I'm NOT a doctor, or a health practitioner. I do work for a doctor doing medical research. I'm merely trying to pass along information that I found in doing some research and in my own experiences with catastrophic health disease. (which is in the process of reversing due to magnesium therapy recommended by my doctors and specialists.) Please don't base all you hear on what I've just told you, do your research, I've provided an excellent link, and talk to your doctors or health practitioners.

[Bartholomew]

Thanks very much for all this info, I will dip in and out as and when. i had not come across it myself before and am always looking for natural remedies for various conditions. Having and interest in natural health care etc. I'd be interested in anything you have on the coconut oil having just purchased a huge tub for my dry hair and scalp condition. I am sitting here with a greasy head demolishing a packet of custard creams on a lazy Saturday afternoon. A perfect remedy for stress and job loss.

[stardust]

Hi and thank you very much for the detailled info

I agree that it helps, i´m having magnesium-drinks whenever i feel that i need one. also not more than one per day. After years living with anxiety disorder, my nerves weren´t in best "shape", and after i´ve started doing sports again, my muscles cramped sometimes a little bit...and it was no hard training at all 20min of running or an hour riding my bike.

So i´ve also had heared that magnesium is good for many problems, specially when there is a deficiency - i wasnt at a doctor to proof it, i´ve just tried it. Sometimes my feelings lead me perfectly to herbs, gems, other healingmethods, and magnesium was one of them, i felt "thats right for me".

so i drunk it sometimes, and the cramps were gone and me nerves getting stronger, and i calmer, more relaxed. well, thats not only because of Magnesium, i meditate constant for years, but it helped well for my problems.

[Alatariel]

Echo - all your links just go directly to the pubmed website - could you provide the actual links please? I can do my own search but would be interested to see the papers you've been reading.

Just from a medical perspective - 99% of what you've said is scientifically and medically inaccurate. There is so many inaccuracies that it is hard to know where to start in discussing them - I am sorry if this sounds harsh.

Just a couple of the more salient points then:

what do you think the side effects of this is: make your own Mg oil aka MgCl (magnesium chloride) and it's sold as a de-icer for sidewalks and driveways in the winter.
What do you think the problems might be so to speak? What other warnings should you give?

How does magnesium bind to 'toxins' in the blood. What are 'toxins'?

For that matter - how does the body convert magnesium sulphate to magnesium chloride? How do you think magnesium chloride is helpful? Would you be concerned about salt overload?

Echo - I guess the main problem is that you are writing a lot of stuff that looks like it's been copied and pasted - you put forth supposed 'medical facts' with little idea of what you are actually saying. Talking about the effects of magnesium and calcium on clotting - go ahead please explain. Or for example the causes of low potassium.

I'm sure you are a very lovely person - and truly mean well - (I see you did put a disclaimer at the bottom of your post) and it's not my job to try to disabuse you of your beliefs but your post comes across as a medical mishmash of nonsense.

I would strongly reiterate the writing in red at the top of this page - please see your doctor before drinking de-icer.

Regards

[Aigeann]

Stardust,

Welcome to the Board! I hope you enjoy your time with us.

Blessings, Aigeann

[stardust]

Stardust,

Welcome to the Board! I hope you enjoy your time with us.

Blessings, Aigeann

Thank you, and sorry that i hadnt the time to introduce myself, i´ll do this later on the introduction-thread.

Greetings from Austria
Stardust

[Muddy Fox]

I read on yahoo news that beer contains high levels of magnesium and maybe better for you than red wine and it cheers you up, in moderation of course. As does surfing the net, taking photos, and a few other things, sitting doing nothing for a bit and exercise I think were in that particualr list.
And then there was a survey about the top ten pollutant laden fruit ,and apples were at the top of the list with nectarines a close second and spuds were there somewhere. So I'm going to go organic when I've eaten everything out of my garden.

[Al Hakim]

I read on yahoo news that beer contains high levels of magnesium ...
And then there was a survey about the top ten pollutant laden fruit ,and apples were at the top of the list with nectarines a close second and spuds were there somewhere. So I'm going to go organic when I've eaten everything out of my garden.

So, let's have a beer, or two. I also think that Mg is often underestimated. - Organic food, sorry, I am a bit doubtful. I don't want to contract ergotism from molded grain, nor do I like worm-eaten fruits. But self-selected garden stuff should be OK.
Al Hakim

[wyeuro]

very helpful, thank you, echo. well researched and presented. and important too.