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Magnesium - the critical roles it plays in your body and how to ensure you're getting enough:Wisdom Wednesdays · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Everyone, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Today, I
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  Speaker 1: want to dive into magnesium, and I want to do
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  Speaker 1: this properly because magnesium kind of sits in that category
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  Speaker 1: of nutrients that gets talked about a lot, and often
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  Speaker 1: very broadly, and sometimes it's a bit inaccurate. So let's
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  Speaker 1: look at the physiology first, and I mean find when
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  Speaker 1: you look at the physiology, it is not a fringe nutrient.
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  Speaker 1: It is pretty bloody fundamental to the body. So we
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  Speaker 1: know now that magnesium acts as a co factor. That
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  Speaker 1: means it helps.
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  Speaker 2: Out for more than three hundred enzymatic reactions in the body,
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  Speaker 2: and that includes things like protein synthesis, muscle and nerve function,
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  Speaker 2: and blood glocost control.
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  Speaker 3: It also plays a role in.
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  Speaker 2: Maintaining your DNA integrity, supporting the structure of your cells,
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  Speaker 2: and even regulating energy production. So it's a mineral that's
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  Speaker 2: pretty deeply embedded in how the body functions. And despite that,
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  Speaker 2: deficiency is actually surprisingly common, although hard to measure, and
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  Speaker 2: we'll get to that a little bit later on, but
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  Speaker 2: data out of the US suggests that more than half
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  Speaker 2: of the population may not be getting adequate magnesium intake
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  Speaker 2: and low levels have been linked to reineo chronic conditions,
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  Speaker 2: everything from metabolic disorders through to neurodegenerative disorders. Now, before
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  Speaker 2: we jump into outcomes, it's worth just framing up were
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  Speaker 2: magnesium shows up physiologically. So it contributes to cardiovascular function
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  Speaker 2: through vasodilation and blood pressure regulation. It also plays a
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  Speaker 2: role in metabolic health by supporting insulin sensitivity and handling of.
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  Speaker 3: Glucose in your body.
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  Speaker 2: In the brain, it's involved in creating synapses and regulating stress,
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  Speaker 2: and there's emerging evidence linking it to the preservation of
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  Speaker 2: brain volume as you ege.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 2: It also contributes to bone structure, vitamin de metabolism, and
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  Speaker 2: even exercise performance through his role in energy production and
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  Speaker 2: electrolyte balance. And I'm in the middle of a one
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  Speaker 2: hundred hour fast right now and one of the things
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  Speaker 2: that I am allergning into my body is electrolytes and
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  Speaker 2: that includes magnesiums So biologically, there are many, many reasons
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  Speaker 2: to think that magnesium is important.
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  Speaker 3: But what does the data actually show?
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  Speaker 2: Not the Instagram kind of adverts that you see popping
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  Speaker 2: up everywhere, but what's the data actually tell us. So
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  Speaker 2: the best place to start is a study published in
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  Speaker 2: twenty sixteen in BMC Medicine by Fang at al. And
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  Speaker 2: it was a large meta analysis, so but no, you've
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  Speaker 2: heard me bang on about meta analysis. They looked at
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  Speaker 2: forty prospective cohort studies and had over a million participants
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  Speaker 2: in it, so we're looking at good long term population data.
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  Speaker 2: And the headline question that the researchers asked was whether
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  Speaker 2: higher magnesium intake reduces cardiovascular disease, And this is where
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  Speaker 2: there's a bit of nuance. For total cardiovascular disease there
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  Speaker 2: was no significant association, but for carnary heart disease, again
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  Speaker 2: no clear association. So you think the claim magnesium is
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  Speaker 2: good for your heart doesn't really hold. But whenever you
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  Speaker 2: dug down into specific outcomes, they find something completely different.
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  Speaker 2: For every extra one hundred milligram increase in daily magnesium intake,
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  Speaker 2: the study found around a twenty two percent reduction in
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  Speaker 2: heart failure risk, a seven percent reduction in stroke risk,
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  Speaker 2: a nineteen percent reduction in type two diabetes risk, and
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  Speaker 2: a ten percent reduction it all cause mortality. So even
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  Speaker 2: though the effect isn't universal across everything they looked at,
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  Speaker 2: it is pretty consistent across a number of significant issues
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  Speaker 2: and the dose that move those numbers one hundred milligrams
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  Speaker 2: per day. That's not a big dose, and I'll talk
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  Speaker 2: at the end about how you can get it through
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  Speaker 2: your food. So let's not talk about brain health and aging.
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  Speaker 2: So there's also some interesting observational data on magnesium in
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  Speaker 2: brain structure. One study of over six thousand adults aged
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  Speaker 2: between forty and seventy three found that people who consumed
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  Speaker 2: around five hundred and fifty milligrams of magnesium per day
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  Speaker 2: had larger gray matter and hippocampal volumes compared to those
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  Speaker 2: consuming around three hundred and fifty milligrams per day, and
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  Speaker 2: the authors estimated that this difference in brain volume corresponded
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  Speaker 2: to roughly one year less brain aging, and particularly in women.
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  Speaker 3: Now, this is observational data and.
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  Speaker 2: It's based on self report, so we have to be
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  Speaker 2: a bit cautious, but it does align with broader, what
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  Speaker 2: we call mechanistic work that shows that magnesium may reduce
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  Speaker 2: oxidative stress, improve synaptic plasticity, and potentially counter processes involved
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  Speaker 2: in neurodegeneration. So let's while we're in the subject of
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  Speaker 2: the brillin, let's talk about depression and mood so we're
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  Speaker 2: now going from observational data to clinical trials. So in
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  Speaker 2: twenty seventeen in the Journal plus one, the main officer
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  Speaker 2: was Tarletan and colleagues. They looked at magnesium supplementation in
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  Speaker 2: one hundred and twelve adults with mild to moderate depression.
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  Speaker 2: The participants took two hundred and forty eight grams of
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  Speaker 2: elemental magnesium per day for six weeks, and then they
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  Speaker 2: crossed over the six weeks with no treatment. So, as
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  Speaker 2: you heard me this talk about before, this is the
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  Speaker 2: best study design where you can follow people when they're
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  Speaker 2: doing something and then when they're not doing it, and
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  Speaker 2: that's they act as their own controls. What they find
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  Speaker 2: was a reduction of about six points on the PHQ
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  Speaker 2: nine pression scale, which that exceeds the threshold for a
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  Speaker 2: clinically meaningful change. Now they put that in context. A
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  Speaker 2: British Medical Journal publication last year looking at randomized control
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  Speaker 2: trial interventions for depression, find that on average, when they
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  Speaker 2: looked at all of the different studies, that antidepressants may
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  Speaker 2: or may not have a clinically important benefit. I what
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  Speaker 2: they meant by that some sort of show they did,
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  Speaker 2: some sort of show they didn't. But in this study
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  Speaker 2: magnesium had an actual clinical impact, so that means the
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  Speaker 2: individuals felt better. Now, there was no control group, but
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  Speaker 2: as I said, they acted as their own control, which
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  Speaker 2: I actually think is a very good study design.
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  Speaker 3: Let's start talking about blood pressure.
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  Speaker 2: Data is consistent here, but it just moves the needle
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  Speaker 2: a little bit. So twenty sixteen they looked at they
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  Speaker 2: did a meta analysis of thirty four randomized control trials.
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  Speaker 2: They had about two thousand participants. The median dose was
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  Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty eight gram milligram, sorry not crams,
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  Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty eight milligrams of magnesium over three months,
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  Speaker 2: and they showed a very moderate I would say reduction
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  Speaker 2: and blood pressure about two millimeters of mercury in systolic
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  Speaker 2: and just under two in diastolic. So it's not dramatic,
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  Speaker 2: but it was a reproducible effect, right, and so it
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  Speaker 2: happened pretty consistently. And then in migraines really interestingly, in
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, Talandashti I can really pronounce their name,
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  Speaker 2: Talandashti at al. They looked at twenty two trials looking
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  Speaker 2: at supplements for migraine, including magnesium and for magnesium. They
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  Speaker 2: find around two and a half fewer migraines per month
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  Speaker 2: in participants who took the magne and one point six
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  Speaker 2: fewer migraine days per month. So again it's not a cure,
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  Speaker 2: but I think if you suffer from migraine, that's a
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  Speaker 2: pretty meaningful reduction. So let's talk about deficiency and testing.
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  Speaker 3: This often gets overlooked.
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  Speaker 2: Standard blood tests look at serum or blood magnesium, and
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  Speaker 2: that actually represents less than one percent of the total
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  Speaker 2: body magnesium. Most of it is stored in bone or
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  Speaker 2: inside cells, so a normal blood test doesn't necessarily mean
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  Speaker 2: optimal magnesium stata. That just rules out severe deficiency. Right,
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  Speaker 2: and when deficiency does occur, the symptoms are often non specific.
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  Speaker 2: Early on, people get things like fatigue, loss of appetite,
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  Speaker 2: or nausea, and then it tends to progress to more
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  Speaker 2: serious issues such as muscle cramps, abnormal heart rhythms, or
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  Speaker 2: neurological symptoms. Now, there's also data shown in individuals with
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  Speaker 2: low plasma or blood magnesium levels below zero point seven
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  Speaker 2: millimles per liter, they have a thirty two percent higher
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  Speaker 2: risk of premature death, which highlights how important severe deficiency
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  Speaker 2: can be. Right, but often these tays to just look
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  Speaker 2: at severe deficiency. So let's get practical about it, all right,
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  Speaker 2: because magnesium is something that if you're taking in your diet,
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  Speaker 2: you're really not going to consume too much. So we
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  Speaker 2: definitely want to get up to around that five hundred
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  Speaker 2: milligrams per day. And if you remember from the first
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  Speaker 2: paper I talked about the Fang paper, one hundred milligram
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  Speaker 2: per day increase actually had a significant effect.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So let's see what that looks like.
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  Speaker 2: A small handful of around thirty grams of pumpkin seeds
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  Speaker 2: that gives you about one hundred and fifty milligrams per day. Sorry,
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  Speaker 2: magnesium and I pumpkin seeds quite a lot. They are
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  Speaker 2: magnesium powerhouses.
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  Speaker 3: About a half.
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  Speaker 2: To two thirds of a cup of spinach that provides
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  Speaker 2: roughly eighty to one hundred milligrams a magnesium. A handful
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  Speaker 2: of almonds again about thirty grams that gives you about
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  Speaker 2: seventy five milligrams a magnesium.
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  Speaker 3: Half a cup of.
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  Speaker 2: Cooked black beans that will give you about sixty milligrams.
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  Speaker 2: Here's a cracker, a thirty grand piece of dark chocolate.
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  Speaker 2: It has to be seventy percent or more gives around
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  Speaker 2: sixty to seventy milligrams of magnesium.
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  Speaker 3: So my eighty five.
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  Speaker 2: Percent dark chocolate, I think is an absolute winner. And
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  Speaker 2: one medium avocado that's about sixty milligrams, So you don't
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  Speaker 2: need to do anything extreme to eat significant amounts of magnesium.
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  Speaker 3: In your diet.
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  Speaker 2: Now, if you're aiming from closer to four to five
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  Speaker 2: hundred milligrams per day, which is where a lot of
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  Speaker 2: the clinical trial.
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  Speaker 3: Data sits, you can build that quite easily.
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  Speaker 2: You know, breakfast have oats, almonds, pumpkin seeds in there,
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  Speaker 2: and lunch having leafy greens and avocado, and some lay
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  Speaker 2: goons at dinner, and of course some black dark chocolate
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  Speaker 2: ideally eighty five percent, but certainly more than seventy. Now,
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  Speaker 2: what about supplements, because if you're like me, you've seen
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  Speaker 2: a lot of magnesium supplements that are advertised in all
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  Speaker 2: of these different formats magnesium citrate, glycinate, chloride, THEE in
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  Speaker 2: it and so on, and they all differ slightly in
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  Speaker 2: their bioavailability, like how much you can absorb and also
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  Speaker 2: how tolerable they are. So in general, organic forms of
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  Speaker 2: magnesium like magnesium citrate and glycinate and malle it. They
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  Speaker 2: tend to have slightly higher bioavailability than inorganic forms like
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  Speaker 2: magnesium oxide, although all forms can restore magnesium levels. I
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  Speaker 2: prefer magnesium glycinate just because of its bioavailability, but most
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  Speaker 2: people the bigger issues tolerance, So some forms, particularly magnesium
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  Speaker 2: citrate and magnesium oxide, they can have a laxative effect
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  Speaker 2: and glycinate it. As I say, it tends to be
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  Speaker 2: better tolerated. But it's also noting worth noting that high
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  Speaker 2: dietary magnesium intake from food, it's not a concern, as
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  Speaker 2: I said earlier, because excess is just excluded by the kidneys.
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  Speaker 2: The problems people get is when they do high dose supplementation,
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  Speaker 2: and that can lead to gastrum, testine issues or some
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  Speaker 2: mineral imbalances. So we've got to be careful that we
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  Speaker 2: don't over supplement. Again, get it from food first, and
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  Speaker 2: then you know, supplement a little bit if you want
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  Speaker 2: a bit of extra insurance. But certainly in somebody, the
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  Speaker 2: strongest evidence for magnesium is in reducing risk of heart failure,
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  Speaker 2: stroke and diabetes. And then there's modest blood pressure improvements,
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  Speaker 2: there's migraine reduction, and there seems to be pretty significant
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  Speaker 2: brain health and mood, although I think we do need
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  Speaker 2: a bit more research in those But importantly, the doses
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  Speaker 2: associated with those benefits are available through food, so again
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  Speaker 2: the key thing reduce your ultra process shit and eat
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  Speaker 2: more real food.
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  Speaker 3: That's it for this week, folks, Catch you next time.