Magnesium question.....

[mammo]

I keep reading about magnesium.  How does one know if they need to take it? I read that 90% of the population is deficient??? If I need it, what is best to take and can anyone advise me on the dosage?
Thanks!

[peggy64]

I have read, and experienced, that if one takes to much magnesium, the body will throw it off through diarrhea.

I am now taking magnesium 500 mg, 3-4 times a day with NO problems. I am also taking 15,000 u of vit d and I am feeling better than I have in a long time.  The magnesium is helping me as I have high cortisol levels at night, and it is helping with the anxiety that that produces.

I think the key with the magnesium is to not take it all in at once. Another form of getting magnesium is to soak in epsoms salt. I am too ADD to lay in the tub for any length of time. After about 5 minutes its like, ok....enough of this. You can also soak your feet in it, which is what I do from time to time, while watching tv or being on the computer. That is easier on your liver as it does not have to process it.

[Paxiled]

Make sure, everyone, that if you take supplemental magnesium you also take some supplemental calcium, and keep a good watch on your other electrolytes as well.  Just as too much calcium leaches out magnesium, too much magnesium leaches out calcium, and all electrolytes must be in balance with one another, including zinc, etc.  Also watch your boron and silica levels, which are essential for building strong bones and work with calcium, so again, make sure you don't overdo anything unless you have the underlying deficiency that requires that.  Now, to get extra magnesium, you have to take less calcium than the normal person requires, but you still want enough calcium to protect your heart and bones.  Be careful out there.

[allmymarbles]

The emphasis on milk appears to be a northern European bias. It is not just American. In the Far East there is no cheese or milk. In the Middle East there is some fresh cheese and lots of yoghurt - no milk. Southern Europeans don't like milk, and some can't tolerate it. None of these non-milk peoples are noted for melting bones.

[Paxiled]

The above post is largely true, but they do drink milk in the Middle East.  It just isn't cow's milk, and they don't drink a lot, but they do put in in their tea on a regular basis and the nomadic tribes drink camel's milk, though they also use a lot of kefir, a drink somewhat like yoghurt.  Americans didn't drink very much milk either until the Dairy Milk Marketing
Board was created by the federal gov't in the early part of the 20th Century to help the dairy industry.  It worked, to our detriment.  The only people who drink a lot of mild are the Scandinavians and some tribes in India who have the enzyme to digest milk.  But even they eat yoghurt and cheese more than drinking milk.  It's a marketing ploy, folks, that has nothing to do with our health.

[allmymarbles]

I am not looking to one-up you, but I lived and worked in the Middle East for almost two decades. They drink their tea without milk (except for a very few Lebanese who try to mimic Europeans). I have never seen a Middle Easterner ever drink a glass of milk - cow, sheep,  goat, or camel. The nomads of Iran, Syria, or any others that I have known of do not drink milk. Maybe some of the Saudis do. I don't know. I don't know what the habits are in North Africa.

[Paxiled]

Don't mind one-upping me at all.  I need to learn just like anyone else.  Personally, I don't consider Iran as part of the Middle East.  I know we call it that, but it's really just the East and it has always focused East until very recently.  It was the Arab nomadic tribes and the ancient Hebrews and the herders who drank the milk.  Not so many of them left now, to be sure, but when you're riding through deserts you have no choice but to drink the milk of your animals.  As for the tea, I was thinking of India and places influenced by India.  My bad.  (That's where Europeans got it from -- after conquering India).  You should try Tibetan tea -- mix it with yak butter.  Awful stuff.