Magnesium Deficiency

[chatycady]

Hi all;

I just wanted to let all the hypoglycemia celiac's know that I have found magnesium supplements have cured me of hupoglycemia. I have been faithfully gluten free for about 10 months, and was slowly getting better, however my blood sugar would get so low I couldn't function at times. I was on a high protein diet and gluten free. It was tough to find food choices.

I also read that a magnesium deficiency can cause food allergies. I no longer have reactions to peanuts, corn and dairy since adding magnesium supplements.

Hope this info helps others too.

Take care.

Chaty

[Centa]

Hi all;

I just wanted to let all the hypoglycemia celiac's know that I have found magnesium supplements have cured me of hupoglycemia. I have been faithfully gluten free for about 10 months, and was slowly getting better, however my blood sugar would get so low I couldn't function at times. I was on a high protein diet and gluten free. It was tough to find food choices.

I also read that a magnesium deficiency can cause food allergies. I no longer have reactions to peanuts, corn and dairy since adding magnesium supplements.

Hope this info helps others too.

Take care.

Chaty

That's interesting, Chaty. So glad you found relief from hypoglycemia. I took magnesium malate for quite awhile for muscle spasms. It did seem to help, but the best help was taking gluten out of my diet...the spasms, which had been a pretty big item in my life, have nearly disappeared. Here are a few lines quoted from Shari Lieberman's The Real Vitamin and Mineral Book (1997). I read on this site that Dr. Lieberman published a book on gluten sensitivity in 2006, too.

Magnesium deficiency.

"It has been estimated that as much as 60 percent of the US population is at risk for magnesium deficiency" She lists diabetics, people on antibiotics, diuretics and oral contraceptives and under high stress as sometimes having depleted magnesium. "In addition magnesium may be too low in people with malabsorption syndromes or gastrointestinal disorders such as Crohn's disease" or bulimia.

Food sources:

"Magnesium is widely distributed in foods. Those foods with the highest magnesium content include milk and other dairy products, meat, seafood, nuts, blackstrap molasses, soybeans, seeds and wheat germ. Whole grains such as oatmeal, cornmeal and rice are also good sources." She observes however that processing takes a lot of the magnesium out of foods.

[jkeeley]

i myself have suffered terribly from this cruel disease.

it got so bad that my bones pained me especially my forearms.

i tried taking calcium supplements but they didn't help, so i did some research and it led me to celiac.com.

i tried taking magnesium citrate and the results have been profound in only a month. the pain in my forearms eased and i have noticed my wrists have thickened. the only downside is i took to many tablets and i got diarrhoea. i found if i take the magnesium citrate tablet on a empty stomach before bed it works best.

i tried mollasses and other supplements with magnesium but there was no effect.

[TestyTommy]

What kind of dosage are you all taking?

[hathor]

That is interesting about a link between food allergies and magnesium deficiency. Do you happen to have a site for further reading about this?

[CMCM]

I did some reading and realized that due to the foods I've had to eliminate, I probably had a magnesium deficiency...in particular, I was getting leg cramps and some other things. I heard about a special supplement being advertised on several talk shows by people I really trust and respect (one is Dennis Prager), so I ordered this company's magnesium that was advertised on the shows. I believe it has really helped me a lot. I've had magnesium before that bothered my system, but this one doesn't as long as I eat the tablets with a meal. And divide up the doses. This particular brand is a sustained release tablet, which they say is better, so if you haved 2 tabs at the beginning of the day and 2 at the end, with the sustained release you got magnesium coming into your system 24 hours. The tablets are gluten free, also.

I've used two 600-pill bottles so far and my husband and son take it too. 2 tablets with breakfast, 2 with dinner (you need to do divided doses). It definitely stopped my leg cramps. It's probably good to take some calcium with it, too.

I tried to put a link to the article, but this site won't let me, so I copied some of the article info below. If anyone wants the actual product name etc. you can email me. I have nothing to do with the company, but like the product better than magnesium I've bought in the stores.

--------------

ABOUT MAGNESIUM

Magnesium deficiency triggers or causes the following 22 conditions; the introduction of magnesium, either by a high-magnesium diet, with green drinks, or magnesium supplements, can help alleviate these conditions:

Anxiety and panic attacks

Asthma

Blood clots

Bowel disease

Cystitis

Depression

Detoxification

Diabetes, Syndrome X,

and Metabolic Syndrome

Fatigue

Heart disease

Hypertension

Hypoglycemia

Insomnia

Kidney Disease

Liver Disease

Migraine

Musculoskeletal conditions

Nerve problems

Obstetrics and Gynecology - premenstrual syndrome, dysmenorrhea (cramping pain during menses), infertility, premature contractions, preeclampsia, and eclampsia in pregnancy, lessens the risk of cerebral palsy and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

Osteoporosis

Raynaud's Syndrome

Tooth decay

Science and medicine have both turned their backs on magnesium. Science opts out because the scientific methodology is defined by being able to test one thing at a time ending up with one result. it is responsible for the correct metabolic function of over 350 enzymes in the body. The creation of ATP (adenosine triphospate) the energy molecules of the body, the action of the heart muscle, the proper formation of bones and teeth, relaxation of blood vessels, and the promotion of proper bowel function are all under the guidance of magnesium.

Why Don't We Hear More About Magnesium?

Medicine has turned its back on magnesium because most of the funding for medical research now comes from drug companies. Magnesium is not a patented drug and therefore will not be studied by drug companies, except to try to disprove its action.

While researching my book, The Magnesium Miracle, I found that doctors have been prescribing magnesium for heart disease since the 1930s. A review of seven major clinical studies showed that IV magnesium reduced the odds of death by more than half in patients suffering acute myocardial infarction (heart attack). One study, LIMIT-2, developed a protocol for giving magnesium as soon as possible after onset of the heart attack and before any other drugs. If those criteria were followed, heart muscle damage was greatly reduced, and neither hypertension nor arrhythmia developed.

Magnesium and the Heart

During and after a heart attack, people can suffer the following:

Extension of the area of heart damage as calcium floods into the muscle

Blood clotting, which blocks blood vessels in the heart muscle

Decreased blood flow as blood vessels go into spasm

Arrhythmia as the areas where muscle contraction in the heart originate are damaged

Magnesium is able to:

Dilate blood vessels

Prevent spasm in the heart muscle and blood vessel walls

Counteract the action of calcium, which increases spasm

Help dissolve blood clots

Dramatically lessen the site of injury and prevent arrhythmia

Act as an antioxidant against the free radicals forming at the site of injury 1-4

One of the main reasons that heart drug digoxin becomes toxic is because there is not enough magnesium in the body. 5

A drug trial called ISIS sought to disprove the effects of magnesium. In the ISIS trial the protocol was not followed in that magnesium was not the first drug given, and often it was not given for many hours or days after a heart attack was well established, causing widespread damage and blood clotting. Yet, drug reps can dutifully tell their doctor clients that ISIS proved that magnesium is worthless for heart disease! 6 Since the LIMIT-2 and ISIS trials, another smaller trial with only 200 people who were given IV magnesium at the onset of a heart attack, experienced a 74 percent lower death rate. 7

In spite of the fact that heart drugs, mainly diuretics, have the bad habit of depleting magnesium--along with potassium and even though magnesium is absolutely required for stabilizing heart muscle activity--magnesium is not utilized properly by conventional medicine.

Magnesium's Role in a Healthy Body

A small group of international magnesium researchers, however, have continued, against all odds, to prove the importance of magnesium not only as a nutrient for thousands of body processes but also as a medicine to treat magnesium-depleted health conditions. Drs. Bella and Burton Altura are two hard-working magnesium heroes! They have performed laboratory research and clinical research to the tune of about 1,000 studies over the past 40 years. The Alturas personally confirmed that the 22 magnesium-related conditions, listed at the beginning of this article, have a solid basis in science.

Dr. Burton Altura said that during his 40 years of research he was appalled at the lack of attention given to this life-saving nutrient. He has all but given up on conventional medicine recognizing the need for magnesium in its protocols for dozens of diseases and welcomed books such as mine to help spread the word. Without million-dollar marketing budgets that drug companies have for their latest drugs, nutrient research plods along--proving over and over again their worth but never being able to get that information out to the public.

Up to 80 Percent of Americans are Magnesium-Deficient

Another reason that Dr. Altura felt magnesium was not given its due is because there has been no lab test that will give an accurate reading of the magnesium status in the tissues. Only one percent of magnesium of the body is distributed in the blood, making a simple sample of magnesium in the blood highly inaccurate. That's why most doctors who rely on blood tests for magnesium and not magnesium deficiency signs and symptoms and realization that up to 80 percent of the population is deficient, will miss an important diagnosis.

There's even more to the actual way magnesium works. It exists in the body either as active magnesium ions or as inactive magnesium complexes bound to proteins or other substances. A magnesium ion is a group of atoms that is missing an electron, which makes it excitable as it searches to attach to something that will replace its missing electron.

Magnesium ions constitute the most physiologically active fraction of magnesium in the body; they are free to join in biochemical body processes and are not attached to other substances. 8 Most clinical laboratories only assess total "serum" magnesium, which mixes up both active and inactive types.

The Alturas took it upon themselves to develop and research a method that would test specifically for magnesium ions. It came about in 1987 and is called the Blood Ionized Magnesium Test. Its accuracy has been confirmed countless times with sensitive digital imaging microscopy, atomic absorption spectroscopy and the magnesium fluorescent probe. With this test it is now possible to directly measure the levels of magnesium ions in whole blood, plasma and serum using ion-selective electrodes. 8 The Alturas have used the ionized magnesium test in hundreds of research trials on dozens of different conditions proving, for example, that the 22 conditions listed above are related to magnesium deficiency. 9-15

Unfortunately, I'm not able to tell you that the ionized magnesium test is readily available. The Alturas do ionized magnesium tests at their laboratory at SUNY in New York and the testing equipment is available through an outside manufacturer to interested labs. (I've included the Altura contact information, below.)

How to Get Enough Magnesium

How do I get enough magnesium is a question that I'm frequently asked. If there is enough magnesium in the soil where green leafy vegetables, nuts, and seeds are grown then we have a chance to obtain magnesium from our diet. Organic foods may have more magnesium, but only if farmers replenish their soil with magnesium-rich fertilizers. Most fertilizer used on factory farms relies heavily on nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium to make plants grow and appear healthy.

However, if magnesium and other minerals and micronutrients are not introduced the plants may look good but are not packed with the nutrition we need. Growers should be required to use top-quality fertilizers and should test their crops for the long list of nutrients we need to stay healthy.

In general, to get as much magnesium as possible in the diet, eat plenty of organic leafy green vegetables, nuts and seeds every day. Adding green drinks to your menu will help you achieve a higher magnesium status. However, if you are suffering from the following symptoms you may need supplemental magnesium:

muscle twitches

tics

spasms

"Charlie horse" (the muscle spasm that occurs when you stretch your legs)

stiff and aching muscles

headaches

cluster headaches

migraines

diabetes

PMS

depression

chronic fatigue syndrome

stress

anxiety

nervousness

high-strung

hyperactivity

hypertension

high blood pressure

constipation

heart attack

stroke

angina

irregular heartbeat

weakness

kidney stones

attention deficit disorder

confusion

muscle weakness

seizures

exhaustion from exercise

back pain

hypoglycemia

osteoporosis

aging

aggressive behavior

hiccups

insomnia or restless sleep

bones and joints that need continued chiropractic treatment

The Calcium-to-Magnesium Ratio

Supplementing with magnesium must also take into account the balance between calcium and magnesium. Finland, which, from 1973 to 1999 had the highest recorded incidence of heart attack in middle-aged men in the world, also has a high calcium-to-magnesium ratio in the diet at 4 parts calcium to 1 part magnesium. 16-17 Americans in general have a high calcium-to-magnesium ratio in their diet and consequently in their bodies; the U.S. ratio is 3.5-to-1. Our dietary emphasis on a high calcium intake without sufficient magnesium and because of the excessive emphasis on women taking high doses of calcium for osteoporosis, we are creating more imbalance between the two minerals.

Some researchers predict that the American ratio of calcium to magnesium is actually approaching 6-to-1, yet, the recommended dietary ratio of calcium to magnesium in the United States is 2-to-1. Current research on the paleolithic or caveman diet shows that the ratio of calcium to magnesium in the diet that our bodies evolved to eat is 1-to-1. 18 In order to offset the deficiency magnesium induced by excess calcium and to treat the above 22 conditions, people may find it necessary to ingest one part magnesium to one part calcium in supplement form for a period of months to a year. Stabilization on a healthy diet including green drinks may be possible after that time.

The most commons sources of magnesium are oxide, citrate, glycinate, and malate. People use oxide and citrate if they suffer from constipation to take advantage of magnesium's laxative effect. Glycinate seems to cause little diarrhea and is the best choice for people who already have loose stools. Magnesium malate has been promoted for people with fibromyalgia to help break up lactic acid that seems to be part of the fibromyalgia picture.

[mleeanne]

Hi all;

I just wanted to let all the hypoglycemia celiac's know that I have found magnesium supplements have cured me of hupoglycemia. I have been faithfully gluten free for about 10 months, and was slowly getting better, however my blood sugar would get so low I couldn't function at times. I was on a high protein diet and gluten free. It was tough to find food choices.

I also read that a magnesium deficiency can cause food allergies. I no longer have reactions to peanuts, corn and dairy since adding magnesium supplements.

Hope this info helps others too.

Take care.

Chaty

Hi, Chaty. I found this post when I was looking up which nutrients may be depleted with celiac. I have allergies to peanuts and eggs and have been taking enzymes to try and heal my digestive system. I didn't know there was a possible link between magnesium and allergies. Thank you so much for this helpful information.

I have been tested several times for allergies and they change all the time. I go back on February 23 for another test and have been getting annual blood tests now for several years. I am going to try this theory out and hope that it works. I love eggs and peanut butter (used to eat one fried egg and toast with PB at least 3 times a week) it would be so amazing to be able to experience that good warm egg n toast belly again!

Misty