What is magnesium and what does it do?
Magnesium a vital regulator of the human body’s basic health. It is one of the essential minerals that the human body is completely reliant on to function. The body requires this mineral in large quantities and cannot produce it naturally. Therefore, magnesium must be collected from outside sources, like through ingestion of food/supplements, or by topical application.
About 60% of the magnesium in an adult human body is found in the bone cells, while the remaining 40% is distributed to the muscle, tissue, and fluid cells (US Dept of Health and Human Services. In fact, every cell type in the human body requires magnesium to perform its life functions. Here are some major cell functions where magnesium is crucial (Gröber, U.; Schmidt, J.; Kisters, K.):
– Energy Production (ATP metabolism)
– Gene and Protein Formation (important for structure of nucleic acids and required for DNA replication, transcription to RNA, and translation into protein)
– Muscle Function (necessary ion for contraction and relaxation of muscles; also gets rid of lactate, the chemical that makes you sore after working out)
– Nervous System Transmission (regulates hormone signals like stress between your brain and body)
– Fluid Balance (acts as electrolyte to maintain fluid balance in the body)
– Other Regulations (magnesium is necessary to regulate insulin/blood sugar and cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and transport of other essential minerals throughout the body)
For most of these processes, magnesium functions as an enzyme co-factor. This means the ion helps regulate enzyme function for numerous biochemical reactions in the body. Enzymes are essentially a type of protein that allows reactions to happen in conditions that wouldn’t normally be possible. For example, many necessary chemical reactions require extreme heat or acidity — environments that the human body cannot provide without causing major damage to fragile organs and tissues. The enzymes negate the need for those environments, and the co-factors (like magnesium) regulate when the enzyme starts and stops activity (and regulates the speed of the reaction). In other words, without co-factors like magnesium, the chemical reactions that the human body relies on to function properly would spiral out of control.
How much magnesium do I need?
Since magnesium is part of the process for over 300 different enzyme functions in human cells, it is vital to maintain proper magnesium levels. Even slight imbalances or deficiencies can result in significant loss of performance and health in the long term. Low magnesium levels have also been associated with several chronic diseases, so it is important to maintain a healthy level in order to prevent serious disease and treat short-term imbalance symptoms. The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of magnesium for adults (18+) is about 400-420 mg for men and 310-320mg for women (US Dept of Health and Human Services). For people under 18, the RDA is much more age specific.
How do I get magnesium?
Magnesium is naturally occurring in a large variety of foods and is often found in fortified foods, but the US Department of Agriculture states that 50% of Americans still consume less than the recommended amounts. In addition, the average body can absorb only 30%-40% of ingested magnesium. Therefore, it is of upmost importance to ensure magnesium is present in your daily meals to achieve the recommended 310-420mg daily. In general, foods containing dietary fiber also contain magnesium; some examples include dark leafy greens, spinach, legumes, (unprocessed) whole grains, nuts, seeds, and tofu. Dark chocolate, as well as some meats like salmon and chicken, can also provide an additional magnesium boost.
If you’re an athlete or workout regularly, your body can likely require and even higher intake of magnesium, somewhere between 500-800mg per day.
If keeping consistent magnesium intake through food turns out to be difficult, oral supplements can also assist they body in obtaining proper levels of magnesium, although it should always be taken into consideration that too much magnesium supplement can act as a laxative or result in malabsorption. If it is unlikely that magnesium is deficient in your body, there is no need to take magnesium supplements, as you can continue gaining sufficient levels through your diet. You can also try topical applications that allow magnesium to absorb through your skin. There are bath salts, lotions, oils, and more – just be sure to do your research on safe products and ask your doctor if you’re unsure.
Magnesium can improve poor sleep and other ailments
Since magnesium is involved in such a huge quantity of chemical processes in the body, proper levels can affect a wide variety of chronic chemical and physical functions that ail much of the population. Healthy magnesium levels can act as a mood stabilizer, helping to combat depression, stress, and ADHD, prevent migraines, fight type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure (regulate blood sugars and cholesterol), reduce inflammation, boost exercise performance, and even improve sleep.
While there is still a need for further research, many studies have found results that indicate the strong connection between magnesium levels and sleep regulation. For instance, a study from the Journal of Research in Medical Sciencesprovided 46 older patients with a daily dose of either 500mg magnesium or a placebo for 8 consecutive weeks. Results found significant improvement of sleep efficiency, amount of sleep time, sleep onset latency, and insomnia severity index scores. Essentially, magnesium supplements improved subjective measures of insomnia for these patients.
In other cases, magnesium has also been shown to improve sleep because it reduces muscle cramping and restless leg syndrome irritation during sleep. Generally, since magnesium regulates enzymes that control stress-hormone responses and neurotransmitter pathways, steadily healthy levels of magnesium in the body will maintain steady regulation of the processes these chemical reactions result in, like mood and stress stabilization.
Magnesium can boost performance during exercise, and aid recovery
Magnesium is deficient in over two thirds of the modern world’s populations, but athletes tend to have exacerbated deficiencies. This is likely because athletes push their bodily functions to their limits, and each of these functions require magnesium. Athletes have shown up to 20% loss of magnesium through the increased sweat and urine excretions that follow strenuous exercise, and restrictive diets or calorie intake also contribute to these predominately low levels.
Research on the subject suggests that, because of these magnesium deficiencies, endurance athletes are at higher risk of muscle damage while exercising and have a reduced ability to recover. The same trend is often noticed in people who regularly engage in strenuous workouts. At minimum, magnesium level maintenance is important for athletes to deliver oxygen to cells and regulate the relaxation of muscles (calcium contracts muscles and magnesium releases them; magnesium also controls in the intake of calcium into muscle cells). Magnesium prevents lactic acid build up and speeds muscle recovery time. However, if low magnesium levels become chronic in athletes, it is often found to increase the body’s CRP production (C-Reactive Protein production is a natural immune response to cell damage, but CRP levels become extremely high in those with low magnesium levels), which can indicate an increased risk of undesirable chronic symptoms like fatigue, tension, irritability, anxiety, migraines, and insomnia.
While some stress and inflammation in your muscles is natural and improves fitness, consistently high levels of stress and inflammation can cause chronic over-response issues in your immune system and contribute to muscle damage and painful side effects. Many athletes suffer from these symptoms without realizing that the answer can be as simple as increasing magnesium intake as the first step in the road to proper recovery.