Magnesium Deficiency: Fact or Fiction?
By William R. Davis, MD, for Revive Your Life
The powerful pumpkin seed - a great source of magnesium...Photo by morberg
Editor’s Note: Revive Your Life is proud to welcome heart health expert and cardiologist, William R. Davis, MD, to our staff of Expert Contributors. Dr. Davis is a vocal advocate of self-empowering strategies to reduce the risk of heart disease and is the author of Track Your Plaque. As a member of the Nutritional Magnesium Association, he urges you to educate yourself about the risk factors associated with magnesium deficiency by visiting the Nutritional Magnesium Association website.
Heart health expert and cardiologist Dr. William Davis, MD talks about magnesium deficiency and how this affects your overall health and well being.
Can’t We Get Magnesium From Our Water and Food?
If this were 10,000 B.C., you’d get your drinking water from streams, rivers, and lakes, all rich in mineral content. Back in the day, humans became reliant on obtaining a considerable proportion of their daily mineral needs from natural water sources.
In the 21st century, we obtain our drinking water from a spigot or plastic bottle. Unfortunately, pesticides and other chemicals seep into our water supply which has prompted widespread water filtration and purification processes. Municipal water facilities have intensified water purification in most communities to remove contaminants such as lead, pesticide residues, and nitrates. (For a listing of the water quality of various cities, the University of Cincinnati makes this data available).
But intensive water treatment also removes minerals like calcium and magnesium.
Many people have added water filters or purifiers to their homes using systems such as reverse osmosis and/or distillation. These systems are efficient at extracting any remaining minerals, converting “hard” into “soft” water. In fact, manufacturers of these devices boast of their power to yield pure water free of any “contaminant”, including vital nutrients and minerals like magnesium. The result, the magnesium content of water after passing through most commercial filters is zero.
Modern enthusiasm for bottled water has compounded the problem. Americans consume enormous amounts of bottled water, nearly 8 billion gallons last year. In the U.S., nearly all bottled water has little or no magnesium.
Additionally, modern agricultural practices have depleted the nutrient content of our soils and our foods making our foods vary enormously in nutrient value. Processed foods are the worst as they are not only low in nutritious value but tend to further deplete minerals from our bodies.
Do Americans Have a Magnesium Deficiency?
We can no longer rely on drinking water or our foods to provide enough magnesium. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA)-the amount required to prevent severe deficiency-for magnesium is 420 mg per day for men, 320 mg/day for women. In cities with the highest magnesium water content, only 30% of the RDA can be obtained by drinking two liters of tap water per day. In most cities, only a meager 10-20% of the daily requirement can be obtained. That leaves between 70-90% that needs to come from other sources. As a result, the average American ingests substantially less than the RDA.
Measuring Your Magnesium Levels
Blood magnesium levels are a poor barometer for true body (intracellular) magnesium. Only 1% of the body’s magnesium is in the blood, the remaining 99% is stored in various body tissues, particularly bone and muscle. If blood magnesium is low, cellular magnesium levels are indeed low - very low.
If blood magnesium is normal, cellular or tissue levels of magnesium may still be low. Unfortunately, tissue magnesium levels are not easy to obtain in living, breathing humans. In all practicality, a blood magnesium test only helps if it’s low, while normal levels don’t necessarily mean anything and may provide false reassurance.
Short of performing a biopsy to measure tissue magnesium levels, several signs provide a tip-off that magnesium may be low:
- Heart arrhythmias - Having any sort of heart rhythm disorder should cause you to question whether magnesium levels in your body are adequate, since low magnesium levels trigger abnormal heart rhythms. In fact, in the hospital we give intravenous magnesium to quiet down abnormal rhythms.
- Low potassium - Low magnesium commonly accompanies low potassium. Potassium is another electrolyte depleted by diuretic use and is commonly deficient in many conditions (e.g., excessive alcohol use, hypertension, loss from malabsorption or diarrhea). Like magnesium, potassium may not be fully replenished by modern diets.
- Muscle cramps - Magnesium regulates muscle contraction. Leg cramps, or “charlie-horses”, painful vise-like cramps in calves, fingers, or other muscles, are a common symptom of magnesium deficiency.
- Migraine headaches - Reflective of magnesium’s role in regulating blood vessel tone, low magnesium can trigger vascular spasms in the blood vessels of the brain. In some emergency rooms, they will actually administer intravenous magnesium to break a migraine.
- Metabolic syndrome - Magnesium plays a fundamental role in regulating insulin responses. Metabolic syndrome (low HDL, high triglycerides, small LDL, high blood pressure, increased blood sugar, excessive abdominal fat, etc.) is triggered by insulin responses gone awry and is clearly linked to low magnesium levels.
The absence of any of these tell-tale signs does not necessarily mean that tissue levels of magnesium are normal.
Then how do you really know? There is no easy, available method to gauge body magnesium. As a practical solution - supplementation at a level of 2.3 milligrams of magnesium per pound of body weight per day (this comes to about 345 milligrams per day for a 150 lb individual) can really help. When supplementing with magnesium, start on a gradient of a low dose and gradually build up. If you get diarrhea you can lower the dose back down until you are at a comfortable level. While magnesium supplementation is generally quite safe, people on certain antibiotics should not take magnesium. If you have kidney disease (renal failure) or any kidney disorders, you must not take any magnesium supplements and should consult a physician.
In all practicality, because of magnesium’s crucial role in health, its widespread deficiency in Americans, and the growing depletion of magnesium in water and foods, supplemental magnesium is necessary for nearly everyone to ensure healthy levels. Not all forms of magnesium are equally absorbed by the body. One of the most absorbable forms of nutritional magnesium is magnesium citrate in powder form. Start out slow and build up to and find your body’s tolerance level.
This post sponsored by Jigsaw Health, specializing in sustained release magnesium supplements. (Spreads out the absorption rate so you absorb a higher dose of magnesium throughout the day.) ReviveYourLife readers receive $5 off your first purchase. Use code “RYL” in the checkout.
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Dr Davis, I really enjoyed reading your article. I have been hearing a lot lately about the benefits of magnesium and your explanation was so helpful and easy to understand. I will pass this info along! I read somewhere that it is not good to take too much magnesium. Is this true? and if so, how can you determine whether you are taking more than you need?
What a great article! I’m not sure that many people would make the connection between a magnesium deficiency and the symptoms that you’ve listed above. It’s suprising to see how important this mineral actually is!
Thanks for the kind comments.
Dorothy–
Some helpful magnesium facts and figures from the Office of Dietary Supplements of the National Institutes of Health can be found at http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/magnesium.asp
Unlike many other RDA’s which are flagrantly inaccurate (e.g., vitamin D), the magnesium RDAs are reasonable approximation of need, in my view. So I do believe that it is wise to keep your intake somewhere around the RDA, rarely more than 500-600 mg per day (elemental magnesium). Be assured that magnesium toxicity is exceptionally rare and takes a long time to develop.
Thank you! Very helpful information.
Great information Dr. Davis. I really enjoyed this article and have been reading more about the importance of magnesium lately. Very informative.
Great info! I take a multivitamin and my daily intake is like 50 mg…way to low according to the RDA you stated. I will have to monitor if I get enough in the other food I eat per day…very informative. Thanks Dr. Williams.
This is really an eye opener for a health care concern persons like me. I never though micro mineral magnesium plays such an important role to lead a healthy life…
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I couldn’t agree more that magnesium is deficient is our water supply. I own a water filtration business and I’m always talking people out of reverse osmosis machines since they take out all of the minerals. We sell a reverse osmosis system that has a “reminerialization” cartridge that puts essencial minerals back into the water. Standard cartridge type water filters don’t take out the important minerals. Good article.
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[...] Revive Your Life contributors have written extensively on the risks and symptoms of magnesium deficiency — heart attacks, high blood pressure, aching muscles, migraines, etc. — and the almost limitless benefits of magnesium supplementation. [...]
My symptoms just to name a few;
muscle spasms in the arms, legs
Random twitches, tremmors, and jolts
Noise sensitivity
Palpitations
Foggy thought process and noteable cognitive decline
Loss of libido
Blood pressure seemed to not be regulated
Unproductive work-outs
Irritated and edgy
Down
Etc.
It was as if my body was shutting down! Tried a few things and then stumbled appon my solution… Calcium citrate which also has Magnesium and Vit. D.
I’m completely back to normal and sharp as a nail. Looking back on my diet and lifestyle, I highly suspect that I was deficient of magnesium.