Magnesium is one of the most important minerals in the body, especially for people with fibromyalgia. There are several risk factors that can contribute to your magnesium deficiency. See what changes you can make to your daily routine and diet to stabilize your magnesium levels for pain-free health.
Magnesium also plays an important role in the regulation of neurotransmitters. A deficiency can cause muscle pain, joint pain, headache, fatigue, depression, leg cramps, high blood pressure, heart disease and arrhythmia, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, hair loss, confusion, disorders of personality, swollen gums and loss of appetite. High calcium intake can reduce magnesium absorption. Simple sugars and/or stress can cause exhaustion.
Magnesium is also responsible for proper enzyme activity and the transmission of nerve and muscle impulses, and helps maintain a proper pH balance. Helps metabolize carbohydrates, proteins and fats into energy. Magnesium also helps synthesize genetic material in cells and helps remove toxic substances, such as aluminum and ammonia, from the body. Magnesium and calcium help keep the heart beating; magnesium relaxes the heart and calcium activates it. A magnesium deficiency, then, can increase the risk of heart disease.
Magnesium is a natural sedative and can be used to treat muscle spasms, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and constipation. It is also a powerful antidepressant. Helps with intermittent claudication, a condition caused by restricted blood flow to the legs. It is effective in relieving some of the symptoms associated with PMS, and women with PMS are often deficient. New studies are validating what many nutrition-oriented doctors have known for years: a magnesium deficiency can trigger migraine headaches. Magnesium also helps relax constricted bronchial tubes associated with asthma. In fact, a combination of vitamin B6 and magnesium, along with avoiding wheat and dairy products, has cured many of my young asthmatic patients.
Unfortunately, dietary magnesium intake in this country is steadily declining. It has been steadily depleted in our soils and even more so in plants from the use of fertilizers containing potassium and phosphorus, which reduce the plant’s ability to absorb magnesium. Food processing also removes magnesium, while high-carbohydrate, high-fat diets increase the body’s need for it. Diuretic medications further reduce total body magnesium.
It is estimated that up to 80% of people with FMS/CFS are deficient in magnesium.
What are some risk factors for magnesium deficiency?
1) Excessive stress in your life, whether from physical, emotional, or psychological stressors. Stressful conditions cause the body to use more magnesium, and a lack of magnesium tends to make stress responses more severe. Hormones associated with stress, adrenaline and cortisol, were also associated with magnesium deficiency.
2) Eating or drinking very sugary products, including those with artificial sugar. Refined sugar has no magnesium and actually causes your body to excrete magnesium through the kidneys. In addition, these products also strip your body of many other essential nutrients and can put you at risk for many health problems.
3) Consumption of alcoholic beverages. Alcohol also increases renal excretion of magnesium. Alcohol also tends to decrease the efficiency of your digestive tract and lowers vitamin D levels, which can further lower magnesium levels.
4) Consumption of caffeinated beverages. Caffeine works in a similar way to refined sugar in that it causes the kidneys to excrete magnesium.
5) Taking diuretics, heart medications, asthma medications, birth control pills, or estrogen replacement therapy. These drugs increase the excretion of magnesium through the kidneys and can cause a deficiency.
6) Drink dark-colored carbonated beverages. The phosphates contained in dark drinks bind to magnesium in the body to lower magnesium levels.
CFS/Fibromyalgia Formula
In the “old days” when I owned and supervised my medical practice, we would have patients come into the clinic for high-dose IV vitamin and mineral therapy. These IVs had large doses of magnesium, as well as other vitamins and minerals, and patients generally felt tremendously better after receiving them each week. IVs were not without their flaws: they were expensive, $75-$90 per treatment, required an hour and a half to administer, and their results were short-lived.
Realizing the shortcomings of these IVs, I set out to create a “package” of easy-to-take, high-dose supplements that could be taken in pill and capsule form. This is where my CFS/Fibromyalgia formula was created.
The CFS/Fibro formula is loaded with high doses of essential nutrients, including all vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, amino acids, malic acid, and extra magnesium (680mg).
Amino acids are what our brain chemicals make. They help restore normal brain function, increase mental clarity, reduce depression, anxiety, and fatigue. Essential fatty acids reduce pain, inflammation, depression, anxiety, allow brain cells to communicate with each other, increase mental clarity and increase energy. The Formula contains all high doses of vitamins and minerals based on the Optimal Daily Allowance according to Orthomolecular Medicine.
For anyone with fibromyalgia, I recommend taking an Optimal Daily HIGH DOSE MULTIVITAMIN WITH a minimum of 600 mg of magnesium, preferably magnesium citrate or chelate (best absorbed, won’t irritate the stomach). You can also add magnesium in 150mg doses – take until you notice a loose bowel movement, then reduce the dose until you have a normal bowel movement (remember magnesium is a natural muscle relaxant and will also relax the colon – great for IBS , constipation, and stiff, sore muscles.