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Hello and welcome to The Own Youn Health podcast, I'm Cyndi Lynne and I can't wait to help you step into your health power. So you hear about it, you need it, you probably aren't getting enough of it. What is it? Magnesium.
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Magnesium is an essential mineral, meaning one that we have to ingest. Our bodies can't make it. That mineral plays a vital role in numerous bodily function. It's found in various foods and can also be available as a supplement.
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Now first I want to talk about some of those really important functions. For starters, magnesium is an enzyme cofactor. That means it acts as a cofactor or part of the lock and key system for over 300 enzymes in the body.
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And these enzymes are essential for various biochemical reactions throughout the whole body. Magnesium is also really important for muscle and nerve function. It's crucial for muscle contraction, for nerve impulses, and for maintaining healthy nerve function.
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Now, magnesium also helps regulate blood sugar. And this is a big one, because blood sugar levels are on the rise across the country. And for this reason alone, many people are deficient because magnesium gets used up in the process of regulating blood sugar.
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The more sugar we consume, the more magnesium our body actually needs. Now, magnesium is also important for bone health, maintaining strong bones and teeth. For energy production, it plays a role in energy production within the body, within the cell.
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And it's important to note that this function, like others of magnesium, happen inside the cell. Remember that little bit because we're going to come back to it. Magnesium is also linked to mood and stress, brain function, and some studies suggest that it helps with stress and anxiety.
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It's big in heart health. It's important for maintaining a healthy heart rhythm, the electrical signals that pass through the heart, and it may help reduce the risk of heart disease. So all in all, magnesium is pretty important.
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And I would be willing to bet that you, my listeners, just like my in office clients, may have gotten to the point of looking into supplementation and then gotten totally confused and done what we do when we're totally confused.
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Absolutely nothing. Now, I'm not your health care provider, so I can't make specific recommendations, but I can give you the information so that you can get started owning this important aspect of your health. I'm going to talk through the types of magnesium that are commonly available and there are seven of these types or forms of magnesium.
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The first one is magnesium citrate. Now this is a common, well absorbed form and you often see it used as a laxative. You put it in your body, the magnesium pulls or draws moisture into your colon, specifically into the GI lower GI tract, and facilitates bowel movements.
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So if you're constipated, that might be something that you've used in the past. Magnesium glycinate is a gentle form of magnesium. It's less likely to cause stomach upset. It's less likely to cause that relief of constipation, if you will.
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And it's good for relaxation, for stress relief, and for supporting sleep. You'll often see that recommended being taken in the evenings. Now, magnesium oxide is a really inexpensive version of magnesium, but it's not absorbed as well as other forms.
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Typically, I wouldn't recommend it. This one you might be more familiar with under a different name, magnesium sulfate. That's also known as Epsom salt, and it's used for muscle relaxation soaks and baths. Now, magnesium chloride, you may sound, that may sound familiar to you if you think of like sodium chloride.
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So magnesium chloride is a salt form that can be used topically. It's typically what is in magnesium lotions or sprays. As a side note, it's actually used as a de icer. Now, magnesium taurate is a newer form of magnesium.
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It's magnesium combined with taurine, which is an amino acid, a piece of a protein, and that's showing promise in supporting brain health and reducing anxiety. This form is not as readily available as other forms of magnesium.
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And the final one we'll talk about is magnesium L Threonate. And this is the form that's thought to improve cognitive function and and memory, because it actually crosses the blood brain barrier, which the other forms aren't thought to.
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Now, as I mentioned earlier, when I talk about blood sugar regulation, most of us could use a little help with that in terms of the magnesium department. But you might be thinking, or as we started to look at this, you might have pulled out your last lab results from your blood work and you can look and see that your magnesium falls perfectly within that normal range.
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So you assume that your magnesium level, your magnesium blood level is fine, and it may well be fine in your blood. But as I asked you to remember before, our bodies use our magnesium within our cells.
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And so our blood work doesn't effectively show the level of magnesium in our cells, let alone all the different cells and all the different places it's used throughout our body. So if you should decide to supplement, which should you choose?
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It always depends on your goals. And I know you hear me say that with so many things, but let me give you a few examples. If you want some temporary help with constipation, then magnesium citrate is going to be your best bet.
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If you want better sleep, I would start with magnesium glycinate. If you have sore feet at the end of a long day, I would use magnesium sulfate or some Epsom salts in a foot bath with warm water.
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And if you'd like to support memory and cognition, then magnesium L Threonate is probably a good place to start. As always, you're going to check with your healthcare partners as to what is best for you or how much to take.
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But it's my hope that this short episode has given you enough information to ask better questions. So rather than going to your healthcare partner and saying, I think I might be deficient in magnesium, at which point they look on your blood work and they say, no, you're not, you can go to them and you can say, you know, I've been reading about, or I've been listening to, I've been hearing about this magnesium L Threonate and I'm wondering if that would help my memory.
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How much should I take? Or I've been really having trouble sleeping and I've heard that magnesium glycinate is a really good way to help relaxing in the evening. Does that conflict with any of the other medications that I'm on?
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My goal is always to help you ask better questions and define your purpose and your goal. Now, as always, if you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone whose health you care about. And if you have a moment, please rate and review on whatever platform you use for listening.
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Until next week, let's go out and own it.
