In this episode, we are doing our magnesium deep dive and digging into the different roles magnesium plays in the body, how it impacts our thyroid, blood sugar, hormones, and vitamin D status. I will also be doing a rapid fire Q&A at the end where I will answer questions submitted on Instagram. I will be breaking down how magnesium levels impact heavy metal retention as well as all of the different types of magnesium and their uses for my patreon members. You can join to get access to all bonus podcasts and resources at patreon.com/hormonehealingrd.
Quick reminder, this podcast is for informational purposes only. Please talk with your healthcare provider before making any nutrition or lifestyle changes.
Links/Resources:
Patreon
Master Your Minerals Course
Free Resources:
Mineral Imbalance Quiz
Mineral Training
Thyroid Training
Feminine Periodical (monthly newsletter)
Episodes mentioned:
Boron episode
Calcium episode
References:
Blood sugar
Magnesium and B6
Magnesium and Iron
Nutrients for mitochondria
Magnesium & ATP
Magnesium & ATP 2
Heart Health
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Transcript:
0:01
Welcome to the Are You Menstrual podcast where we dive deep into all things women’s health to support you on your healing journey. I’m Amanda Montalvo functional and integrative dietitian also known as the hormone healing rd. If you enjoy this podcast and you want to keep learning, check out the podcast Patreon, where I share a bonus episode with additional downloadable resources each week, you can go to patreon.com forward slash hormone healing rd, or check out the link in the show notes.
0:37
In this episode, we are doing our Magnesium Deep Dive. So we did calcium last week, very close relationship there. Now we’re gonna talk about magnesium. And I’m gonna go into the different roles magnesium plays in the body, how it impacts important systems like our thyroid, our blood sugar, our hormones, we’re gonna get deep into vitamin D status since I know it’s a controversial one. And I’m also doing a rapid fire q&a at the end. So I did that last time, I think it was helpful answers a lot of questions really quickly that a lot of you have from Instagram. And then for the bonus episode, and for the Patreon members, I am focusing on heavy metals and magnesium. And just like minerals in general, I’m also going to be going through magnesium on a hair test, especially if someone’s like can’t tolerate magnesium, like what that might look like bloodwork, how to know if it’s optimal or not. And then I’m gonna dig into i this really cool article on PMS and like four different types of PMS. And a lot of it has to do with magnesium. So we’re going to break that down as well. And then finally, a lot of stuff from my Patreon people, you’re also going to get a handout that’s got like a chart, and it’s got all the different types of magnesium and I go through like, you know, what they’re good for, what’s easily absorbed, what’s not all that kind of stuff. So I think that’s gonna be really helpful for people to Oh, and how to access the patriot. And there’s always a link in the show notes for the Patreon. But you can go to patreon.com/hormone Healing rd, and you can get access right from there. Before I go right into magnesium, I have a cool image we’re gonna look at and everything. Just remember, as I talked about, like magnesium status, and labs and all the benefits and stuff, you’re gonna think, oh, my gosh, I’m going to start supplementing with magnesium. But just remember that it’s so important to keep this in context to yourself. So talk with your doctor or talk with your healthcare provider before you make any food or supplement changes, just to make sure and I’m going to go into this more in my section on why can I tolerate magnesium, but it’s not always a good fit for everyone right away. All right, let’s get into it. So I’m going to share my screen. This is just like a really helpful image. And this is it’s from a research article. So it’s called magnesium status and stress, the vicious circle concept revisited. It’s from 2020, it’s really good. It’s a great overview of understanding magnesium and all the different things than it does in the body. But this image is a great breakdown to understand like where is magnesium in the body. And it shows you you know, it’s got like, okay, about how much we’re getting from our diet, so about 360 milligrams per day. This is just the average between the RDA for men and women, you may not be getting enough from food, I doubt most people are getting that much from their food, but say you are or supplements 30 to 30% of that is going to be absorbed in our intestines. And then it’s interesting because about 260 milligrams per day is excreted. So 50 to 70% of dietary intake. So if you’re not taking in 360 milligrams, it just shows you like how easy it is to become deficient, less stress and all the other things that we utilize magnesium for in the body. So if I what I really like it for is how it shows where magnesium lives in the body, because I think this can be hard to grasp. Like when I say magnesium is an intracellular mineral, it means it’s mostly inside ourselves. And what that means is that 50 to 60% of it is in the bones and teeth. And then 30% is in the muscle and 10 to 20% is in the brain and other tissues. So we actually have a good amount of magnesium in the brain for like that size and everything. So that’s like 99% of our magnesium and then 1% It’s actually a little less than 1% is in our serum or our blood. So this is why serum magnesium, not the best measurement and like I talked about in our first episode on mineral testing for season four. You know just how tightly regulated our blood levels of minerals are. Our body’s going to take, say this like our serum magnesium drops, our body’s going to take it from our bones or our muscle tissue in order to keep that at 1% and it within the optimal time. range that our body needs it to be, so our bodies will compensate. And then you know, if we get too much for some reason, then we’ll have more leave in the urine will excrete it. So very tightly regulated magnesium, just like any other mineral in the blood, but it really is mostly inside ourselves. So that’s why looking at bloodwork is not the best measurement, at least serum magnesium, which is if you if you ask your doctor, hey, I want to test my magnesium. That’s typically what they’re going to run. But I just thought that was a great visual, and breakdown. And I’m going to link that article in the show notes, don’t worry. But the place I want to get started with like how magnesium functions in the body is how important it is for energy production. Because I have like I always see like those funny names. It’s like I had 99 problems in magnesium solved like 80% of them. And it makes sense because magnesium is so important for energy production, right. And if we don’t have adequate energy, then everything is impacted. everything slows down digestion, detoxification, hormone production, our ability to handle and respond to stress. And eventually, it’s gonna lead to this like hormonal metabolic chaos in the body. So magnesium is essential for a healthy metabolism and for adequate ATP production. And that’s, that’s our body’s main energy source. If we don’t have magnesium, then we can’t make it. It’s it’s important for 1000s of enzymes, and a ton of those are involved in energy production. We also need minerals for improving how our mitochondria function. And our mitochondria are these little like engines like powerhouses of the cell. And they help convert the food that we eat into smaller molecules and then eventually into ATP or that energy currency in the body. So I went through like why minerals are so essential in that it’s central in that first mineral testing episode that that’s essentially it. If we don’t have minerals, we can’t feel these enzymes, and the body compensates. And eventually we get symptoms, because the systems aren’t functioning optimally, they don’t have those spark plugs, those things they need to help support the enzymes and get everything going. So magnesium is huge for ATP, it’s important for mitochondria. So if it’s important for mitochondria, that means it’s important for our metabolism. And if you’ve been here for a while, you know that our metabolism is hugely connected to our digestive function, or thyroid function, hormone production and hormone status. Like if someone has a hormone concern, it’s like, okay, I mean, your hormones are lasting to change. So you really have to go backwards and figure out like where that dysfunction came from. So magnesium is very important for that. I just like the health of mitochondria and growing new mitochondria plays a huge role. So magnesium equals energy, basically, in the body, and minerals in general. And if so, if we have mineral deficiencies, like magnesium, then we’re going to have less ATP, less energy, more chaos, and symptoms, that’s really essentially what like symptoms are gonna pop up. So when we have a symptom, it’s like there’s already been dysfunction likely for a while. So ATP, energy reduction, magnesium, I feel like that’s like one of the most important things, other areas that it’s also very important for heart health, I feel like gets very little attention for heart health, at least in my role. So I’m focusing on hormones. But I do see a lot of clients that have like, maybe they have arrhythmias, or heart palpitations, high blood pressure, whatever it might be. And we’re looking at their magnesium status, and it’s very depleted. Like that’s a huge clue, because magnesium helps keep our heart rhythms steady. It’s important to prevent blood clotting. And just like heart function, in general, it actually stabilizes the membranes of our heart cells. So magnesium, very important. It’s also important for like relaxation of muscles, right? This is where a lot of like the symptoms come up with magnesium, especially like blood pressure. So like calcium magnesium have to be imbalanced. We talked about that last time, her in last episode, because calcium constricts our muscles, and magnesium helps them relax. So a lot of times when we have a magnesium deficiency, we don’t get that relaxation. But we also have excess calcium, because that will cause calcium to leave the bones and teeth. So we have this excess of calcium calcification, too much constriction and not enough relaxation. And that’s where we can get these heart palpitations, high blood pressure, those types of issues. So very important for heart health very helpful for those low blood pressure problems. Detoxification is another big one, it helps to neutralize toxins, and it’s really important for heavy metals. I’m talking about that in a bonus episode for Patreon, because it’s nuanced and more in depth. So listen to that if you want more. But minerals are very important for heavy metals. I mean, people think, Oh, I have heavy metals. I have to do a heavy metal detox, but really the first step should be a set SR mineral status since that’s what helps prevent heavy metal accumulation. So it’s important for heavy metal detox and neutralizing toxins in general. It’s really important for estrogen detox. And then detox requires energy. I feel like this is another thing that’s forgotten. Especially when we’re, you know, maybe we’re deeper on our healing journey. And we’ve, we’ve done lots of things and we’re like, I need to support my estrogen detox or my liver detox. And we forget that, yes, you, you might need to utilize some herbs, maybe you’re utilizing binders or casserole packs. But if you’re not making enough energy, then you’re not going to detoxify. So we need that ADP, that energy for detox, which means we need enough magnesium. And then magnesium is huge for stress reducing and impacting our sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight. That’s what gets activated when we experience a stressor. So magnesium can help calm our adrenals and help control that fight or flight response. Under stress, we do use up magnesium. But when we have adequate levels of magnesium, we can much more effectively respond to that stress. Sometimes when we take magnesium, and we’re not replenishing other minerals, it can be too much on the body because now your body feels like it can respond to stress. But we’ll talk about that more with I have like a whole section on like, why can’t I tolerate magnesium. So it can be calming, but it can also like help us respond to stress. Remember, it’s that muscle relaxant. So it helps oppose that calcium and relax our muscles and allow us to do things like have a bowel movement, have regular blood pressure, and healthy heart function. It can also support sleep. So that’s kind of like the stress reducing capabilities. And then nutrient balance. Last week in the calcium episode, I talked a lot about how magnesium status and having that magnesium deficiency can actually lead to really poor bone health one because like a lot of it’s in our bones, but also because it can affect our t th which that’s really just kind of trickling down and impacting how we metabolize calcium in the first place. So we don’t have enough calcium, it can lead to calcium being taken from the bones and teeth and thinning of the bone. So like bone issues. I know calcium is the first thought for most people. I actually have a question about this in my q&a, and Patreon. Because someone didn’t have labs for a person and their doctor wanted them to just take calcium and vitamin D. And it’s like, We cannot leave magnesium out of that equation because you could make the problem worse, potentially. So very important for other nutrient balance. It helps us absorb potassium to an extent, which I’ll talk about when we talk about other minerals, and then it can bring down excess sodium and reduce that stress response. It’s also really important for iron I talked about this in a copper and iron episode from season one. But magnesium is actually essential for making Cirilo plasmon. And in that copper deep dive episode, I talked about how important are the plasma and it’s basically bioavailable copper. So we can’t just have plain old copper in the body, we have to turn it into this protein, so that it can then do its job. And in order to turn it into that protein, we also need magnesium. So that’s like all the main nutrient balance things that magnesium does. We talked about bone health, mitochondria, dental health is huge to again, like I feel like we then go bone health, dental health, we focus on calcium, a lot of times they focus on phosphorus for dental health too. But if research shows, if you increase calcium and phosphorus, but not magnesium, you don’t get any benefit. So it just shows you how synergistic minerals are and how we have to be mindful when we’re supplementing with them, especially not just getting them through food because you can throw other minerals out of balance, you have to keep that calcium magnesium imbalance. And then mental health. Last week when I talked about this isn’t more in the bonus episode, but just like how the nervous system can be impacted by calcium. A lot of it is how calcium impacts our neurons communicate with each other. So if we have excess calcium, then that communication doesn’t occur properly, we need some but if we have excess, it doesn’t occur properly or not enough. This is where magnesium deficiency can have a huge impact on mental health because remember, if we get that magnesium deficiency, we’re going to eventually get an excess of calcium, we’re gonna have that calcification. If we don’t have that communication between our neurons, and we’re not allowing neurotransmitters to be transmitted, then that’s going to have a huge impact on mental health. And this is why part of the symptoms of magnesium deficiency are things like anxiety, depression, poor memory, fear, anger, irritability, all that kind of stuff. So magnesium has a huge impact on how our brain cells function. And then finally, blood sugar balance is huge, which we’re going to go into detail on which that’s going to impact you know, our cholesterol, lipids, our sex hormones, everything, liver health All of it. So, hopefully you can see what I mean. This is why when we say like, magnesium is used for over 3000 different enzymes. I think it’s really clear to see why it’s like all the different areas that impacts in the body. It’s just huge. So quickly before we dive into blood sugar, where can we get magnesium in food? That’s usually on the first questions people have cooked dark leafy greens are some of the best sources, like spinach has a ton. So cooked spinach, and you need to make sure it’s cooked because the phytic acid will make it so you don’t absorb as much magnesium, so cooked greens, spinach, collard greens, kale, things like that. Great sources. Beans are another really good source. Alaskan salmon is a good one bananas, I feel like people know that bananas. Green plantains are also a great source. That’s definitely my favorite source. Dairy has some, I do think it’s going to vary a lot. And in all foods, magnesium is definitely going to vary, but dairy, especially like even calcium levels can vary. I’m assuming raw milk is probably going to have more magnesium, since it has more calcium. And depending on the quality of the dairy, it may have less. But dairy still is a source of magnesium, they’ll still be some in there. And then dark chocolate cacao, another great source avocado, lots of your like Whole Foods are going to at least give you some magnesium. But the leafy greens and the beans are going to have the highest amount. So now let’s get into magnesium and how it impacts our blood sugar. So when I talked about calcium last week, I talked about how important calcium is for releasing insulin from the beta cells. Very true. Magnesium is also required for insulin to be released as well. It has more to do with the electrical activity of the beta cells. But we need calcium magnesium for insulin release. We also need enough magnesium in order to utilize glucose. So like they call it glucose disposal, but it’s just like how do you get glucose inside your cells. Because if it’s hanging out in your blood, you’re going to continue to release insulin. And that is going to eventually lead to insulin resistance because the more and more your cells are exposed to then they’re going to be less and less sensitive. So magnesium is also important for that I think that’s probably like one of the coolest articles I’ve read, there’s quite a few of them about magnesium supplementation and insulin, but it can actually utilizing magnesium can reduce how much insulin is required to get that glucose inside your cells. It because of how magnesium can impact our insulin receptor activity. So very cool. Important for insulin release, just like calcium also can help get glucose inside the cells studies, I’m going to link a couple of studies that talk about they just kind of show how utilizing magnesium supplements, I don’t remember the exact type can help to shuttle that glucose in there. So that’s big. I think it also makes sense since magnesium is a cofactor for a lot of the enzymes that regulate glucose in the body. And I have this image that I’ll share. So that it’s just one that I think is helpful if you need a visual for how it impacts glucose. And this is from it’s an article called intracellular magnesium and insulin resistance from magnesium research. You can find it in the John Libby Euro text. So when we look at this, we’ll see that like insulin, right? These are the insulin receptors, that insulin is going to talk to those insulin receptors help get glucose inside the cell. And then we’ve got different enzymes like glute four, IRS one IRS two Rs three tyrosine kinase, all these different enzymes are trying to get this glucose inside the cell and utilized appropriately. And you can see magnesium down here is going to impact glute for that group for enzyme. So we need it to feel that we also need it for the tyrosine kinase kinase enzyme, and then PK C which is going to impact insulin. So you don’t need to know what any of these mean, I just think sometimes it’s nice to see like I like seeing the actual magnesium molecule and it’s like, you just see the arrows and you’re like, Okay, so we need it for multiple processes, pretty much all different aspects of utilizing this. It’s also used in glycolysis, as well, it just it’s just fueling those enzymes. So no magnesium for those enzymes mean all those processes are slowed down. And this is why magnesium deficiency can like a lot of the research shows it will increase insulin resistance or reduce insulin sensitivity. And then we have issues like pre diabetes, diabetes, possibly gestational diabetes, that sort of thing. So it is very important for blood sugar and insulin. And I know like we hear that we’re like, I’m gonna go take a supplement because maybe you have blood sugar concerns, maybe you have gestational diabetes, maybe you have PCOS, you just want to keep in mind that you do need to balance that magnesium with calcium. Because we need calcium for blood sugar balance as well. And if you look at a hair mineral test, the calcium magnesium ratio is the blood sugar ratio. So if you’re taking magnesium, but you already have really low calcium, adding in more magnesium can lead to more of a calcium deficiency, and more blood sugar issues. So that’s probably the biggest thing to remember with magnesium and all minerals, like more is not always better, it’s helpful to know your own status. Or if you take a magnesium supplement and feel worse just to honor that instead of I feel like sometimes we try to like power through with healing, or like always having like a detox symptom, it might be but detoxing faster is not necessarily going to make you healthier. So listen to your body, if you talk to your doctor, and they’re like, Yeah, let’s try it. But it’s not for everyone right away, even if you do have blood sugar concerns. So that’s magnesium and blood sugar, very important, essential, I do utilize it with my gestational diabetes clients, it’s just you know, we’ve already done hair testing. If they have low calcium, then we’ll utilize like a whole food calcium supplement as well, typically, but it is a very effective, very effective for blood sugar balance. So when it comes to magnesium and stress it we do lose magnesium during the stress response like it’s used up. And that shows that shows you like just how important it is. So stress equals magnesium loss, right? We use it to have that activation of our sympathetic or fight or flight nervous system, and make sure we’re reacting to stress appropriately. Very important. We want to react to stress appropriately, I think sometimes like the only focus is getting rid of all of our stress, but that’s not going to happen. And I don’t necessarily think that’d be healthy either. Because, you know, it’s not bad to have stress. It’s like, Are you under chronic stress that is depleting you and are you already depleted. So magnesium, very important for having an appropriate stress response, being able to handle stress, but it can like activate that sympathetic fight or flight nervous system a bit. And there’s actually a bidirectional relationship with magnesium and stress. So if we stress causes magnesium loss, but a magnesium deficiency makes it so that you’re way more likely to experience more stress and just like not have as healthy of a stress response to it. And there’s an article that talks about how magnesium levels change in response to stress. So I’m just going to read this little excerpt. And then I’ll show you the image. Actually, I’ll just show you that image now. Because I think it’s a it’s a cool one to see. And actually this is from might be from that same article, but I’ll just show you in here because it’s easier. So basically, what they found that in response to a stressful stimulus, stress hormones are released, release of neurotransmitters and glucocorticoids, that stress hormones, cortisol, all that good stuff causes an increase in magnesium extracellular levels. So serum levels, so they see stress hormones released your blood magnesium goes up. As a consequence, higher magnesium concentrations are then excreted through the kidneys. One because remember that blood level is very tightly regulated. So if we have stress release magnesium into the blood, than our urine in our kidneys are going to lead to more magnesium excreted in our urine to balance that out. When we’re having this over and over. They’re saying that this mechanism may contribute to magnesium depletion and deficiency, and then trigger the stress and magnesium vicious circle. So because then you get depleted and your body’s more susceptible to that stress. And I think this is like the best way to describe when someone’s in that mineral deficient state, and they feel like they can’t handle stress well, and then we see things that maybe would not initially stresses how now they’re, like really stressing us out. So I think of, I just I have so many clients that are moms that I think of like when they are like I was I freaked out at my kid the other day, and I feel terrible, you know, and they’re like, I normally would not even get upset if they made a mess and like sort of spilled something at the table like it doesn’t bother me but then they like find themselves having like a meltdown over it. That’s like a great example of how it’s like of magnesium deficiency or I would even say minerals in general, then make it so that you can’t handle other stressors well, so that that was a big stressor to her which made her release more cortisol and then further deplete that magnesium. So hopefully that little visual made sense, but basically stress equals magnesium loss. Magnesium loss means more stress. So very, very vicious cycle.
24:54
Or monthly cycle is like a report card, understanding how to track your cycle and know what isn’t isn’t Not normal as far as symptoms go, can help you identify possible hormone imbalances. And whether or not a nutrition or lifestyle change you made is working for you. This is huge. So many of us are looking to experts and outside ourselves to figure out what’s going on with our bodies, but tracking your cycle and understanding it can help you do that on your own. And this is why I created my free healthy period Starter Guide, it walks you through the different phases of your cycle, goes through how to track teaches you what’s at the root cause of hormone imbalances, and even has a section on nutrition tips for healthy hormones. I think every woman should have this knowledge easily accessible to them. So if you want to grab the guide, you can get it via the link in the show notes or on my website, hormone healing rd.com.
25:47
When we talk about magnesium supplementation, for stress, because a lot of there’s a ton of research, it’s mostly honestly about magnesium and depression, which I found very interesting, which makes sense because if people are I think a lot of people struggle with high calcium like calcification, and then that will make it so that you know that that communication between your neurons, neurotransmitters, all that stuff gets slowed down, that will definitely obviously impact your mental health and a huge cause of that is magnesium deficiency. So I definitely see that and I see why so many research articles have benefits of with depression and magnesium supplementation. When it comes to stress, it was harder to show that I think, because it’s it’s hard to measure it. But there is a study on heart rate variability, which is really measuring like how our parasympathetic nervous system is recovering from stress. So I feel like that’s like probably one of the best ways to measure it. And they did see that magnesium supplementation of 400 milligrams a day was associated with an improvement in heart rate variability. So I thought that was really interesting these it was on endurance athletes. But I think if you’re anyone that tracks your HRV, that heart rate variability, that’s like a really cool measure to see how you’re responding to something, whether it’s on like a day to day basis, or over a certain span of time, you can usually see a difference. But that was really interesting. And then because it like there was one on like the depression, anxiety stress scale. They don’t have one isolator just for stress. But there was another study that said the daily supplementation was 300 milligrams of magnesium, they had some combined with B six and some was not combined with vitamin B six provided positive results on stress relief, particularly on subjects who supported severe stress levels at baseline with a reduction in depression, anxiety, stress scale scores of up to 45% from baseline. So people that were people improve their scores on the depression, anxiety, stress scale by 45%. I mean, that’s or up to you know, that’s, that’s significant with only 300 milligrams, and some people had just magnesium, and some people had magnesium and vitamin B six. And what they found was that if someone is under chronic stress, like severe chronic stress, they do better with magnesium and B six, but a lot of times people ask me, like, do I need to take anything with my magnesium? And I would say like, the research for the most part tells us No, I think other minerals matter. So I think boron is important. So you know, are you deficient in boron? Because that can affect your magnesium status. How is your calcium? Of course before supplementing with magnesium wonder that how’s your sodium? Because if you take too much magnesium, and you have low sodium that can lower sodium more. So those are considerations, but as far as like someone asked, like, does magnesium have cofactors that you have to take with it? I would say no, but it looks like for really severe, chronically stressed people, vitamin B six can help, probably because they’re depleted in it, but it can It has vitamin B six and have certain effects on neurotransmitters for like anxiety and depression. So if someone’s like really deficient in magnesium and super stressed then that could be helpful. So I just thought I’d share that. But of course, please do not just run out and stuff the magnesium. Whenever I do these episodes, like I did an iodine episode and I’m like I said it the whole time. Like please don’t just get to go and take it. Be smart. But I thought that stress magnesium connection was really interesting. And hopefully that little cycle shows you like yes, magnesium is helpful for stress. But you know, we don’t want to overdo it either, especially if we have depleted minerals. Okay, so that’s magnesium and strives talked about magnesium, blood sugar. Magnesium is important for ATP energy production, billions of other things in the body. Now let’s talk about thyroid. Because this is one where I’ve had people ask me like, do we need magnesium for optimal thyroid function? There’s like, someone was asking, is magnesium like anti thyroid? I don’t think it is because it protects our I read from like, inflammation, oxidative stress. And remember, if we can’t make ATP energy production, then we’re not gonna have optimal thyroid production, or thyroid hormone production, which is going to impact your metabolism. But I think the big thing when I think of magnesium in the thyroid is stress. And that’s why I wanted to go through that first. Because if we cannot have a healthy stress response, and if or if we develop a magnesium deficiency, that then makes us more susceptible to that stress response over and over and that vicious circle, then that’s going to have a huge impact on our thyroid hormone production, because stress that stress hormone cortisol, that can actually blunt our production of TSH. So if we do not have adequate TSH production, then our thyroid is not going to get the signals to make more thyroid hormone. And this is why with stress, especially like chronic stressors, if we’re not, if we’re under a lot of chronic stress, like at first, your thyroid function can look better. Like you can have a lower TSH if you’re experiencing a ton of stress, because that cortisol is blunting the production of it. So you can have a low TSH that looks good looks optimal. You could even look like you have slightly hyperthyroidism. But in reality, that cortisol is just making it so that you’re not making a TSH and you’re also not making a thyroid hormone. So then you don’t have energy. So you have this normal, healthy looking TSH, not enough thyroid hormone production. But most doctors are not looking at T four and T three. And then you don’t feel good. And you’re like what the heck, how can my thyroid labs are normal. So I think that magnesium is biggest impact on thyroid is especially like from like a day to day clinical, how are you feeling perspective is going to be how it impacts our stress hormones. So it is very important. It also is important for converting it from t 43, which is the inactive to the active form. So that’s huge too. But I think overall, like if we have a deficiency, it’s going to impact our stress and our adrenals which is going to those are going to have a big impact on our thyroid function as well. And then if with when it comes to like autoimmune conditions, most of the research is looking at like Hashimotos, typically, and how Hashimotos is more associated with severely low magnesium levels, let’s keep in mind, they’re looking at serum. So these people, if you have a low serum magnesium, it’s been low for you been out of balance for a long time, right. So not shocking, because autoimmune conditions, it’s like you know, your body experiences so much stress, so much stress, and finally it can’t handle anymore, and then autoimmune condition pops up. So it would make sense to have a magnesium deficiency. But I think of how important magnesium is for protecting against inflammation, oxidative stress as well. And of course, that’s going to come into play with someone that has an inflammatory condition of the thyroid and their thyroid needs more protecting that it just not is it’s not getting so it doesn’t have adequate magnesium. So that’s a very big one with Hashimotos. And then on the other end of the spectrum hyperthyroidism, if someone has whether it’s graves like autoimmune related or not, you actually use more magnesium because your metabolism is faster, you have a higher metabolic pace because you have too much thyroid hormone, and it can lead to a magnesium deficiency a lot quicker. So when the magnesium for thyroid function helps convert active thyroid hormone, or inactive to active thyroid hormone protects our thyroid from inflammation. A lot of the thyroid enzymes wouldn’t function because they require magnesium and then we need it to make energy which is what powers our thyroid. So magnesium is very important for thyroid health. And of course, so we’ve talked about blood sugar, stress, thyroid, where does it lead us to now hormones, because hormones are affected by all those things. So when I think of hormones, and magnesium, one of the first things I think of is oral contraceptives or the pill. And the main reason for that is because we know that the pill depletes magnesium, all types both progestin only like the mini pill, and the combination pills that have synthetic estrogen and progestin. So they both can deplete magnesium along with many other nutrients, like fully other B vitamins like b two B six and b 12, vitamin C, vitamin E and selenium and zinc. So magnesium is just one of many things depleted by the pill. But interesting thing with how estrogen from the pill and just like what we make from our ovaries, impacts magnesium is that it can actually increase the uptake of it so it improves how efficiently we are using it and it causes it to be taken up by soft tissue and bone. Now this is seen as protective, right? This is part of like when they talk about like when women go through menopause and they have less estrogen impacts their bones. A big part of this is because of how estrogen increases the uptake of magnesium which hopefully you know by now is so so important for bone health. So, it that’s a big aspect of it. And so when we lose that estrogen and menopause, yes, of course that can impact our taking out magnesium. We’ll talk about menopause in a bit. I think most women are just deficient in magnesium in that season of life. But that estrogen, it enhances how we’re utilizing magnesium. So that’s huge, right? If we have oral contraceptives that are depleting magnesium, and then we’re also getting more synthetic estrogen, then that could deplete magnesium further. And then if we’re also thinking about things like just if we’re not on any hormonal birth control or anything, but we have excess estrogen that can deplete magnesium, or if we have adequate estrogen and already have a magnesium deficiency, that can further deplete that. And what happens is, it changes our calcium magnesium ratio. So remember, calcium magnesium have to be imbalanced when magnesium goes down, calcium in relation will look higher. And that deficiency can lead to calcium leaving the bones and teeth and calcifying in the tissue. And one of the big things that happens when this occurs is we have an increased risk of thrombosis or blood clots. And that’s like what one specific study was looking at. They said, the result in lowering of blood magnesium can increase the calcium magnesium ratio, thus favoring coagulation with calcium supplementation in the face of commonly low magnesium intake, risk of thrombosis increases. And this makes sense, because when it comes to the pill, blood clots are a major concern. Right? That’s something that a lot of women know is a possible side effect. And some people may say that it’s like, not that common, but I mean, it can be fatal. So I think it’s still a pretty, pretty important one to understand and have informed consent about regardless, especially like if you know, some people genetically are more at higher risk for blood clots, and then if you know your mineral status going in, or at least you know, like, hey, the pills gonna deplete X y&z Let me see if I can replenish this through food, or be intentional with a few supplements, so that I can decrease my risk of blood clots, especially if you have a health history or family history of it, then I feel like that’s something that could be really helpful for women to know so that they can use the pill safely, and still support their overall mineral balance and health within their bodies. And then you know, just to understand that calcium supplementation is so commonly recommended. And it’s something that we have to understand what our magnesium status is, before we utilize something like that. Because it we could be making things further out of balance, depleting magnesium even more adding more calcium onto an already calcified body, which only compare that with hormone imbalances, excess estrogen, the pill, things like that could lead to, you know, bigger concerns like blood clots, which you know, that’s pretty severe. And then if we think about pregnancy, that’s another time where estrogen is increasing. Magnesium deficiency increases our risk of preeclampsia with just high blood pressure. Remember, magnesium is very important for heart function. So magnesium deficiency can lead to high blood pressure and pregnancy. Makes sense because estrogen levels are much higher during this time and your magnesium needs are too. And someone asked about that, like, how does magnesium, like the recommendations change during pregnancy, that RDA barely changes? It’s sad. Honestly, I think the best thing to do is test your levels if you can hear mineral testing or magnesium RBC measurement bloodwork. But I think hair mineral testing is better because then you can see your other minerals. So you know if you should actually take magnesium, I talked about that in the mineral testing episode, episode one. So definitely listen to that if you haven’t already, just to understand, like maybe you could benefit from that. But yes, we do utilize more magnesium when we’re pregnant, or making a lot more ATP, right. So we have to make more energy, our thyroids working way harder, and our needs are much higher, we’re growing a human. So if someone’s already going in deficient or they’re not getting enough while they’re pregnant, then that can increase the risk of high blood pressure, which is something that can lead to many other health concerns down the road. I am going to talk about magnesium deficiency and like PMS and how it can impact that with the Patreon members. So definitely join if you want more on that conversation. But if you’re wondering why I’m skipping over that and going straight to estrogen, detox and fertility and menopause, that is why because it’s pretty much a whole nother podcast episode. But estrogen detox is part of that. And I think a lot of people don’t realize like, okay, you know, if I want to support estrogen, detoxification, the body removal of estrogen from the body. There’s many things to support this, a lot of people go straight to something like dim, which is a supplement that can actually lower your estrogen which we typically do not want, depending on the person and it might not actually be getting to the root cause of why you’re not detoxifying estrogen well in the first place as well. Actually, if you have poor phase two estrogen detox, you can see this if you do a Dutch hormone test, not recommending people run out and do those, they’re very expensive. And if your hormones are out of balance, and you haven’t tested your minerals, like it doesn’t really make sense, it’s kind of like doing it out of order, spending money that might not be essential for you. But phase two, you’d see it on like a Dutch test, it is really utilizing the comp enzyme CLM T enzyme. And magnesium is huge for that it’s one of the primary cofactors in order for that enzyme to work properly. And if it’s not, then you’re gonna even if you don’t have high acid, like if you’re not making a lot of estrogen, you can still have estrogen dominant symptoms, like you can have still have really big mood swings, you can have hormonal acne, you could be dealing with hair loss, or increase shedding at certain times in your cycle loading. Cravings like insulin issues, you name it, all the things associated a lot of its like thyroid symptoms to like cold hands and feet, hard time warming up your body, that sort of thing. All of those things can be impacted by having poor estrogen detox because you’re not eliminating it well. So we need magnesium for that common enzyme, we also need it for elimination of estrogen from our bowels, because we do poop out our estrogen. So if you cannot relax those muscles, because you have a magnesium deficiency, then it’s really hard to eliminate and then you’re going to recycle that estrogen. So that’s a big one. Our contents I was also involved in breaking down dopamine, norepinephrine, and cortisol, and all those affect your mood and your ability to handle stress. So sometimes it’s like, is it an estrogen thing? Or is it a stress hormone thing? And you may not know but magnesium can be helpful for Ash, poor estrogen detoxification, or for those excess stress hormones. So very helpful and important for estrogen detoxification. When it comes to fertility, a lot of people asked about magnesium deficiency and fertility does it affect your ability to conceive? There are some stuff there, honestly, I was hard to find, like, really, like bigger studies on this, but I did find some, I think number one, like, if you’re if you don’t have enough magnesium, you’re not going to handle stress well, and I definitely think that’ll impact your ability to concede and maintain a pregnancy. But if we’re looking at the data, there was one really cool study. It’s small, but I think it’s still very significant. Basically, it’s called red cell magnesium and glutathione, peroxidase and infertile women effects of oral supplementation with magnesium and selenium. And I’m gonna link it in the show notes as well. But basically, what they found was that not only did magnesium deficiency affect fertility, but when the women were supplementing with magnesium and selenium, and they say, like glutathione peroxidase, because selenium is a cofactor for glutathione, but what they found was when women replenish their magnesium RBC levels, it’s that blood measurement that’s looking inside the red blood cell for magnesium status. When women replenished that they were all there’s only 12 of them, but all 12 Previously, infertile women have produced normal healthy babies all conceiving within eight months of normalizing their magnesium RBC levels. So that’s like, pretty significant. I know it’s a small sample, and we obviously need more research on this. But I thought that was wild. And the all the women in the study had either unexplained infertility or miscarriage, which I think is important, because it’s not like they, you know, they don’t say if they have like PCOS, but that would that would not fall under unexplained infertility. So I’m assuming those people were excluded. But it’s like, that’s huge. Because sometimes when you’re told you have unexplained like you’re not fertile, and we don’t know why that’s extremely frustrating. And women that struggle with recurrent miscarriages too. So I don’t think that magnesium supplementation is going to fix it for everyone. But I just thought that that was really interesting. But I so yes, like, could it possibly affect fertility? I think it could. I don’t know if it’s directly causing it. Or if it’s more, I mean, this is obviously more correlative. But I thought was interesting and helpful to know. I think the other aspect of magnesium and pregnancy in general is if we have a magnesium deficiency going into pregnancy, even if we can conceive, the risk of complications is much higher. preterm birth, high blood pressure, like I talked about issues with the placenta, low birth weight, and then there is an increased risk for miscarriage. So I think for miscarriage it’s definitely really important and then just conception in general, I think minerals are important for conception, honestly, because if you can’t make enough energy to backup your metabolism, and in like ovulate and have a strong population and make enough progesterone, all these things that are so important for conception, that’s huge. They’re also very protective against heavy metals in inflammation in the body. And I think that’s like, there’s a lot to be said for those types of physical stressors in the body as well. So I couldn’t find a ton on magnesium deficiency and fertility, but I did find that that one article which I’ll link in the show notes, then menopause. So there has there has been research that I linked that talks about and shows how magnesium supplementation can reduce menopausal symptoms. I think that’s very important. And one of them is called dietary magnesium deficiency induces heart rhythm changes, impairs glucose tolerance and decreases serum cholesterol in postmenopausal women. So all the things that magnesium deficiency can cause issues with also bone loss. I mean, I think this is one of the biggest things for postmenopausal women, they’re very worried about bone loss because estrogen levels are have dropped significantly, right, you only have a little bit being made by her adrenal glands, it’s very different than what’s being made by your ovaries. And so that can lead to more bone loss. So I think number one, magnesium is huge for bone health in the menopausal population. Unfortunately, they’re typically just told to take calcium, even though many of them probably already have high calcium and low magnesium. So that could make it worse. So I do think, talking to your doctor, if you are postmenopausal testing your magnesium levels, especially if you’re taking calcium is very important. It’s also really important for insulin and blood sugar. And that’s another one that if that is one that estrogen drops, your sensitivity to insulin also decreases. And so a lot of women feel like they have to reduce their carbohydrate intake or they gain weight. So checking your minerals and understanding that mineral status, especially magnesium, and calcium, again, excess calcium, which is very common, this population is going to lead to slower glucose getting into the cells, a harder time getting thyroid hormone inside the cells, which those both those things are going to lead to hypothyroidism and higher blood sugar insulin resistance, which both cause weight gain. So I do think that that’s huge for this population. And then the heart health concern, right? I mean, there’s like a much greater the in the increased risk of heart attack stroke goes up a lot after menopause, because and they talk about the protective effects of estrogen like yes, but I really do think that magnesium deficiency and all this calcium supplementation that’s being recommended, plays a huge role too. Because that tissue calcification is going to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. So lower estrogen during this time, of course, is going to be a big part of the symptoms and like the health concerns, but I think, you know, HRT isn’t for everyone, and I think some people are ready for it. Some people are like, I don’t want to do HRT, I think if you support your minerals, one, it could help the HRT work better set you up for success with that, but then to it, you may not need it if you can really replenish and support your, you know, blood sugar, bone health, heart, health and other ways. So that’s, that’s the biggest thing with hormones. If you want to learn about PMS, check out patreon. Okay, so let’s talk about magnesium and other minerals. Because I think this is where I know this can be confusing. But I mean, hopefully by now, you know that calcium and magnesium are really important, and they have been balanced. If we have a deficiency of one, it’s going to impact the other. If we take too much of one mineral, it’s going to impact the other one. So they can either cause an excess, like low magnesium or cause tissue, calcium leaves the cell, calcification in the body, not good. blood sugar issues, thyroid issues, heart health, heart health issues, if and like bone loss, right? So very concerning if we take calcium that we can deplete magnesium, which causes pretty much all the same problems and hormonal chaos for sure. So we need them to be in balance, I would say that that’s probably like the biggest mineral when it comes to magnesium, magnesium and sodium are also you know, they do regulate each other or magnesium definitely can regulate sodium, when we’re stressed, we’re going to use up more magnesium, very normal. Oftentimes, we also will have more sodium loss or higher levels of sodium on a hair test, because we do you know, that’s a huge that shows that our adrenals are working hard. We want to have sodium potassium imbalance. That’s the next two episodes are sodium potassium. So we’ll learn all about that. But what often happens is they again, they kind of get depleted over time, especially if we’re not replenishing potassium, or sodium and that can cause absorption issues, especially with minerals like magnesium. When we take magnesium and we have very low sodium and usually potassium, potassium goes with low sodium. It can be hard to increase sodium levels. So this is like the person that feels like they can’t tolerate magnesium, because typically, they already have low minerals in general, or at least low sodium and potassium. And they add magnesium on top of that. And because magnesium can actually inhibit aldosterone, it makes it harder to retain sodium. So then you can further deplete sodium and potassium. But you’re replenishing magnesium. So your body’s trying to respond to the stress and it doesn’t have the other minerals to back it up. So can lead to more stress. Typically, you don’t feel good. So we do want to make sure that if this is why I say like, don’t just start taking a bunch of magnesium, if you can do a hair test, check your sodium levels, blood levels are not going to be super accurate. If they’re low, obviously, that’s not good. But it’s pretty hard for our blood levels to get to at a range unless they’ve like your body’s like, been out of balance for a long time. So you know, just be mindful this, if you don’t respond well to magnesium, it could because you have low sodium. And when it comes to potassium, if we have a magnesium deficiency, it can lead to a potassium deficiency. So they are very synergistic in that way. And it can be hard to really up your potassium if you’re not replenishing sodium too. But it’s a tricky balance. Because if sodium is also low, you can’t overdo the magnesium. So this is why I just think it’s so important to like focus on food first, drink your adrenal cocktails, prioritize potassium rich foods, maybe you use topical magnesium, to get started instead of taking an oral one. And that will help you slowly introduce your bodies to minerals, and not like overdo it and take too much of one that leads to another one becoming out of balance. The other thing is that because magnesium deficiency leads to high tissue calcium typically like that, leaving the bones and teeth that often will push down potassium more. So
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magnesium deficiency, not good for potassium, but too much magnesium of sodium, potassium, or too low, also not good. But we’ll talk more about that in the next two episodes, for sure. And then the last mineral which I have a whole episode on boron, that is important for magnesium, it can actually increase the absorption of magnesium and helps keep it inside the cell. And this is why it is also important to consider boron status. If we are like, you know, my magnesium is not increasing. No matter maybe you’re taking a very high dose, and it is appropriate based on your other mineral levels, then that’s when I would consider like do you have really low boron, you know, because that that can play a big role in your ability to keep it inside the cell as well. So we went through minerals, and other minerals and how they can impact magnesium how magnesium can impact other minerals. The next thing I want to go into as far as like nutrients in magnesium is vitamin D. So very controversial. I know some people get upset when I talk about vitamin D. But I really do feel that it’s important. I talked about vitamin D and my episode from season one on supplements that can be doing more harm than good. I don’t think that people should never ever take vitamin D. But I think the research is clear on this, whether people want to ignore it or not vitamin D status, it doesn’t always mean we need more vitamin D. And it’s we have to look deeper. Like if you’re deficient in vitamin D, you have to ask yourself why there is usually an underlying imbalance there. A lot of the times it is magnesium, because long term supplementing vitamin D doesn’t fix the underlying problem. And if we are taking vitamin D blindly we can be it increases the absorption of calcium in the gut. And if you already have really high tissue calcium, that’s not going to help, that’s going to lead to more potassium loss. And remember, we haven’t done a deep dive on potassium that was coming soon. But it is so important for glucose. It’s incredibly important for thyroid hormone use and function in the body, heart health, so many different things. When it comes to hormones. Potassium is very important. And like symptoms and stuff like that. So if taking vitamin D is going to up calcium, lower potassium and lower magnesium and increasing the calcium magnesium ratio, which is potentially impacting our blood sugar, our stress response, bone health,
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so many different things. I think we have to pump the brakes a little bit pause and say, Is this appropriate? Am I have doing any other investigation on why my vitamin D is low? And if I’m going to even be able to use this vitamin D that I’m taking because remember, we have to convert it and what converts it magnesium. A big part of I think that’s like a big part of the issue and like a lot of people are deficient in magnesium. And that just impairs how they can even produce vitamin D and also utilize it when they take it. A big part of how it impairs production of Vitamin D is it impairs the secretion of that pair are a thyroid hormone. And if we have that reduced secretion, parathyroid hormone, then remember we’re not going to our kidneys are not going to be stimulated to make that active vitamin D, that kalsa trial. So low magnesium can equal low active vitamin D, the hydroxylase enzymes, which are responsible for the production of calcium trial require magnesium as a cofactor. Remember, magnesium is required for active D. So if we are looking at magnesium deficiency, we have to revive it vitamin D deficiency, we have to consider magnesium. And a lot of the issues with vitamin D supplements. It’s not, they’re not sulfated, they’re not water soluble, they require enough cholesterol to be transported. And that’s like a whole other thing I talked a lot about cholesterol and the cholesterol deepdyve. It’s cluster on your hormones is what it’s called in season three. But a lot of people have issues with cholesterol can also be related to minerals. And there’s just limited benefits to a supplemental vitamin D, when we think of the vitamin D that we make in our bodies, the sulfated form, it can increase calcium absorption in the gut. So like I said, I don’t think everyone should avoid vitamin D. Or even just taking it for a short period for a certain like issue. But to have a low vitamin D level on blood panel to then say, okay, I’d be more vitamin D without looking at retinol status without looking at magnesium status or calcium. I just don’t I think it’s not smart for your long term health. And something that you should definitely ask your doctor about. I know a lot of doctors don’t understand the importance of magnesium. But I think with some advocating for yourself and presenting information that you could probably argue to get a magnesium RBC test and see like, do I need to also take magnesium with this vitamin D Do I need to take less vitamin D because my tissue calcium is actually really high. And I don’t want to increase it more, just to make sure it’s like actually appropriate. There’s also very limited benefits to vitamin D. But I mean, if you do need to increase your absorption of calcium in the gut, obviously, it can do that. It inhibits retinol in the liver, which is vitamin A, so which means that you’re not going to have as good of production of that bioavailable copper, which is huge. That’s why a lot of times I’ll see very high copper levels like copper excess on hair ties. So if someone is taking vitamin D, it’s usually really high calcium, really high copper, and then it lowers potassium. So we have to take other nutrients into consideration. Vitamin D doesn’t just affect only vitamin D levels. And I think that’s really important. And I’m going to link a bunch of studies in the show notes, but one that I really liked is one that was showing how magnesium deficiency and replenishing magnesium can improve vitamin D. So they were looking at postmenopausal women that had osteoporosis. And some of them are vitamin D deficient and they had low parathyroid hormone levels. They also discovered that they’re magnesium deficient. And when they supplemented with magnesium, it corrected the parathyroid hormone levels. And the vitamin D levels, which was very interesting, these women did not take any vitamin D. So I will link that one in the shownotes. There’s also another one that was looking at heart health, which I think is important to take into consideration with vitamin D. Because if someone already has heart health concerns, maybe high blood pressure concerns and then you’re also taking a higher dose of vitamin D that can increase your tissue calcium, and then that can remember calcify, lead to increase in blood pressure, risk of stroke, heart attack all those things. And especially when paired with a magnesium deficiency, so that’s really important to consider too. And then the whole inflammation piece. So I think that’s probably one of the biggest arguments that people present to me is that low vitamin D means that you’re inflamed, but it doesn’t necessarily it doesn’t cause inflammation. That was like the big thing. And there’s one study that I’ll share and actually I’m going to share the image now because I think this chart is just like eye opening because it talks about the the what levels are normal for vitamin D there for different societies, but they found low serum 25 Oh H vitamin D that storage form in healthy and unhealthy people. So it doesn’t vitamin D, your vitamin D does status doesn’t tell you if you’re healthy and it and even though these people were exposed to adequate amounts of sunlight, they still have low serum 25 Oh H levels. It’s so important to Okay, so like, is it do they have low levels and it’s not impairing their health, so why would they supplement with vitamin D? And I also think that the ranges are very, very confusing like if we look at the vitamin D Council deficient is zero for the 25 LH levels deficient is zero to 40 nanograms per milliliter stuff ficient is 40 to 89 nanograms per milliliter. High normal is 80 to 100 nanograms per milliliter. And for me like what I’ve learned is having a higher level of storage vitamin D is actually not good because it can be a sign that you’re not converting it and can be a sign of inflammation and magnesium deficiency. So I would say like, I personally would not use these levels of clients. The Endocrine Society definition is a deficiency is less than 20 nanograms per milliliter insufficiency is 20 to 29 anagrams from a liter. I think it’s closer like I usually use like 20 to 31. But I never just look at vitamin D, you have to compare it to other things like I think it’s really helpful to see 125 Oh, H vitamin D, which is that capsule trial and that active form? Because if someone has low 25 wage, but very high council trial, why would you add more on top of that, right. And then the Institute of Medicine, there’s is a risk or deficiency is less than 12 nanograms per milliliter risk or insufficiency is 12 to 20 nanograms per milliliter, and then sufficient is 20 nanograms per milliliter. So depending on who you’re following, you don’t even know if your lungs are good or not. And then every lab is going to be different too. So I would also keep that in mind. So if you have your vitamin D, and you’re like, I don’t know, the labs, that it wasn’t good, but I’m not sure. Rewind this, listen to those ranges, again, see what you fall into. And remember, you have to look at other lab values, we cannot just compare it to one marker, you never want to make a Health Choice on one marker you want to keep keep it into context of your whole health history, your main concerns and your whole picture. I mean, hopefully, other lab testing as well. But I just I think that only looking at the 25 Oh H and taking a supplement off that and not knowing your calcium or magnesium status is just, it’s not going to help someone long term. And yeah, it’s just it’s interesting how they had healthy, healthy people have low levels of 25 a wage and normal levels of 125 a wage. And then sick people have low levels of 25 a wage and elevated levels of 125 a wage in that study. So again, like high 125 can be a sign of inflammation, low 25, that storage form can be a sign of possibly inflammation, magnesium insufficiency, or just normal for you. And again, low, it’s like based on what range it could be, there’s like, we just went through three of them. So depending on your practitioner, your doctor, they might not, they may have a different range that they’re going by. So I just think it’s important to understand that because I, I think we’re all very quick to supplement with it. And we don’t fully understand how it’s going to impact things I have, like so many articles on here of like that I put in my notes, I cannot go through them all. But basically, if it’s supplementing with vitamin D can be concerning because it can suppress your immune system. So they talked about and one of them how vitamin D looks like it’s really helpful for autoimmune conditions, because suppressing their immune system can help some of their symptoms, because their immune system is overactive. But in regular, your typical person if they don’t have an autoimmune condition, and it is depressing their immune system, then that can lead to bacterial overgrowth or pathogenesis. So I just thought that was there. So it’s everything is connected. I know I always say this, but it really is. And nothing happens in isolation. And I know vitamin D is like a vitamin, but it really acts more like a hormone in the body. So we just got to make sure that we’re being smart with vitamin D. And I think honestly, if you just don’t overdo it, if you just aren’t taking like five to 10,000 I use a day, you’ll probably be fine. But unfortunately, a lot of us are just recommended these huge, huge amounts. And we’re to keep taking it until that level increases. And it’s like, Okay, I’ve had so many clients where they’re like, their vitamin D just will not increase. And they’re like, What the heck, like, I don’t know, like, I don’t know what’s going on taking 10,000 views a day. And it’s like, okay, we need to take a step back and see what else is going on then, and make sure you’re measuring the 125 wage too, especially if you’re supplementing with it because it’s like you just want to make sure that everything is accurate. But yes, magnesium deficiency can cause a vitamin D deficiency access to vitamin D supplementation can cause a magnesium and potassium deficiency and really high tissue calcium. So just in low retinol, so just be careful, be cautious, be smart. Okay, so let’s just go through what contributes to a magnesium deficiency. Quickly I’ll talk about why people don’t tolerate it show you a couple of hair tests for people that can typically benefit or may not benefit from magnesium supplementation. And then I will wrap it up with the q&a, because it’s, this is going to be a long one. I’m only going to make the episode shorter. But it’s hard to So let’s go through first nutrition aspects different like parts of nutrition supplements that can impact magnesium levels and caused magnesium deficiency. If we don’t have enough magnesium in our diet, right, of course, that’s going to lead to it. excess calcium supplementation. Calcium from foods is not shown to lead to a magnesium deficiency or calcification, so it’s more of a supplementation, excessive caffeine intake, if you have alcohol dependence and you’re regularly drinking alcohol, excessive vitamin D, excessive bioavailable copper. So whether you’re supplementing with it or it’s pushed out of balance in the body, usually from vitamin D, or a vitamin A deficiency, boron or vitamin B six deficiency and then excessive B vitamin supplementation, because this can increase energy production, and that does require more magnesium. So those are like the big ones and I put fluoride under here because I didn’t know where else to put it. I guess I could have put on her lifestyle but fluoride compounds in Florida Water, many dental products, prescription medications, which a lot of people don’t realize they can actually bind with magnesium and make it unavailable on the body. So fluoride is a big one for magnesium deficiency. Especially like I think of like how much how many like fluoride treatments I did as a kid I cringe lifestyle is a big one. So excessive sweating, if you’re not getting good sleep, or you have like, you know, poor sleep quality or not sleeping enough. Chronic stress, of course talked about how that depletes magnesium and then excessive heavy metals are depleted as well. And then medications. Remember, fluoride is often in a lot of medications. So that’s part of why they can deplete it. But diuretics can deplete magnesium, proton pump inhibitors, those are like the PPIs. For reflux. cisplatin is a chemotherapy medication that’s been shown to decrease it and then antibiotics can decrease magnesium. And then if we think of like physiological things like what changes in the body can deplete magnesium pregnancy, we talked about menopause aging in general. And then of course, I guess medications, I should have said oral contraceptives as well. And then there are some genetic disorders. I’m going to link this in the show notes, but I’m just going to highlight those specific genes. I’m not going to go into a ton of detail here. You can read the article if you want more, but TRP M six is involved in magnesium uptake in the kidney, ATP to be one is associated with altered magnesium levels and the risk for low magnesium and then C ASR. It has instructions for a protein called calcium sensing receptor. So it regulates calcium, but of course that can impact how much magnesium were reabsorbing as well. So those three genes you can have certain snips in them that can make it hard for someone to increase their magnesium levels. Type Two Diabetes is another big one, gi disorders, especially like absorption, absorptive things like if you have an autoimmune condition, like Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis, kidney failure, of course, kidneys are going to be huge for regulating most minerals, but magnesium as well, heart disease and osteoporosis are all impacting magnesium status. And then if we’re if you’re someone that’s like, you know, I have tried to take magnesium and it does not go well, every single time you feel worse, especially it which can be very confusing because you’re like, I Okay, magnesium has got all these benefits, I think based on like, maybe like taking medications or fluoride exposure, not getting it in your diet stress, like, you know, you’re kind of going through the list, you’re like, Man, I bet I have a magnesium deficiency, I’m going to try to take some, which is pretty logical, right? And then you feel worse, and you’re like, what’s going on? It’s typically related to sodium, like I talked about before, magnesium inhibits aldosterone, which helps retain sodium. So if you already have low sodium and you take magnesium and like low minerals, in general, you’re typically not going to be able to back up the stress response that can be created. So if you’re someone that say you take magnesium and you you feel like worse, like heart palpitations, you can’t sleep, or you can’t stay asleep, or you feel more tired and exhausted, then I would say, Stop. Don’t keep taking it, don’t push through because it’s not going to support you. If you do have optimal sodium and potassium levels, then you could do well but ideally, you support someone in potassium before you would take any magnesium supplementation. And I’ll show you a couple of examples of people have hair tests where it’s like okay, this this person probably would not tolerate magnesium super well. But you know, it’s not your hair test. So remember that if we’re I never go purely based off the desk, you want to go based off the person as well but like this one, for example, cow all that all pretty much all their minerals are left Oh, but sodium potassium are very low, and their magnesium in relation to sodium is higher. So this person, I would definitely say make sure you start with focusing on sodium potassium. If this person added magnesium, they may not feel great, because they have low minerals across the board, which means they have less energy production.
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But this person, remember, magnesium can be helpful if you have high sodium. So if this person is like retaining sodium or they’re burning through it, it’s showing that their body is their adrenals are working hard, they’re experiencing a stressor, they could likely do well with magnesium because it can help calm this down. Their potassium is low too. And remember, magnesium can help with potassium retention, it’s just going to be difficult if your sodium is also low, but this person would be like a great candidate, sodium is high potassium is low, they could I would still say support potassium First, I would never just start with sodium, but they could be like a really good candidate, they would likely be less likely to have symptoms than that first case where this person had lower sodium and potassium. So that’s typically what’s happening. Alright, so I am going to go through the Instagram questions and now and then I have a will, I’ll do that bonus episode. If you’re in the Patreon work, we get into a lot more with heavy metals, the different types of magnesium, all that good stuff. Okay, so someone asked, safest way to quickly increase magnesium. My first thought, What’s the rush that’s like the note that I wrote, I don’t think we should ever try to increase a mineral quickly. Because they’re all synergistic with other minerals. So you really want to be careful there, I would, I would say, there is no safe way to quickly increase a mineral. You can support it with topical magnesium Epsom salt baths, doing adrenal cocktails, potassium rich foods and then supplement to magnesium. That’s the safest way. But I don’t know that it may not quickly increase it. But increasing it fast doesn’t always mean good. Like, you could get a ton of symptoms if you try to do that, and that wouldn’t be good. The next one is the best type of magnesium for kids or babies, I would say babies, I would say topical definitely for babies, like we just do Epsom salt baths with my daughter. And it’s just like an unscented, just plain Epsom salt, we just put a little bit in the bathtub, because remember, they’re a lot smaller than you. And I think that’s a great way. And then for kids that are a little bit older, if they I won’t, I wouldn’t necessarily supplement with it unless like me, if you do a hair test or bloodwork and you’re like, hey, we see that they’re deficient, and it would be appropriate. If you if they have constipation, then I definitely have clients that utilize it for constipation on their kids. And that’s usually when we do magnesium citrate. But outside of this, like I have had clients use it for their kids that have like ADHD and like issues with heavy metals. And that’s usually when they use magnesium Malley. And pretty much all these are they get a powder form, magnesium glycinate, you can also get in powder form that can be good for relaxing, but if but usually ADHD is related to like heavy metals and imbalances and certain minerals because of that. So I would say like magnesium malate would be good for those kids. If you have kids that are struggling with depression, anxiety, magnesium 3d can be good. And I do have a full chart of all the different types of magnesium. And like if they absorb well, how to use them what they’re best for inside of Patreon. Are there any cofactors for magnesium? I answered this one when I talked about the basics before so there aren’t necessarily cofactors you have to keep in mind other minerals like I went through, like for research has shown that for those who are under severe chronic stress, they can benefit from supplementing by maybe six with the magnesium. Okay, increase change dosing and pregnancies last year, the end of pregnancy postpartum, it really depends on your other minerals. There’s definitely an increased need for magnesium during pregnancy. 100%. But I don’t, I wouldn’t, I could never give a recommendation based off of like no information. Someone also asked for like daily dose, it’s like you could go by the RDA, if you want to be safe, but it just depends on like, where you’re starting, like are you brand new, then you should really be starting with potassium, sodium, like topical magnesium. And then considering supplementation depending on your hair tests and your main health concerns and all that kind of stuff. I see a lot of women in pregnancy that move from like, sole metabolic types like very, very fast metabolic type and they their calcium goes down. And so if you take way too much magnesium went down, you could potentially make that worse. So I mean, I would just do hair mineral testing if that’s going to be the best way to know like, okay, is that appropriate? Can I take more than I’m taking and of course postpartum there’s going to be more stress because you had a baby so and your body’s recovering. So you may need more but I just don’t feel comfortable like saying how much you recommending someone to take more, because it may not actually help you if your other minerals are out of balance. Someone asked about Whole Foods versus supplements. I mean, I do think it’s obviously like getting it from foods gonna be great. And another place you could start, like the foods I went through, you’re probably eating at least some of those already. And just trying to prioritize some more could definitely be beneficial. I don’t think someone’s going to get a therapeutic dose of magnesium from food that would fix the deficiency though I think most people would need supplements. And then someone said, Does magnesium correct mineral imbalance other minerals? Like I mentioned, like possibly sodium, yes, possibly calcium, if someone is already if they’re like, not deficient in magnesium, and they’re already have high tissue calcium. Okay, so when asked is topical magnesium more effective for like I see better results with magnesium oil, I would say it depends on the person, like if you’re someone that doesn’t tolerate magnesium, well, orally, then, you know, topically is definitely going to be more effective for you. If you have very low minerals in general, like lots of depletion, usually people do better with topical versus oral, because oral can be too stimulating. But I think it just depends on like, what’s more effective, it’s like depends on what’s effective for the person, because you could take oral magnesium, and technically it might raise your levels faster. But if you feel worse, and that’s not effective in my eyes, at least. Okay, so someone’s had weird, anxious transactor taking magnesium is this normal, if you’re not getting into a lot of like REM sleep normally, and you add magnesium, and you can get more REM sleep, this can happen with progesterone too. And that because you’re getting into this, like REM sleep like the rapid eye movement, you can have more vivid dreams, it can also be that like if your body is like stuck in fight or flight the majority of the time, and then you take magnesium and it calms down. Your nervous system can be very uncomfortable with that. So then you’re having these like very, like upsetting and anxious dreams. But it’s probably just the type of sleep that you’re getting. Okay, how to get magnesium when you don’t tolerate any forms? I would try the topical form or the the oil or the bath for sure. And food. Should you take magnesium with or without food does it affect absorption? So typically, it’s recommended with food if someone’s taking magnesium bicarbonate that can affect your stomach acid. So I would not take that with food. And that’s another question someone asked, Why is magnesium bicarbonate recommended doesn’t neutralize stomach acid, it’s very easily absorbed. So it is a good bioavailable form of it. It’s often well tolerated by people because you can titrate it so slowly. So because it’s liquid, you can start with like half a teaspoon, which is a very tiny amount and like slowly increase it versus I mean, if you’re taking a capsule, it can be hard to get a really small amount from that. So that’s a big one. And it can neutralize stomach acid because it’s a bicarbonate. So it’s it’s great like in pregnancy when I had heartburn, I would just take magnesium bicarbonate and it will go away. It was amazing. You do want to keep it away from meals. But as long as you’re not having it with a meal, there isn’t a concern about stomach acid, because it’s only neutralizing it in that moment. Okay, let’s see, what does it mean when you try to increase your dose of magnesium but you get loose stool? Does it mean you don’t tolerate it? It’s like it could be the type because like certain types like magnesium citrate or oxide are definitely more prone to loose stools. But it can also be that you’ve met that highest dose that you can tolerate right now. Typically, that’s what you would look for if you’re taking magnesium glycinate like a form that’s very well tolerated by most people. Even people have gut issues. And you’re getting loose stool after you go up to like 400 If you go above 400 milligrams, you get loose stool and that means you only take 400 Your body’s not ready for the rest. Okay, let’s see if I don’t do an hcma How else can I know I’m deficient? You could do a magnesium red blood cell measurement, you’d have to just don’t do Mac serum magnesium, it’s not accurate, but if you do magnesium RBC then that is much more accurate. Okay, last one. What does it mean if magnesium is super high and hair test and sodium potassium are super low, it’s typically a sign of very high stress and depleted reserves. So you’ve been stressed for a really long time and you’re like moving towards that exhaustive stage. All right, that’s a magnesium episode. Sorry, this is a long one was a lot to get through. If you want to learn more about magnesium and heavy metals, magnesium and PMS, get the chart of magnesium supplementation and their list of foods and the amounts of magnesium that are in them. You can join the patreon.com/hormone healing rd and get access to all of that. And I will see you in the next episode where we dig into sodium
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Thank you for listening to this episode of The Are You Menstrual podcast if you want to support my work please leave a review and let me know how you liked the episode this lets me know what you guys want more of less of I read every single one and I appreciate them more than you know. If you want to keep learning you can get access to the bonus episode and additional resources on patreon.com forward slash where when healing rd I’d love to have you in there. Thanks again and I will see you in the next episode.
