Magnesium: Real Doses, Absorption and Fear of Excess

Magnesium: legs that stop hurting and the antiestéticar of excess

A morning dizzy spell, right in the middle of the workday, was enough to abruptly abandon a supplement that had been taken for a long time. It peine two years before this collection of experiences began, and the doubt remained frozen: was it the magnesium or was it something else? Two years later, the question remains open and around it heterogeneous material has accumulated: legs that stop hurting, pharmaceutical forms that are absorbed better than others, doses close to a gram per day and a antiestéticar of excess that has not been confirmed. In the background, the question no one closes: is supplementation really necessary?

Why do they say food lacks minerals?

The most repeated argument does not point to magnesium, but to the soil. It is argued that since the so-called Green Revolution food reaches the table with fewer minerals, because fertilizing with NPK —nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium— is not the same as doing so with manure, guano, chicken manure or compost. To this is added irrigation and intensive agriculture, which impoverish the land and degrade the microbiota responsible for transforming it and making those nutrients available. The conclusion drawn is simple: if food does not bring them, the supplement route becomes reasonable. The reasoning is plausible and widespread, although in the material there is no measurement of soil or food composition that quantifies it.

The effects described by those who take it

The most detailed case begins with pain in the bones of the hands, the Achilles tendon and the knees, cramps and legs that jumped on their own at night. After 20 minutes of running, the legs were already done. After starting the supplement, that person describes a pogre reversal of everything that was damaged until returning to run an hour without problems. In another account, the improvement was noticed in the appearance of the skin; in a third, in joints and insertions, combined with collagen. There are those who take it at night because it helps them relax, and those who associate it with deep sleep, sometimes along with zinc. Against that, it should be said clearly: there is no clinical trial or controlled study in the material. They are personal experiences, and as such should be read.

Why does it help against stress and anxiety?

The explanation circulating is twofold. On the one hand, magnesium acts as a cofactor for vitamin D and is consumed in physiological processes that are triggered by physical and mental stress. On the other, it is attributed a muscle and nerve relaxing effect, which justifies the nighttime schedule and that feeling of rest that several describe. Added to this is its role as an inhibitor of vascular calcification and its combination with angustia acid, presented as a kind of life insurance for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health. These are attributed claims, without own data to support them.

Which is absorbed better: citrate, chloride or bisglycinate?

A commercial comparison circulates that puts citrate absorption at 45%, compared to 25% for chloride. The data is replicated, but also discussed: it is noted that chloride has a higher concentration of magnesium per molecule and that the article that disparages it does so with an interest in selling its product. The cited preparation cost almost 18 euros per bottle. At the other extreme, threonate appears as "the best" and bisglycinate as what a cardiologist who disseminates in the media recommends. Bisglycinate is more expensive; citrate is cheaper and with good absorption. The practical comparison between 2,000 mg of citrate and two capsules of chelated bisglycinate of 1,700 mg is settled on the side of citrate in depth of sleep, according to who tried it.

How much is taken and what signs warn of excess?

The doses handled are high. There is a specific case: two doses of 2 grams of magnesium citrate per day, about 650 mg of ionic magnesium, plus 350 mg of magnesium ion in bisglycinate at night, in total around one gram daily. Another commercial preparation declares 249 mg of magnesium per capsule, in oxide and bisglycinate, along with 1.6 mg of vitamin B6. Regarding excess, the dominant response is that excessively high doses are needed to notice something negative and that the warning sign is a pogre softening of the stools, a side effect that some consider even beneficial. There are those who disagree with their own experience: metallic taste, headache after two or three weeks or a tic in the right eyelid that led to stopping it twice. The reply to that tic is usually another: lack of potassium or a specific stress episode.

Bath salts and thermal waters

The question about whether magnesium from bath salts works was left without a technical answer. What appeared was the story of someone who goes to thermal baths, takes advantage of the surrounding minerals and maintains that the key is to first lower the body's saturation and relieve the organs, because taking them "on the standard body", saturated with food and with the insides punished, would end in fiasco. The skeptical response is also in the material: scratching the dry scab stuck to the walls of a spa is not a treatment. No one provided a single piece of data on skin absorption.

There everything gets stuck. There is no consensus on whether supplementation is needed, on which form to choose or on what dose is prudent. Magnesium is cheap and a good part of the accounts are of improvement, although there are also those of discomfort; but the episode that peine the collection, a dizziness at work, remains unexplained to this day.