Based on your feedback, we have compiled here your natural solutions to relieve, soothe and reverse various symptoms and illnesses.
Live on Friday mornings, Pierre Haddad, pharmacologist and scientific researcher, helps us better understand scientifically, and in all simplicity, these alternatives to relieve and reverse unpleasant conditions in connection with the testimonies we receive.
Here he explains the benefits of magnesium.
Our meeting on May 3:
Topics covered and transcript of remarks*:
1:45 - Pierre Haddad's role in this beautiful adventure
I would like to make a small clarification before beginning, to clarify the role I have in this wonderful endeavor. It is to explain, to help you better understand scientifically, in the simplest and most popular terms possible, how these supplements work and how this can lead to benefits related to the testimonials you receive.
There is a caveat, however, because testimonials are based on people's perceptions of taking something and the effect they experience. Most of the time, there is an explanation, a scientific basis, and preclinical (laboratory) and clinical (human) studies, and therefore correspond to claims that Health Canada allows.
On the other hand, there are times when some people are more sensitive than others, things that science has not yet explained or understood. There is also the third alternative, that there are other changes that have taken place in the person's life, changes in their medications, other supplements, dietary changes, lifestyle changes.
So, when I don't see scientific links to help understand testimonies, I will specify it.
3:40 - Magnesium, a mineral and electrolyte in our body
Magnesium is a very interesting supplement, because magnesium is a mineral and an electrolyte in our body. It is fourth after sodium, potassium, and calcium in terms of electrolyte importance.
4:00 - What is an electrolyte?
Electrolytes are minerals and metals, even those dissolved in water, that generally have a charge. For magnesium, we will speak of a cation, a positive ion, but which has two charges, a divalent cation.
We know electricity mainly in the sense of nerves and muscles, but the charges and movements of ions play an important role in nerve transmission, in muscle contraction, in the secretion of several organs, such as the production of urine, bile, gastric juices, etc. It is therefore a very important role.
5:15 - Health Canada Allowed Claims for Magnesium
- Magnesium, an electrolyte that plays an important role at several levels in the body.
- Helps in the development of bones and teeth.
- Helps maintain and support proper muscle function, including the heart muscle.
- Helps with energy metabolism and tissue formation.
- Helps maintain and support the body's ability to metabolize nutrients.
- Source of electrolyte for the maintenance of good health and for normal electrolyte balance in the body.
This is important precisely because we need a good amount of sodium, potassium, calcium and all that.
6:40 - Magnesium deficiency
Two-thirds to three-quarters of the population in industrialized countries do not have an adequate intake. We're talking about 300 to 400 mg per day, which is necessary for the body to function. We can get it from food sources, for example, green, leafy vegetables, whole grains, nuts. With the way people eat, the more processed foods are, the less magnesium there is... It is believed that many people are deficient in magnesium.
7:25 - Impact of stress and age on magnesium in the body
This is interesting because I saw a study that showed that exam stress, for example, causes magnesium to be lost in the urine. This will indeed decrease magnesium in the body.
And, with age, food intake generally decreases. People eat less or eat less well with age. There's also absorption in the intestine that decreases and losses in the urine that increase. So, with age, we tend to take in less and lose more.
8:20 - Magnesium and bones
Last week, we talked about collagen, which is like the metal rods in reinforced concrete. The concrete itself is hydroxyapatite. It's mainly calcium and phosphorus that form this concrete, but magnesium is important for helping to fix calcium to bones. One study showed that in young children, magnesium intake was as important as calcium intake for healthy bone growth.
9:10 - Magnesium deficiency is a risk factor for osteoporosis
This confirms the important role of magnesium for bones. One study showed that in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis, magnesium supplementation slowed bone loss.
This is consistent with the role of magnesium in the health and development of bones and teeth.
11:20 - Magnesium and muscles
To understand the importance of magnesium in muscle function, I will first explain how muscles work.
Muscle contraction is highly dependent on calcium. We have a nerve that will excite a muscle, which sends signals. This causes calcium to enter the muscle fiber and exit the calcium stores (which are inside the cell). This results in a 1000-fold increase in calcium in the cell.
And there are proteins, actin and myocin, these are muscle fibers, threads. There are hooks; actin being the fiber and myocin, the hook. When calcium binds to proteins and enzymes, it will cause the hook to move and shorten. Obviously, there are thousands of fibers and thousands of hooks, and so you can see how the muscle can contract like this. Gradually, with the nerve signal stopping and the calcium being restocked in sites inside the cell, it attenuates and relaxes.
The role of magnesium in this is that it competes with calcium on the enzymes and proteins that bind calcium, so it will tend to help with relaxation. It also blocks the entry of calcium from outside into the cell. Basically, it helps with relaxation. It's when there is a lack of magnesium in the cell that cramps occur.
1:50 p.m. - Magnesium - clinical studies
Several clinical studies have been conducted on nighttime cramps and cramps in pregnant women. When we summarize and analyze all the clinical studies, unfortunately, the effects do not seem very conclusive.
So I come back to an important factor that explains this apparent lack of effects. In the clinic, they do not look at the level of magnesium in the body.
We said earlier that it's magnesium deficiencies that lead to health problems and contribute to muscle cramps. However, if we don't look at where the person was starting from... If we have people who had enough magnesium, adding more to their diet won't have any effect. But if they're in the same group as those who have less, they're the ones who will have more significant effects.
This is a bit what the literature seems to say.
15:15 - Bones, the main reservoir of magnesium
Bone is the main reservoir. 50%, or even more, of the magnesium is in bone. It's a fixed reservoir; it's harder to get it. The other half, almost half, is in all tissues. We said that magnesium is important for enzymatic reactions. There are about 300 enzymatic reactions that depend on magnesium, where magnesium plays an important role. That's why Health Canada allows "Maintaining Healthy Nutrient Metabolism" because there are many enzymes that depend on magnesium to function.
4:00 PM - How do we know if we have enough magnesium?
The problem is that there's very little magnesium in the blood, less than 1% of what's in the whole body, and that's not a good indicator, unfortunately. So what he'll do is take a blood test, and then look at your blood cells, for example, how much magnesium there is. It's a little more invasive, but it reflects better.
16:40 - Regarding clinical studies related to magnesium
The challenge: People haven't looked at the magnesium status of the individuals participating in the clinical studies. So, they can't make a correlation. What the authors propose is that people who have less benefit from magnesium supplementation than those who have enough.
6:30 p.m. - Bioavailability
Bioavailability, so more easily absorbed. What I found was that it was organic salts, so with Citrate for example, or Diglycinate like you use, compared to inorganic salts like magnesium oxide. Absorption was much greater with organic salts than with inorganic salts.
20:15 - Magnesium and premenstrual syndromes
In women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome, which includes menstrual (uterine) cramps, magnesium levels have been found to be lower in these women than in women who do not suffer from PMS as much. Here too, there appears to be a link. But caution is needed, as associations are not necessarily cause and effect. This is important to note.
They did some studies with a small number of women, but they found that magnesium supplementation helped reduce water retention and menstrual cramps. It also helped with mood swings, stress, anxiety, and irritability. Even migraines, also associated with PMS, seemed to be relieved in some studies by magnesium supplementation.
Again, these are small studies, which is why Health Canada will not allow such precise claims and we are sticking with claims of structures - functions, we call them, bone maintenance, muscle maintenance.
If studies, for example on cramps, are better done and data accumulates to show that magnesium supplementation does indeed help cramps, then Health Canada will allow this claim to be made.
For now, we just say that it helps the muscles, including the heart muscles, function properly.
22:40 - Link with stress
If we want to understand stress well:
We have a whole system of stress responses. There's a brain-adrenal axis. The adrenals are small glands above our kidneys that produce adrenaline and cortisol, two major stress response hormones. The brain's excitatory cells will be stimulated because we have to respond to stress (whether it's an exam or a threat to our integrity). Calcium plays the same role in nerve cells. It's involved in the excitability of nerve cells. So, it takes calcium, and calcium excites and participates in all this stress response activity. Magnesium, here too, will interfere and tend to calm the nervous system by counteracting the effects of calcium, especially with neurotransmitters that are excitatory and use calcium to create their signals.
There are indeed studies that have shown that magnesium supplementation can be as effective as medication - antidepressants - in countering mild depression. Again, the studies are of poor quality, people haven't looked at the person's magnesium level and all that.
Unfortunately, if we look at the clinical data itself, it doesn't support it. This is encouraging. There needs to be better quality studies on a larger number of people. But that's expensive...
26:20 - Are there any dangers in taking too much magnesium? What is the limit?
You always have to follow the dosage, I say it all the time! If Health Canada has rules, it's for a good reason. I always say it: it's pharmacologically active. So, just because it's natural doesn't mean I can take more.
27:00 - Magnesium in the manufacture of certain medicines
This is interesting because magnesium is also used in the manufacture of certain medications. You just noted that milk of magnesia helps treat constipation, so it's a laxative. Magnesium hydroxide is also used in the manufacture of antacids, such as Maalox. Intravenous magnesium sulfate is also used clinically for heart rhythm disorders. It's interesting that magnesium is used as a medication, but is also a supplement.
I don't have the answer, unfortunately, to what is too much, but we try to respect the recommended intake which is between 300 and 400 mg per day.
28:45 - What about the absorption of magnesium through the skin?
I haven't looked at this, but it's possible...
29:00 - What type of magnesium is best absorbed?
What I saw in the studies was that their conclusion was that organic salts were better absorbed. I looked, but I didn't find any studies that compared different organic salts with each other.
31:30 - Supplements to take with or without food
If it's not listed in the dosage, it generally means there's no difference with or without food. Sometimes, it can cause discomfort. So, if it says to take it with food, it's to help reduce the impact of the supplement, whether it's on stomach acid or things like that. If it's not listed, it means you can take it without food or not. Sometimes, food can slow down the absorption of supplements and medications.
33:00 - Sleep and magnesium
I looked and there were no studies on magnesium individually, but magnesium is used in several formulas that are soothing.
Again, I explained how magnesium can help relax the central nervous system. Is that how it works? Again, clinical studies would need to be done. I haven't seen any on sleep alone.
34:40 - Stress and magnesium
I've seen that stress causes magnesium loss. This doesn't mean it helps counter stress directly, but indirectly by helping to reduce the excitability of neurons involved in the stress response. This is where the scientific explanation for the role of magnesium lies.
* This live transcript is intended to help you easily find the topics that interest you and the information you are looking for. Maison Jacynthe disclaims all liability. All information contained on this page is not intended to replace justified allopathic treatment or to override the expertise of the medical profession. It is up to each individual to take charge of their own health, to inform themselves, and to make the necessary changes to improve their condition. Therapeutic supervision by a qualified health professional is obviously suggested.
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