Having a Flare....Would love your input

Post by **tex** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 10:48 am

Donna wrote:My concern with Drs Best Products is they do not say anything about being soy free, so I discontinued using them.

Gabes is right on target about the magnesium stearate. It used to be made from beef tallow, before mad cow disease came along. So after recordkeeping was imposed on the use of beef tallow, pharmaceutical manufacturers switched to "vegetable" sources, such as palm oil, cottonseed oil, or soy oil, and it became popular to add "vegetable sourced" after magnesium stearate on labels. These days, many manufacturers have dropped the "vegetable sourced" designation, because according to the "experts", soy oil is not considered to be an allergen, due to the claim that it supposedly does not contain any soy protein.

Consequently, just because a label does not list soy or "vegetable sourced" (or some other designation) on the label, does not mean that the magnesium stearate in it was not made from soy oil. Magnesium stearate is a very common ingredient in pharmaceuticals, because of it's flowability benefits.

For that matter, many other derivatives of soy may be included without being noted on the label because of the fact that soy oil (or soy lecithin) is not officially considered to have the allergenic properties that soy has. As Gabes pointed out, this is something that is almost impossible to pin down, because of ingredient sourcing variances.

Magnesium is commonly made from palm oil, but we have no way of knowing the source for sure, because of labeling conventions (and labeling loopholes).

Tex

Post by **tex** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:01 am

Rosie,

Thanks for doing the math and sharing your findings. I have a hunch your suspicions are correct, because some people have allergic reactions to magnesium oxide, and I seem to be one of them. I've had ongoing sporadic issues (usually during the wee hours of the morning) when my lower legs and ankles would itch like mad. I've been taking an Allegra (180 mg) about every 12 hours, but some nights, it doesn't seem to help. As best I can recall, this started early last summer, which was probably about the time that I started using Vitacost chelated magnesium.

I'll bet a GF cookie that the nights when the Allegra doesn't prevent the itching, coincide with the days when I took 2 tablets.

All this time, I've assumed that it was a histamine problem. Last night was one of the worst, after taking 2 Vitacost magnesium glycinate tablets each day, for 2 days in a row. Today, I switched to Doctors Best chelated magnesium. We'll see how it goes.

Your math really illuminates the problem. Thanks again.

Tex

Post by **Rosie** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:23 am

Woops, it was late last night and I must have put in a wrong number into the calculator. Magnesium oxide is 23% the weight of magnesium glycinate instead of the 14% I stated in the above post. So 400 mg of buffered magnesium glycinate might contain 92 mg of the good and expensive glycinate with the rest being the cheap and poorly absorbed oxide. So it still is pretty bad, just not as bad as I first calculated.......

Rosie

Post by **tex** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:52 am

Thanks, I appreciate the update. But I agree, for all practical purposes the indications are still the same. The product is probably predominately magnesium oxide, because they have a heck of a lot of leeway in the way they mix the 2 forms of magnesium according to the label on the product.

Thanks,
Tex

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 1:30 pm

This is why when I talk about magnesium dosage, I talk about ELEMENTAL magnesium.
Generally the actual elemental amount you get per tablet/capsule will be in small print on the back of the bottle.

The more expensive products have a higher elemental magnesium per tablet/capsule.
And generally have the better forms of magnesium.

Erica P-G · Post by **Erica P-G** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 1:52 pm

I was surfing around looking at Magnesium Threonate to see why it isn't mentioned much because it seems to be voted a good source for a NON laxative effect....I came across this conversation at this site and the quote below really hit home to a lot of conversation that is talked about on this site. It doesn't promote Mag Threonate, but just rather Magnesium in general...I will be taking the Mag Threonate pretty soon to see if I can tolerate it orally, as I have confirmed what I ordered is GF, SF and GMO Free.
Erica

https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php? ... 4.170;wap2

Oxajil:
Thought this may be interesting, it's about vitamin D3 and magnesium. By Carolyn Dean MD:

--- Quote ---Magnesium experts, Morley Robbins, Rick Mather and I are crafting an article on the problems with excess vitamin D. It will shatter a lot of myths about this substance including the fact that it's not even a vitamin but really a hormone.

To illustrate our point, here is what a member of the Magnesium Advocacy Group wrote about her experience with Vitamin D3 on Facebook.

"Due to having severe bone lose my doctor told me to take D3 but did not tell me to take magnesium. After being on the D3 at dosage of only 2000mg per day I started having cramps, heart palpitations, fatigue, insomnia, high blood pressure (I had always had low BP ) and many other problems. I thought it was the D3 so I stopped and started doing research to find that you never take D3 without mag. If your magnesium level is already low the D3 will use up more of your magnesium and cause all kinds of problems. All that summer I could not even get out in the sun to get natural vitamin D without getting heart palpitations and cramps in my legs. It has took me almost 2 yrs and I am still not 100%.

She continued. "I have come to believe that with low magnesium everything is off. Your vitamin D will be low because it needs magnesium and your cholesterol will be high if magnesium levels are low. Before taking magnesium my cholesterol was running a little high. Thyroid level was running low and my D was never checked but am sure it was low also but when my blood work was done again after taking magnesium for about 6 months my thyroid levels and cholesterol levels were both back in normal range plus my iron had gone up from 41 to 82 and my B12 had gone from 401 to 800. Fasting blood sugar went from 103 to 98. The only thing I was taking was maggie so I know that is what did it."

Bottom line? Magnesium is active in over 80% of the body's biological functions so many of the interrelationships and intricacies haven't even been studied yet. What do we suggest? Keep taking your magnesium and to balance your vitamin D, use natural sunlight, cod liver oil and butter oil for the necessary vitamin A and vitamin K that make vitamin D work properly. [...]

--- End quote ---

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 2:11 pm

Erica,
I have read the Carolyn dean book, and excerpts from it are in the sticky topic on magnesium....

Hence why I recommend magnesium supplementation to everyone as a priority.

Post by **tex** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 4:23 pm

Gabes-Apg wrote:This is why when I talk about magnesium dosage, I talk about ELEMENTAL magnesium.
Generally the actual elemental amount you get per tablet/capsule will be in small print on the back of the bottle.

The more expensive products have a higher elemental magnesium per tablet/capsule.
And generally have the better forms of magnesium.

That's another huge red flag for the Vitacost Chelated Magnesium. There's not a word about elemental magnesium anywhere on the label. It only says:

Magnesium . . . . . 400 mg .

And of course, it takes 2 tablets to get that claimed dosage.

The Doctor's Best Chelated Magnesium, by comparison, says:

Magnesium (elemental) . . . . . 200 mg .

Since they are advertised as 200 mg tablets, they obviously have 100 % elemental magnesium content, meaning that all of it is usable.

Tex

Shar76 · Post by **Shar76** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 4:46 pm

I spray the tops of my legs every time I go to the toilet. (Have small spray bottle by the loo)

Gabes, I think this may be one of the best bits of advice you've given me! I now have a bottle by the loo also and spray my legs each time I use the toilet. I also have a bottle at bedside, and one by my computer area where I work. It has helped Sooooo much with compliance! It has become a routine as you suggested it would, and that
is a very good thing.

Thank You!!

Shar in MS[/quote]

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 5:44 pm

Great news Shar!!, Chuffed that you embraced the idea so well...
Magnesium is such a fantastic 'bang for your buck' option for wellness, that is why I share this handy info... I want all of us to have optimised wellness...
As per Tex's other post, The research is coming out proving this....
Keep up the high dosage for 8 weeks and you will start to see the difference, energy and focus will increase, niggles and twinges will reduce ....

With my myriad of health issues, I have a fairly complex supplement regime. (0ver 25 different tabs/capsules/powders/lingual etc)
I have got little colour coded containers. On the weekend I pack the supps into dosage portions for the week ahead. (Some are with meals some are inbetween meals)
Each morning I mix Vit c powder, mag powder and iodine drops into a drink bottle and sip through the day at work.
Like doing my cook up on the weekend for the week ahead, if meals are sorted, supps etc are sorted, it is part of the daily routine, no stress, it all just flows... 20 mins prep on the weekend to have a good week!