How I Found My Minimum Maintenance Dose for Magnesium

[babsmith]

are the dosage amounts of magnesium based on lack of leg cramps or GI symptoms? i'm going to order magnesium and am uncertain as to where to start the dosage. i don't have any leg/foot cramps and sleep 8 hours. how would i know if i have a magnesium deficit? should i be tested or assume (with MC) that i do and supplement my current multivitamin and calcium amounts, which are negligible. tex said it is better to scatter it throughout the day vs taking 400 w/ breakfast. perhaps 200 a.m. and 200 p.m.? and then, what do i do about the increase to 500 if needed?

[Gabes-Apg]

Leg cramps are not the only symptom of magnesium issues.. it might be that you are only mildly deficient

Most definately is important to spread the dose of oral intake through the day, and maybe start half dose 100mg am and 100mg pm and see how you go.
another way that we can increase the daily intake is using oral and topical.

Each person has different needs magnesium wise. Ie some medications deplete magnesium, drinking coffee depletes magnesium, so the dose that each person needs can vary. based on the learnings of contributions here, for women, 350mg elemental magnesium per day is the minimum you would need.

hope this helps

[tex]

Bab,

It's not impossible that you might not be magnesium deficient, but some authorities claim that at least 80 % of the general population is magnesium deficient. IBDs deplete magnesium and alcohol also depletes magnesium. So do many medications, especially meds such as PPIs, antacids, H2 blockers, etc.

The serum magnesium tests that virtually all doctors order are pretty much worthless unless the patient is critically low on magnesium because the body stores about two-thirds of its magnesium supply in bones and most of the rest in cells. Only about 1 % is in blood serum and that is carefully regulated by the body to keep it in the normal range because magnesium is a critical elelctrolyte. So a serum magnesium test will virtually always show a "normal" result unless there are virtually no magnesium reserves left in muscle and organ cells. A much better test is the Red Blood Cell (RBC) test, but most doctors never order it because they don't understand magnesium and how the body uses it.

But here's another reason to take a magnesium supplement. This is from pages 5–6 of the book Pancreatic Cancer.

Hypomagnesemia is the medical term used to describe magnesium deficiency. In 2015, a very interesting study based on data collected between the years of 2000–2008, and focused on the use of magnesium supplements, was published by Dibaba, Xun, Yokota, White, and He.5 The research project involved 66,806 men and women aged 50–76 years at the beginning of the study. The subjects in the study were ranked according to the percentage of magnesium supplement taken relative to the recommended daily allowance (RDA).

According to the official guidelines published by the U. S. government-affiliated National Institutes of Health, the RDA for men in this age range is 420 mg and the RDA for women in this age range is 320 mg (Magnesium Fact Sheet for Health Professionals, 2016, February 11).6 Bear in mind that the RDA amounts are intended to include the total amount of magnesium available from all sources, and for many people that amount might be limited to the magnesium content of food in their diet, while for others it might include both food and magnesium supplements. But this particular study ignored the magnesium content of food in the subjects' diet. It focused only on magnesium supplements.

With that in mind, the results published by Dibaba, Xun, Yokota, White, and He (2015) showed that compared with those who took the full RDA, those who took from 75–99 % of the RDA had a 42 % increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Those who took less than 75 % of the RDA showed a 76 % increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer. These results represent a very strong correlation.

Based on that study, taking a full RDA of magnesium supplement cuts the risk of pancreatic cancer in half.
According to the study results, every 100 mg per day decrease in magnesium supplement intake (below the RDA) was associated with a 24 % increase in the incidence of pancreatic cancer. Doing the math, that implies that women who took no magnesium supplement had approximately a 77 % increased risk, and men who took no magnesium supplement had slightly more than a 100 % increased risk. Together, on the average, that translates into roughly twice the risk of those who took a full RDA of magnesium supplement. Remember that this isn't just a projected rate — it's the actual increased rate at which pancreatic cancer developed among the group of people in this study.

So these research data suggest that anyone not currently taking a magnesium supplement can cut their risk of developing pancreatic cancer approximately in half simply by taking a magnesium supplement that meets the RDA guidelines.

Here are references 5 and 6 from that quote:

5. Dibaba, D., Xun, P., Yokota, K., White, E., & He, K. (2015). Magnesium intake and incidence of pancreatic cancer: The VITamins and Lifestyle study. British Journal of Cancer, 113(11), 1612–1621. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26554653

6. Magnesium Fact Sheet for Health Professionals. (2016, February 11). National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements [Web log message]. Retrieved from https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magne ... fessional/

As Gabes mentioned, you might not need as much as some of us, but taking the RDA is good insurance. Research shows that many (possibly most) RDAs in general are understated (this is especially true for vitamin D). The listed RDAs will meet bare minimum requirements for survival, but they are inadequate for disease prevention for most people out in the real world.

I take 300 mg after breakfast because my supply becomes depleted overnight (there are many hours between my last meal of the day and breakfast).

Tex

[tex]

In case anyone is wondering why magnesium has such a strong connection with pancreatic cancer, this is explained on pages 25–26 of the book.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, magnesium deficiency plays an important role in the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Researchers have shown that both hypertension and type 2 diabetes involve low intracellular magnesium levels (Takaya, Higashino, & Kobayashi, 2004).26 In the research article cited, Takaya, Higashino, and Kobayashi (2004) concluded that because magnesium is necessary for the proper utilization of glucose, and it's also used for insulin signaling, an intracellular magnesium deficiency may alter glucose availability and contribute to the development of insulin resistance.

Magnesium and insulin are co-dependent.
One cannot function properly without the other. And this is a 2-way street in many regards. Not only does a magnesium deficiency cause insulin resistance in the cells of the body, and reduced insulin production by the pancreas, but there is a reciprocal effect. Insulin is responsible for the transport of nutrients to locations where they can either be immediately utilized or stored for future use. When the availability and effectiveness of insulin is compromised, extra magnesium in the blood cannot be properly stored, so most of it may be wasted, instead (Sircus, 2009).27

This can dramatically increase the odds that diabetes patients may develop a magnesium deficiency. And of course as the magnesium deficiency becomes worse, insulin resistance may increase and insulin production by the pancreas may decline even further.

But even stronger evidence of the association between magnesium deficiency and diabetes has been found by researchers. Research published by Hruby et al. (2014) found that higher magnesium intake reduces the risk of insulin resistance and the risk of progression from a prediabetic condition to diabetes.28 In that study, people who had the highest magnesium intake had only about half the risk (53 %) of metabolic interference or diabetes development compared with those who had the lowest magnesium intake. This information is especially important for those who have been told by their physicians that their blood test results indicate that they are at a stage known as prediabetes.

Here are references 26, 27, and 28:

26. Takaya, J., Higashino, H., & Kobayashi, Y. (2004). Intracellular magnesium and insulin resistance. Magnesium Research, 17(2), 126-136. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15319146

27. Sircus, M. (2009, December 8). The Insulin Magnesium Story [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://drsircus.com/medicine/magnesium/ ... um-story-2

28. Hruby, A., Meigs, J. B., O’Donnell, C. J., Jacques, P. F., & McKeown, N. M. (2014). Higher Magnesium Intake Reduces Risk of Impaired Glucose and Insulin Metabolism and Progression From Prediabetes to Diabetes in Middle-Aged Americans. Diabetes Care, 37(2), 419-427. Retrieved from http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/37/2/419

Tex

[babsmith]

Thank you, both...I ordered 400 mg tablets and will split it am and pm. My honey is going to take it as well - the reduction of pancreatic risk is a valid reason regardless of the MC symptoms or cramps (which he does get at times).

Barbara