Natural vitamins and minerals are crucial to your overall health, and each plays a very different role in the body’s ability to naturally maintain itself and to stay at optimal health.
Magnesium isn’t talked about much, and yet it may be one of the most important minerals in your body.
Magnesium can help prevent diabetes[1] and heart disease[2], can prevent fatigue, and can also help to elevate your mood.
It is the fourth most abundant mineral occurring within your body, and is crucial in many of the body’s natural processes and reactions.
Magnesium is critical for strong and healthy bones[3], teeth, and even plays a role in ensuring the good health of your nervous system and cardiovascular system[4]. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find an area of the body that is not affected by a magnesium deficiency.
So how do you know whether or not you have enough magnesium in your body? The simple fact of the matter is that you likely are magnesium deficient, even though you may not be aware of it. However, a severe deficiency can have an immediate – and sometimes dangerous – effect on the body.
And one of the biggest issues with a severe deficiency in magnesium is that it is often overlooked. Because only one percent of the magnesium in the body is stored in the blood – with more than half being stored in the bones – a deficiency in magnesium is unlikely to show up on a blood test.
That means that you need to look out for signs and symptoms that you may be suffering from a magnesium deficiency to determine whether or not you need to take steps to boost your body’s levels. Be on the lookout for the following:
- Fatigue and muscle weakness
- Muscle cramping
- Increased anxiety
- Other personality changes
- Loss of appetite
- Neurological symptoms
Several different things can cause magnesium deficiency in individuals. However, the largest cause of poor magnesium is simply a diet that is not rich in the foods needed to incorporate this mineral into the body. Because magnesium is a main component in chlorophyll, individuals who do not eat enough leafy greens are likely to have low levels of this mineral in their body.
Related: Top 6 Health Benefits of Magnesium
Another factor for lowered levels of magnesium is poor intestinal absorption of this mineral. In addition to maintaining one’s gastrointestinal health in order to properly absorb minerals such as magnesium, it is also important to choose foods that will allow for proper absorption. Quite simply, being high in magnesium is not enough – the foods must be one that breaks down simply and easily in the body.
And finally, magnesium deficiency can be caused when the body excretes minerals too quickly and in large amounts from the body. This can result from a number of problems, including excessive alcohol consumption[5], irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, and even through the natural process of sweating. (This is why it’s crucial for any individuals who exercise often to ensure they are eating enough leafy greens to supplement minerals they may have lost.)
While magnesium deficiency can be a complex thing to diagnose, it’s very simple to treat. In fact, the majority of individuals should go ahead and treat their bodies as if they have such a deficiency and increase the amounts of magnesium rich foods they eat.
sources:
- [1] https://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=412391
- [2] https://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/2248695
- [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3775240/
- [4] https://ncp.sagepub.com/content/23/2/142.short
- [5] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.1986.tb05150.x/abstract