Why Magnesium?

“Both our current diet and tendency to over-supplement with calcium…makes getting enough magnesium almost impossible.” Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. Author of The Magnesium Miracle Magnesium is the hardest-working mineral in your body and it does more than you know! Very few people, unless they are scientists or biologists, give a moment’s thought to what goes on at the cellular level in our bodies. We have trillions and trillions of cells in our bodies, each one less than a nanogram, each one performing enzymatic reactions, energy transfers every millisecond. It is this nutrient dance in and around our cells that is vulnerable to everything we eat and do. Magnesium is a catalytic mineral that activates over 320 biochemical or enzymatic reactions in the body. These reactions are defined as the process that exerts energy or accomplishes an effect. There are only 7 macro-minerals in the body, and magnesium is ranked 4^th in terms of abundance. Magnesium’s multi-tasking properties is linked to the way it partners with other nutrients. It’s like the team-work mineral – aligning itself with other nutrients to help them complete their functions. Why is Magnesium Important to Our Body? Every muscle and nerve in your body relies on magnesium to maintain normal function. This includes the biggest muscle of them all – your heart – and magnesium also has a direct connection to the electrical system of your heart, keeping heart rythym steady. Magnesium supports a healthy immune system, some of it through it’s work with Omega 3’s, and it has a crucial, yet rather unknown role of maintaining strong bones and teeth. Magnesium is the mineral that activates the Vitamin D that assimilates the calcium into your bones to help keep them strong. It also regulates blood sugar levels, promotes normal blood pressure, and is known to be involved in energy metabolism and protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is an enormously complicated process that utilizes DNA, RNA, amino acids and ATP(energy) to form proteins, hundreds of proteins a second in a cell that is functioning well. Why is Magnesium Important for Health? Magnesium’s multi-tasking properties are so diverse; that it’s deficiency in the body is thought to be a key contributor to the diseases described as Metabolic Syndrome. Metabolic –defined as the chemical processes of an organism – and so named because the diseases of Metabolic Syndrome - specifically Heart Disease and Diabetes, show similar deficiencies at the cellular level. Other activities among the estimated 325 enzymatic processes attributed to magnesium include temperature regulation, activating Vitamin D, the vitamin B group, Omega 3, melatonin, serotonin and many, many more nutrients. Why is Magnesium Important for Cells? Magnesium lives in the centre of the cell, and with adequate levels, keeps calcium on the outside of the cell where it belongs – until the body calls for energy and then calcium floods the cell. Too much calcium and not enough magnesium create an unhealthy balance, allowing calcium to seep into the cell. Calcium in the centre of the cell is like putting the body in a perpetual state of excitement. There is ample evidence that tension-based conditions such as migraine, restless legs, muscle cramps, PMS and even day-to-day stress can be attributed to the troubling imbalance of too little magnesium and too much calcium.