Magnesium is a vital natural mineral that offers several health benefits, including making bones stronger and ensuring healthy teeth. It is also crucial for supporting muscle mass, nerve function and for boosting your metabolism. Magnesium also improves heart health by prevention clotting, enhancing fat metabolism, vessel dilation, and reducing the risk of hypertension.
Not consuming enough magnesium products can lead to some serious health implications. Magnesium deficiency, called Hypomagnesimia, has been associated with to higher blood pressure, and in rare cases, it can even lead to irregularity of heartbeat, thus, increasing the risk of a cardiac arrest.
What are the symptoms of low magnesium in your body?
Initial symptoms include:
- Fatigue
- Decreased appetite
- Constipation
- Vomiting
- Nausea
Severe symptoms include:
- Abnormal heart beat
- Seizures
- Muscle cramps
- Muscle spasticity
- Numbness
- Tingling
- Memory issues
- Depression and anxiety
What causes magnesium deficiency?
Since magnesium is found abundantly in your body, therefore, the typical cause of magnesium deficiency is due to reduced absorption of the mineral or increased flushing out of magnesium through the urine.
So, low intake of dietary magnesium continuously for long periods, excessive loss of magnesium through urine, or the other pre-existing chronic conditions can lead to severe deficiency of magnesium. Therefore, people with health conditions like diabetes, gastrointestinal (GI) diseases, chemotherapies, and alcohol dependence should take excessive care to ensure enough magnesium intake. Older adults, too, are at a higher risk of this mineral’s deficiency.
Moreover, a wide range of prescription medicines, including antibiotics, birth control pills, antacids, blood pressure medications, stomach acid neutralizers, and more deplete your magnesium levels in the body.
How can you prevent magnesium deficiency?
Severe Hypomagnesemia is usually treated with oral magnesium chloride supplements; however, a balanced diet with increased amount of dietary magnesium can do the work in mild magnesium deficiency cases.
To naturally maintain your required magnesium levels in the body, try incorporating the following magnesium-rich food in your daily diet.
- Dark green vegetables
- Spinach
- Avocado
- Banana
- Nuts like almonds, cashews, and peanuts
- Whole grain foods
- Whole wheat bread
- Dark chocolate
- Legumes like soybeans, black beans, chickpeas, peas, and lentils
- Seeds like pumpkin seeds, flaxseeds, and chia seeds
- Fish like Salmon
You can choose from magnesium supplements which are now easily available in the markets in various forms, like oils, oral tablets, flakes, and sprays. All offer similar therapeutic and health benefits, whether applied to the skin or taken orally.
Taking magnesium through the skin externally is called trans-dermal absorption, and is highly recommended. Taking magnesium through your skin’s pores absorbs the solution of magnesium flakes and water directly into the body. This leads to quick results as compared to taking magnesium orally.
It’s sad to say but a lot of people are turning to supplements because of the extremely high costs of prescription meds. So what most people are doing is cutting back on their prescriptions and using un proven products to self medicate. I don’t think we even have to mention how dangerous these practices are. Instead of cutting back on your prescription meds, consider joining a prescription advocacy program in order to get drugs for much cheaper than you can get them anywhere else. You can even get medication like symbicort at a discount by joining one of these programs.
Conclusion
Therefore, magnesium is an important mineral that should be consumed in enough quantity. So, start consuming magnesium rich food items to keep magnesium deficiency, and the health risks associated with it, at bay.
