Mention bone health and you think calcium; immunity, you think zinc. These dietary minerals get all the spotlight. But magnesium, which also fosters strong bones and healthy immune systems, has more far reaching affects on every cell in the human body — from the heart to the bones and nearly everything
in between — making it the most important mineral we’re not talking about, says Dr. Aileen Burford-Mason, an expert for Orthomolecular Health. ”Magnesium is likely the most important of all the dietary minerals, yet 90 per cent of North Americans fail to meet the recommended daily allowance,” she says. “The highly processed foods that many people live on are sadly lacking in the mineral.” Burford-Mason
is among a growing number of health experts in North America and abroad who insist that this single nutrient can play “a critical role” in a vast array of acute and chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease.

>MIGHTY MAGNESIUM

Magnesium is an important element in the body because it activates, or is involved in, many basic processes or functions. More than 300 enzyme functions depend on magnesium, including the enzyme that generates energy for every cell in the body. “That’s not just energy for moving around and feeling frisky,” elaborates Burford-Mason ”It’s energy for the brain to work, the heart to beat, cells to divide, insulin to

be produced by pancreatic cells. It is an absolute requirement for calcium to be incorporated into bone. It keeps muscles relaxed, including muscle cells in the heart and blood vessels and triggers dozens of health conditions if it is deficient.” Currently, scientific research implicates magnesium deficiency as a factor in increased blood pressure, anxiety, depression, asthma, insomnia, PMS, eye twitches, muscle cramps and
restless leg syndrome, arrhythmia and palpitations.

 >THE MISSING MINERAL

The problem with magnesium, Burford-Mason explains, is that it is rapidly depleted by stress, poor nutrition and lifestyle habits. Any type of stress will deplete magnesium: physical stress like exercise, exertion and hard labour; medical stress like blood pressure medication, diuretics, surgery, infection, radiation and trauma; as well as environmental stress from noise, pollution, heat/cold and allergies. A poor diet of excess fat, salt, alcohol and sulfuric acid in foods depletes magnesium. So does profuse sweating through exercise, saunas and menopause.

>GET MORE MAG

Like other nutrients, magnesium is best obtained from food, but to deal with stress and modern diet, you may benefit from supplements. Leafy greens “Each molecule of chlorophyll– the green in green plants — is
built around magnesium,” Burford-Mason says. The greener the leaf, as in Swiss chard, spinach and kelp, the higher the magnesium content. Nuts, legumes, seeds Almonds, cashews, soybeans, peanuts. Chocolate 70 per cent cocoa. Supplements 300 mg daily of magnesium glycinate or chelated magnesium. If you have kidney disease, see a doctor or health-care practitioner first.

– Charmaine Gooden

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