WHAT ARE MINERALS? WHAT DO THEY DO?
Minerals are inorganic elements—the nonliving matter of which our earth is composed. This means that minerals cannot be produced or synthesized in the body the way that certain vitamins can. Instead, they must be obtained through the foods we eat, or through the water we drink.
The average body is composed of approximately 60 percent water, 17 percent protein, 15 percent fat, and 3 percent nitrogen. Minerals comprise the remaining 4 to 5 percent of adult body weight, primarily concentrated in the bones, but also found in varying quantities in the body’s cells, tissues, and fluids.
Minerals within the body are classified according to their weight. Minerals that make up at least 0.01 percent of total body weight are known as macrominerals, while those that account for less than that percentage are known as trace minerals or elements. Your body needs at least 100 milligrams of each macromineral every day—much more in the case of magnesium—while trace minerals are required in much smaller amounts.
Besides magnesium, macrominerals include calcium, chloride, phosphorus, potassium, silicon, sodium, and sulfur. There are ten trace minerals that are officially recognized as being necessary for optimal health. They are chromium, cobalt, copper, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, vanadium, and zinc.
Minerals play many vital roles in your body, working in combination with vitamins, hormones, enzymes, and various other nutrient cofactors to regulate thousands of biological functions. Among other important processes, minerals support immune function, metabolism, blood sugar regulation, regulation of fluids, muscle contraction and relaxation, mental and cognitive function, DNA and RNA replication and repair, and cellular detoxification. Minerals are also essential for healthy cell function, helping to generate new cells to replace old ones and regulating cell permeability—that is, the capacity of a cell to receive oxygen and nutrients through the cell membrane and eliminate cellular waste. Without an adequate supply of minerals, your body could not properly produce blood, transform energy, transmit nerve impulses, maintain the integrity of its musculoskeletal system, or regulate and maintain healthy acid-alkaline balance (pH) in the blood, cells, and tissues.
Your body cannot produce minerals on its own. Therefore, it is crucial that you obtain an optimal supply of essential minerals each and every day. While in years past, this may have been achieved simply by following a healthy diet containing an abundant supply of mineral-rich foods and water, as you’ll see in this chapter, food sources are no longer sufficient to provide you with all of the necessary nutrients that your body needs each day.
THE MOST IMPORTANT YET OVERLOOKED MINERAL
Now that you have a better general understanding of how important minerals are, it’s time you were introduced to the most ignored yet vital mineral for your health—magnesium! Let’s begin with a few facts about this amazingly versatile, powerful nutrient.
•Magnesium is named after the ancient Greek city of Magnesia, which was famed for its fertile cropland. It was later discovered that the cropland contained large deposits of magnesium carbonate, which were responsible for the highly regarded produce it yielded year after year.
•Magnesium is sometimes referred to as the “iron of the plant world,” for just as iron is the primary element of the central molecule of hemoglobin, an important component of human blood, magnesium is a primary element of the central atom that makes up chlorophyll, the “blood” of plants. The only chemical difference between heme (the central molecule of hemoglobin) and chlorophyll is this primary element; the two substances are otherwise the same. This similarity is telling: Just as magnesium enables plants to convert solar energy into plant energy, so, too, does magnesium allow humans to convert plant and animal energy into human energy.
•Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the human body. Half of your body’s magnesium is found in your bones, and a little less than half exists inside the cells of soft tissues like your muscles, endocrine glands, and organs, with about 1 percent of magnesium traveling freely in the bloodstream.
•Most recently, a breakthrough study reported that magnesium binding sites have been detected on 3,751 human proteins that are essential for building, repairing, and maintaining your body’s cells. Binding sites are basically molecular loading docks: areas of a protein or enzyme onto which specific molecules—in this case magnesium—can attach in order to form new compounds. Without these additional molecules, the original proteins cannot be recognized and used by the body; only when magnesium binds to them can they perform the important task of regulating your body’s cells. The fact that magnesium has so many binding sites indicates that magnesium’s role in maintaining health and preventing disease is far greater than previously thought.
Simply put: Without magnesium, life as we know it would not exist. Yet despite magnesium’s importance, over 80 percent of all Americans unknowingly suffer from chronic magnesium deficiency. And that may be a conservative estimate, since the accepted reference ranges for “normal” magnesium status have shifted over the years to reflect the already low values in the American population. As you’ll see in Chapter 6, “normal” does not necessarily mean “optimal,” at least where magnesium levels are concerned.
Furthermore, medical awareness of the significance of magnesium—and magnesium deficiency—continues to be low. Medical tests are only occasionally ordered to measure patients’ magnesium levels. Even when they are requested, the less accurate serum magnesium test is used more frequently than the magnesium red blood cell (RBC-Mg) test. For the most part, this lack of attention is due to the relatively poor education doctors receive in nutrition, which is not considered a major focus of medical training. This is a shame. As this book will hopefully convince you through detailed scientific evidence, the many advantages conferred by magnesium merit consideration and incorporation into mainstream medical practice.
MAGNESIUM’S MANY ROLES IN YOUR BODY
Think of magnesium as the conductor of your body’s biological symphony—a central figure that orchestrates the proper functioning of approximately 80 percent of the body’s metabolic processes, that is, its life-sustaining actions. It does this by binding to and activating the enzymes and compounds that are responsible for more than a thousand of the chemical reactions that occur at your body’s cellular level. Because magnesium is required in order to activate these enzymes and compounds, it is known as a cofactor; without it, your body could not carry out these vital chemical processes that allow us to function on a daily basis.
In particular, magnesium is a cofactor for a substance known as adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which plays a vital role in energy metabolism—the processes by which the body breaks down proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, converting them into energy. ATP is the energy currency of the cell, the primary product made by your cell’s energy factories, or mitochondria (see Chapter 4 for more information). Unless magnesium is present to activate ATP, your body simply cannot meet all of its energy needs. Simply put, ATP is essential for life, and magnesium is what brings ATP to life.
It is also a cofactor for the family of enzymes that assist in the replication and repair of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), the genetic information that tells each of your cells, tissues, and organs what they are and what they should do. Research indicates that magnesium also plays a role in stabilizing DNA and RNA.
Magnesium is required as a cofactor for vitamin C, activating one of the body’s most important antioxidant nutrients for the support of the immune system. Magnesium is also a cofactor for many other nutrients, including zinc, potassium, B vitamins, copper, calcium, and vitamin D. Without magnesium, it would be difficult to absorb and use these necessary substances.
In addition, studies show that magnesium is a cofactor for certain types of hormones, and is thus integral to the regulation and maintenance of the endocrine system. In particular, magnesium activates the family of enzymes that convert cholesterol into the sex and stress
hormones that are vital for our everyday life.
Magnesium has many other functions outside its capacity as a cofactor. As you’ll see in Chapter 4, it plays a vital role in protecting against heart disease, including heart attacks, stroke, hypertension (high blood pressure), and arrhythmias. Magnesium does this not only by ensuring proper levels of energy (ATP), but also by activating a spectrum of cardiac enzymes that help dilate blood vessels, making it easier for the heart to pump blood and more effectively transmit nutrients and oxygen to the body’s cells, tissues and organs. It also helps prevent the formation of abnormal blood clots and calcium deposits in arteries and other blood vessels.
Magnesium Gives Us Energy!
In order to function properly, each one of your body’s 100 trillion cells produces and consumes a substance called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP is the essential energy currency of your cells—it fuels every function that they carry out, from transmitting nerve impulses to making your muscles contract. What many people don’t know is that in order for ATP to be used by the cells, it must first be joined to its primary cofactor, magnesium. Free magnesium ions bind to an ATP molecule, forming a new compound called Mg-ATP. By changing the shape and electrical charge of the original ATP, and allowing it to be more easily attracted by and dissolved into water, magnesium essentially “activates” ATP, allowing the energy inside the compound to be accessed and used by your cells. In other words, magnesium brings ATP to life! Without it, your cells simply would not be able to get the energy they need to carry out the processes that sustain us.
It’s important to understand that when scientists discuss ATP as an essential energy currency, they are almost always referring to the activated, magnesium-bound compound Mg-ATP. As a matter of convenience, the Mg- prefix has simply been dropped—a decision that serves to hide the role of magnesium as the most important component of the ATP compound. Although the abbreviated notation of ATP is used more commonly than Mg-ATP in most medical and scientific texts, this book uses Mg-ATP when appropriate, in order to highlight just how important magnesium is to your body’s energy.
A comprehensive review published in 2012 by the American Journal for Clinical Nutrition brings home the importance of magnesium to heart health. The review examined previous studies involving more than 241,000 participants and found that they consistently showed an inverse relationship between magnesium intake and stroke. In other words, the less magnesium you take in, the greater your risk for stroke.
Additional research has also shown that patients with low magnesium levels have a higher risk of dying of heart disease compared with patients with higher magnesium levels. For example, researchers in Finland report that low magnesium levels suggest a greater likelihood of having a heart attack, as well as a higher rate of overall mortality.
Magnesium is also a calcium channel blocker, meaning that it prevents excess or unregulated calcium from entering the cells of the heart and blood vessel walls. Today, synthetic calcium channel blocking drugs are typically prescribed to lower high blood pressure, migraines, angina, and arrhythmia, effectively mimicking the natural job of magnesium. Magnesium can sometimes act as a natural alternative to these drugs, allowing you to improve your heart conditions without the unpleasant side effects that many of these drugs produce.
Here are some other important functions of magnesium:
•Magnesium is an essential nutrient for the proper functioning and relaxation of the body’s muscles. As noted by Dr. Mildred S. Seelig, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject, magnesium is “the mineral of motion,” meaning that without it your muscles simply could not operate. Magnesium also prevents muscle cramps and spasms, and protects muscles from being injured as the result of calcium buildup.
•Magnesium also plays a key role in maintaining the structure, integrity, and proper functioning of the cell. Magnesium acts as a gatekeeper for the cell by modulating the permeability of the cell membrane, allowing ions and nutrients to enter and cellular waste products to exit. Because of its role in regulating ion exchange in nerve cells, magnesium also helps optimize nerve impulse transmission. Magnesium also helps regulate the cells’ chemical reactions.
•Magnesium aids in detoxification, protecting your cells from accumulating environmental toxins, including heavy metals such as lead, aluminum, and mercury. Magnesium also acts as a cofactor in the synthesis of glutathione, a powerful antioxidant that protects against free radical damage and toxicity.
•Recent studies have shown that magnesium is an important ingredient for the production and activation of white blood cells, which are vital to carrying out your body’s immune response.
•Magnesium is also essential for healthy bones and teeth. Because of its capacity as a calcium blocker, magnesium prevents unhealthy calcium buildup (calcification), particularly inside the kidneys, where it helps to prevent the formation of kidney stones made from calcium oxalate.
•Magnesium regulates blood sugar levels, helping to prevent both low and high blood sugar. Magnesium is involved in insulin production and uptake; low levels of magnesium may therefore contribute to insulin resistance, a prediabetic condition in which the body makes insulin but is unable to process it. Studies show that adults with type 2 diabetes frequently show lower-than-normal levels of magnesium on blood tests.
The list above details just a few of the reasons why magnesium is so important for maintaining optimal health in an increasingly toxic world. Unfortunately, proper magnesium intake is not always easy to accomplish. That’s because magnesium, despite its great importance to your body’s health and functioning, is no longer as abundant in our diet as it once was. Moreover, the magnesium that is stored in your body can very easily be drained away. This inability to obtain and retain this vital nutrient explains why so many people today are magnesium deficient. Let’s take a closer look at how this problem has come to exist.
MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY AND STRESS
More than eight out of ten Americans are deficient in magnesium. The following section will discuss some of the reasons for this deficiency. By understanding the factors that contribute to magnesium deficiency, you can take steps to minimize their impact on your health.
The single most important factor underlying magnesium deficiency is stress. Stress depletes your body of magnesium; subsequently, magnesium deficiency causes cellular energy loss, which in turn causes disease. By this daisy chain of effects, stress essentially causes disease. This is a matter of great concern, considering the prevalence of chronic stress in society today. In order to understand its effects on magnesium status and general health, let’s take a closer look at the stress response.
All of us experience stress to some degree or another on a daily basis. When we do, our bodies release stress hormones, including epinephrine (adrenaline), cortisol, and aldosterone, in order to manage the tough situations we find ourselves in. The release of stress hormones is part of a basic survival mechanism that allowed our ancient ancestors to react quickly in order to protect themselves from a perceived threat. Confronted with danger (such as the approach of a sabre-toothed tiger), these hormones furnished our ancestors with a temporary burst of energy and enhanced cardiac and musculoskeletal performance, so that they could either combat the threat or escape it. Accordingly, this biochemical reaction is known as the “fight-or-flight” response. Once the danger passed, the hormones dissipated and life went on as before.
The “fight-or-flight” response is thus a built-in part of our bodies’ evolutionary design, triggered not just by acute or short-term episodes of perceived danger, but by any situation we interpret as stressful. Today, most sources of stress are chronic, or long-term—attributed less to physical threats and more to unresolved social, emotional, or psychological issues. Whether you are angry, depressed, or being chased down the street by a robber, however, your body’s chemical and physiological response remains the same.
Chronic stress results in a continuous release of stress hormones. The
se stress hormones sap your body of the nutrients it needs—most importantly, magnesium. This is because magnesium effectively buffers your stress hormones, controlling and limiting their damage. As a result, every time stress hormones are released, they draw upon and deplete your magnesium stores, thereby making it impossible for your body to carry out the thousands of vital tasks in which this important mineral plays a role.
Although chronic stress often comes in the form of social or psychological strain, stress can also develop from a variety of different sources that we might not consciously recognize. Environment and other external or chemical stimuli can act as stressors, placing your body under assault and depriving it of the nutrients it needs—including magnesium. The following is a review of some of the daily stressors that contribute to the habitual loss of magnesium. Awareness of these stressors can enable you to make better choices to avoid, or at least mitigate, their effects.
Our Devitalized Food Supply
Compared with food that was grown fifty years ago, food today—even food that is grown organically—contains greatly reduced levels of vital nutrients, particularly the minerals that your body needs. Due to commercial farming methods, farmland all across our nation has become devitalized. Modern-day farming methods have severely depleted our soil’s mineral content in a variety of ways: by abandoning the centuries-old practices of spreading rock dust, forgoing the rotation of crops from season to season, and dumping tons of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and other substances into the soil to boost production. What’s more, by the time fruits and vegetables reach the marketplace, they are usually laced with preservatives and other synthetic additives. This means that while today’s fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds may look appetizing, they lack the nutrients they once had, and instead carry with them many toxins that can actually harm you.
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