Why ignoring magnesium can ruin your health

There is a powerful mineral that keeps working in the background, minus much ado, doesn't get much press, and that's why not many know about it. I am talking about magnesium.

The more I read about it, the more I am fascinated. In fact, going by bona fide, proven research, it seems that almost no system, organ, or process in the body can function without enough magnesium.

It is omnipresent - found everywhere from bone, muscle to soft tissues, with a small bit circulating in the blood.

And the important fact is that, magnesium deficiency is the most common worldwide (after vitamin D), yet most of us are not even aware of importance.

Move over calcium, it's time to pay some attention to magnesium.

Why is it so important?

When you are stressed, guess which mineral is depleted from the body first? You guessed it! Magnesium! You need magnesium to cope with stress, allowing you to relax, and also to be able to fall asleep naturally.

It activates over 300 enzyme reactions in the body, which then go on and affect thousands of important processes happening in the body daily.

Magnesium is beneficial for the nervous system; nerves can't function without it.

It is the most important mineral for muscle relaxation and can reduce muscle cramps along with other aches and pains.

It is also needed for blood coagulation, energy production (fatigued), nutrient metabolism

And these are just a few of the uses of this mineral. Lack of magnesium can raise blood pressure and reduce insulin sensitivity too.

And what is really important to know in today's angst ridden times is that maintaining healthy magnesium levels provides protection against depression; it is important for the release and binding of adequate amounts of serotonin, the happy hormone in the brain.

And those who have asthma need to be particularly careful as magnesium helps relax the muscles of the bronchioles in the lungs.

Are you deficient?

It is actually difficult to find out if one is deficient in it, as blood tests aren't dependable. And that's why its deficiency often gets missed, leaving us saddled with a less efficient body - missing magnesium, yet not announcing it.

Another catch is that the symptoms of magnesium deficiency - muscle cramps, facial and eye tics, poor sleep, hyperactivity, and chronic pain - overlap with other deficiencies (vitamin B12 and D particularly).

Constipation, frequent headaches, restless legs syndrome and kidney stones are some other tell tale signs.

So, our best bet is prevention, and consciously ensuring that there is enough magnesium in our diets. We need about 400mg daily.

Best sources are: dark leafy greens, specially spinach (Popeye apparently knew this), most nuts, particularly almonds, walnuts, cashews and peanuts, seeds, specially pumpkin and sunflower seeds, fish (mackerel, salmon, halibut), beans, whole grains (refining removes most of the magnesium, so that bread you eat every morning has precious little of this precious mineral), avocados, yogurt, bananas, dried fruit, egg plant, and unsweetened cocoa.

So basically a day's "get enough magnesium" plan will look something like this: spinach 250gm (200mg) or fish - mackerel 250gm (200mg), 1tbsp, about 10gm pumpkin seeds (60mg), 2 cups yoghurt (100mg), ten almonds (30mg) and one banana (30mg).

Now that's doable, isn't it!

Be careful

While eating right foods is important, avoiding the wrong ones is equally important. Most dark coloured sodas contain phosphates, which bind with magnesium inside our digestive tract and make it unavailable to the body.

Antacids disrupt its absorption, and sugar causes the body to excrete magnesium through the kidneys, as do too much caffeine and alcohol.

Those who take diuretics, birth control pills, insulin, and frequent antibiotics need to be careful too, as their consumption leads to a lot of magnesium leeching from the body.

Chronic stress is a big villain too, as it can magnify magnesium deficiency, so learn to curb it. Also if you pop calcium pills arbitrarily, you need to know that calcium supplementation can lead to depletion of magnesium, so it makes sense to have magnesium too along with calcium.

Also read - Don't be horrible to peanuts, they're good for us