Most people don’t know that without this mineral in the proper amounts in the body, it could lead to neuromuscular, cardiac and/or nervous disorders. Like many of the vital minerals, this oe also is essential to life because it plays sch an important role in both plants and animals. So, the question comes to mind as to why and most, meaning an estimated 90% of the population is deficient in this mineral? And why are medical professionals not screaming from the roof tops about this essential mineral? As you have already summized, this mineral is magnesium. Magnesium is the 9th most abundant element in the earths crust, the 3rd most abundant element in the worlds oceans, and to not boast but is responsible for over 600 metabolic reactions in all organisms.  Welcome to the stage magnesium!

We take supplements with various forms of magnesium or a single supplement of a popular form of magnesium at some point in our lives. You may be asking, why do we really need to take a magnesium supplement at all? Well, magnesium is the element involved in photosynthesis is plants. Which is cool to know because the proteins that make up the green pigment in leaves, called chlorophyll are the exact same proteins that make up our red blood cells. The striking difference between green chlorophyll and red blood cells is the presence or absence of magnesium and iron. Plants have magnesium in its center, while we have iron in the center to help transport oxygen and carbon dioxide in and out of the body. Since plants, leafy green plants, have an abundance of magnesium, we could potentially get our magnesium from plants. But unfortunately we do not. Much of the produce that we consume do not have sufficient amounts of magnesium for our bodies to replenish the bodies magnesium stores appropriately. Not only that, a vast majority of the foods that we eat are highly processed. The processing portion of food manufacturing leaches vitamins and minerals during the making process.  If you notice, much of the packaged foods that we buy are enriched with various vitamins and minerals (i.e. vitamin D, riboflavin, folic acid) because the naturally occurring nutrients have been lost during processing.(1)  The introduction of processed foods even those marketed as healthy, such as vegan and vegetarian (widely considered “ultra” processed) have become the norm in the way we eat food. The widely consumption of processed foods is one way we are losing and not replenishing our magnesium stores in our body.  

There is much research that has a correlation between magnesium deficiency and chronic illnesses. There is a growing body of evidence that points to chronic low magnesium may be correlated to the cause of some metabolic disorders (2) such as overweight and obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, changes in lipid metabolism, and low-grade inflammation. On the other hand research has indicated that high Mg intake with diet and supplementation seems to prevent chronic metabolic complications. There seems to be some protection of Mg which may include limiting the adipose tissue accumulation, improving glucose and insulin metabolism, enhancing endothelium-dependent vasodilation, normalizing lipid profile, and attenuating inflammatory processes. (3,4,5)