Top 5 Benefits of Magnesium

Benefit 1: Relieves Insomnia

Lacking time with the Sandman? Many of us don’t sleep well. In fact, nearly 50% of older adults have insomnia, with difficulty getting to sleep, early awakening, or not feeling refreshed when you wake because you didn’t sleep soundly. This is partly due to changes in your circadian rhythms, and lifestyle factors, but also from decreased nutrients. You may have heard that magnesium helps you sleep. In fact, it’s a key nutrient for sleep that must be eaten or taken in supplements and properly absorbed to get a good night’s shut-eye.

Magnesium prepares your body for sleep by relaxing your muscles. It also helps to “shut your mind off,” and calms your nerves by regulating two of your brain’s messengers called neurotransmitters that tend to keep you awake. Magnesium is also essential to maintain a healthy “biological clock” and sleep cycle. Getting enough of this mineral helps reduce and prevent sleep disorders.

Research from 2012 found out that magnesium supplements were very effective to improve sleep efficiency, sleep time, and reduce early morning awakening, especially in older adults.

Restless? Magnesium may also prevent restless leg syndrome that contributes to sleep loss in some people. Magnesium is thought to do this not only by relaxing muscles but by lowering inflammation and helping to make your main sleep-enhancing chemicals called melatonin and glutathione. Magnesium and melatonin supplements make good partners. A 2011 study showed that elderly patients with insomnia taking both magnesium and melatonin got to sleep easier, had better quality sleep, had longer sleep time, and were more alert the following morning.

Benefit 2: Protects Your Heart

If you’re an athlete, you know that magnesium is important for muscles. So what about the most important muscle in your body? Lower magnesium in your diet equates with higher risks of heart disease. That’s because magnesium fuels the heart, protects your heart’s pump, prevents heart attacks, and provides elasticity for heart and blood vessels.

Research from 2016 found that magnesium reduces calcium build up in your heart and arteries (called coronary artery calcification). This is a marker of atherosclerosis and a predictor of cardiovascular death. People with the highest magnesium had 42% lower odds of coronary artery calcification compared to those with the lowest serum magnesium. They also had 48% lower odds of hypertension, and 69% lower odds of myotonic dystrophy (muscle wasting disease that affects many muscles including the heart).

Comparing how small your heart is to the size of the rest of your body, for which it pumps blood throughout, you’ll appreciate how hard your heart must work every second of every day to keep you alive. To accomplish this, it requires huge amounts of energy. The energy that fuels your heart is called ATP: adenosine triphosphate. It is made from the food you eat (especially glucose from carbs). But you can’t make ATP without magnesium. Magnesium is needed for all three stages necessary to convert glucose into ATP. Once made, ATP must attach itself to a magnesium ion in order for it to be used by the body; magnesium is in every ATP molecule.

Benefit 3: Reduces High Blood Pressure

You might think that high blood pressure is caused by stress or lack of exercise or being overweight or too much salt. But these may just exacerbate the condition that is already lurking in your arteries, caused in part by a mineral deficiency.

Magnesium plays an important role in regulating your blood pressure. It relaxes “smooth muscle” cells, meaning those in your veins and arteries, so they don’t constrict the flow of blood. It also regulates other minerals vital to blood pressure; it maintains the delicate balance between sodium and potassium; it helps the body absorb calcium (and not be deposited in arteries). So magnesium has direct and indirect impacts on high blood pressure risks.

A 2013 study tested not just how much magnesium people ate in their diet, but how much was actually absorbed by their body to qualify whether it indeed reduces risks.  Researchers examined over 5,500 people aged 28 to 75 and found that “absorbed magnesium” was associated with a 21% lower risk of hypertension even after considering other aspects of their lifestyle and diet.

A 2017 clinical review involving 20,119 cases of hypertension (and 180,566 people) also found magnesium reduced risk of high blood pressure. Just taking 100 mg per day of a magnesium supplement was associated with a 5% reduction.

Benefit 4: Reduces Inflammation

Magnesium deficiency can cause chronic inflammation, a symptom of many medical conditions including arthritis, Crohn's disease, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and numerous autoimmune diseases. Sufficient magnesium intake may reduce markers of inflammation. Magnesium's anti-inflammatory properties may also help reduce the occurrence and intensity of flare-ups.

Benefit 5: Ease Anxiety and Depression

There is a well-known link between magnesium deficiency and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Since magnesium plays a major role in brain function and mood, people who do not have enough magnesium can experience mild anxiety or depression. During times of significant stress, the magnesium supply is used up more quickly by the body, leading to even more stress.

Keep in mind that magnesium may help improve anxiety and depression specifically linked to magnesium deficiency.

Are you getting enough of your body’s “Master commander”, magnesium?

You probably know that magnesium is an essential mineral for bones and muscles. But it’s also vital for your heart, brain and nervous system, for producing antioxidants to ward off diseases, and for proper functioning of hundreds of enzymes that rule and regulate the body.

Magnesium deficiency causes all kinds of havoc within your cells, and the wreckage worsens as you age. After bones, the highest concentrations of magnesium in the body are in your heart and brain, which is why a deficiency can even be deadly.

And yet, up to 75% of North Americans may be magnesium deficient. The US National Academy of Science’s Food & Nutrition Board simply states, “The average American 14 or older is magnesium-deficient.”

Why are so many people suffering from low magnesium levels?

There are a number of reasons why magnesium deficiency is a widespread problem today: soil degradation has drastically lowered the magnesium content in our food, processed foods contain little to no magnesium, the heavy consumption of phosphorous-containing soft drinks depletes magnesium, and common digestive issues hinder the absorption of minerals.

These reasons make it necessary for most people to supplement their diets with magnesium.

Which magnesium should I take?

How to get enough magnesium daily.