Magnesium: Running On Empty

Magnesium might be the most underrated nutrient in your body's health arsenal. This powerful mineral acts as the essential backstage crew for over 300 enzyme systems, silently orchestrating everything from stress response and sleep quality to immune function and heart health. Yet astonishingly, about 40% of Canadians are walking around with chronic magnesium deficiency without even knowing it.

Why does this matter? When your magnesium tank runs low, the effects ripple throughout your entire body. Muscle cramps, brain fog, poor concentration, disrupted sleep, migraines, and elevated blood pressure are just the beginning. The challenge is that standard blood tests often miss magnesium deficiency because most of your body's stores are in bones, muscles, and inside cells – not circulating in your bloodstream where tests measure.

The modern lifestyle creates the perfect storm for magnesium depletion. Poor diet choices, chronic stress, and even certain medications can drain your reserves faster than they're replenished. This creates a vicious cycle where low magnesium leads to poor sleep and higher stress, which further depletes magnesium levels, making symptoms progressively worse.

But there's good news! Boosting your magnesium intake doesn't require expensive supplements or complicated regimens. Nature provides abundant sources in foods like nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes, and dark leafy greens. These whole foods deliver magnesium alongside fiber, antioxidants, and other nutrients that work synergistically to support optimal health.

If dietary changes aren't enough due to high physical demands, chronic stress, or medical conditions, supplementation may help – but choose wisely. Opt for better-absorbed forms like magnesium glycinate, citrate, or malate rather than poorly absorbed forms like oxide. And always remember that more isn't better; the goal is adequacy, not excess.

Ready to give your body the magnesium respect it deserves? Listen now to discover practical strategies for assessing your magnesium status, incorporating magnesium-rich foods into your diet, and determining if supplementation makes sense for your unique situation. Your sleep, stress levels, and overall well-being might depend on it!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Section A

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hey everyone, welcome to Season 2 of the Dr Jules Plant-Based Podcast, where we discuss everything from plant-based nutrition to the main pillars of lifestyle medicine. Lifestyle Medicine Yo, plant-based buddies, welcome back to another episode. Today we're going to be talking about the mighty mineral that you're probably not getting enough of magnesium. So here's a wild statistic for you Almost half of Canadians are walking around every single day with a deficiency in one of the most important minerals in their body, and they probably don't even know about it. This isn't some rare traced element you only hear about in obscure health blogs. Magnesium is involved in over 300 chemical reactions in your body, and it impacts everything from your sleep to stress, to even heart health, but most people aren't even close to getting enough magnesium on a daily basis. So today we're going to talk about why it matters, what happens when you don't get enough, how to know if you might be low and how to fix it through food and lifestyle. Let's start with the basics. Magnesium is like your body's backstage crew you don't see it working, but without it, the whole show falls apart. It acts as a cofactor and that's basically a helper for over 300 enzyme systems. Now these enzymes are proteins that activate important compounds and hormones. So, for example, your vitamin D3 isn't fully active until it's been converted by enzymes that depend on magnesium. You don't have magnesium, you don't have activated vitamin D. Now, magnesium is involved in a whole bunch of other processes, including your stress response, your sleep quality, your immune function quality, your immune function, electrolyte balance specifically potassium and even blood vessel relaxation. But that's just the short list.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Magnesium does a lot more Well, the problem is that 40% of Canadians don't even get enough magnesium from their diet, and we're not talking about mild occasional dips. We're talking about chronic magnesium deficiency that can silently impact your health for years Now. Most of your body's magnesium is stored in bones and muscles and inside of your cells. That tiny amount left in your blood the part that we checked with blood tests is just a fraction of the total, and that means that a normal blood test can easily miss deficiencies in magnesium, unless that deficiency is severe or acute. So how do you know if you're low? Well, the most practical method in checking your magnesium levels is not a blood test. It's actually simply tracking your intake. The RDA, or Recommended Daily Allowance, is about 300 to 320 mg per day for women and 400 to 420 for men, athletes may need up to 20% more because magnesium is lost in sweat and chronic stress even psychological or physical stress can also drain magnesium stores faster.

Speaker 1: 4:00

So the vicious circle is poor diet, high stress, poor sleep, and all of these three factors are common and they can all lower magnesium levels. Now people simply get caught in this vicious cycle where they get poor diet leads to low magnesium, which leads to poor sleep, and higher stress hormones, which makes you lose more magnesium, and then you get even worse sleep and worse stress. Now, on top of that, some medications can actually increase magnesium loss in your urine. So meds like diuretics, blood pressure pills, some antibiotics and even long-term use of acid-reducing medications like PPIs. These are protein pump inhibitors, medications that drastically reduce your stomach acidity. Now they're useful for reducing GERD or reflux disease, for stomach ulcers, esophagitis, but they can also lead to lower absorption of magnesium, and I had patients that required urgent intravenous magnesium supplementation because of low levels caused by PPIs.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Magnesium deficiency can contribute to muscle cramps, people get brain fog, they have reduced cognitive functions. Concentration and attention are all negatively impacted. People have poor sleep quality, more migraines, higher blood pressure and it can also worsen many chronic diseases. But the key is that most of these improvements from magnesium supplementation happen only in people who are already deficient. If you eat a healthy diet and already have adequate magnesium, there's no strong evidence that taking more will give you more superpowers. Now I know online that there's a lot of influencers that are promoting replenishing magnesium through supplementation.

Speaker 1: 6:17

I don't necessarily disagree if you're deficient. Not everyone benefits from supplementation. We need to supplement responsibly. We need to respect supplements because they can lead to toxicity or to negative health outcomes when taken in excess and, like I said, there's no strong evidence that supplementing with magnesium is beneficial if you're already getting enough from your diet. But still, I get asked all the time should I take magnesium supplements Now? My answer would be get it from food first, if you can. You'll get magnesium plus. You'll get a whole package of other beneficial nutrients that would reduce your risk of heart disease, your risk of cancer and your risk of other chronic diseases.

Speaker 1: 7:10

Now, foods that are rich in magnesium would include nuts and seeds, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds being the best and whole grains are great sources like brown rice, oats or quinoa. You can find magnesium in legumes like beans, chickpeas and lentils, and in dark leafy greens, much like. There's an iron atom in the middle of the hemoglobin molecule. There's a magnesium atom in the middle of a chlorophyll molecule, and chlorophyll produces energy for plants, much in the same way as hemoglobin carries oxygen in humans. Now the beauty of food sources of magnesium is that they're safe, they're effective and they come with fiber, antioxidants and other minerals. And our bodies have built-in regulation mechanisms that help avoid excessive magnesium absorption or to increase magnesium absorption if our levels are low.

Speaker 1: 8:18

If your diet is lacking magnesium or if you have higher needs like heavy training, high stress, certain medical conditions or even medications that you're taking that increase magnesium losses, supplements could help, but you need to choose wisely. Inorganic forms like magnesium oxide or magnesium sulfate are less well absorbed and mostly are used as laxatives. Organic forms like magnesium glycinate, citrate or malate tend to be absorbed better and they cause fewer digestive issues. But please always check with your doctor or pharmacist before starting supplements, especially if you have kidney disease or take other medications that could impact electrolyte balance. Now I've already done a full podcast episodes on the risk of overdoing vitamins. You may remember Samantha, who was perimenopausal, was experiencing a whole ton of symptoms and her health coach recommended four different products to help with energy, immune function and sleep. But all of these supplements contained small amounts of vitamin B6. And before she knew it, she was taking 140 milligrams of vitamin B6 per day. All of these supplements were stacking up small doses of B6 that were now higher than the upper tolerable intake. She ended up with permanent nerve damage. So make sure that if you're taking supplements, talk to your doctor, and just to make sure that if you're taking supplements, talk to your doctor and just to make sure that you're not getting yourself in any trouble.

Speaker 1: 10:06

But personally, I don't take magnesium supplements, even though I work out. On most days I run somewhere between 50 to 100 kilometers, sometimes per week, because my diet provides more than enough. I make sure to track. I make sure to know if I've ingested magnesium-rich foods or not. That's because I eat plenty of whole plant-based foods every single day. Now, if you're eating mostly processed foods, your magnesium intake is probably low, and if you think you're eating healthy, that's when tracking your daily intake for a week or two may be eye opening. So I know magnesium might not be as trendy as collagen or as hyped as protein powder, but magnesium is fundamental to your body's health and if you want to sleep better, reduce your stress, have a healthier blood pressure, stronger bones. Start with including magnesium-rich foods in your diet, but always remember to make sure to track your intake. Eat real food that grows in the ground, from a plant or from a tree, and only supplement if you really need to. And if you are going to supplement, consider organic forms of supplements, because these get better absorbed, and make sure to choose high-quality forms. Your body runs on magnesium, so don't make it run on an empty tank.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Magnesium impacts so many biochemical reactions in your body that it's impossible to achieve optimal health if you're chronically deficient Right on. I hope this episode helps you pay magnesium the respect it deserves. If you're going to supplement, make sure to talk to your pharmacist or healthcare provider and supplement responsibly. I want you to respect supplements. I want you to respect supplements. Give them the credit they deserve. They can really improve health outcomes.

Speaker 1: 12:26

But it's important to understand that optimal supplementation means supplementing in a sweet spot. Too little and you're at risk for deficiency, but too much could put you at risk for toxicity and undesirable side effects. So, even if it's good for you, more is not always better and most often, when it comes to magnesium, less is more. You don't need ultra high doses, you just need enough Right on. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure to get your magnesium from foods first, and supplement only if needed. Talk to your health care provider or pharmacist about which sources may be the right ones for you, but at the end of the day, whether you get it from food or from supplements, make sure that you're consuming enough magnesium Right on. Thanks for tuning in. Have an amazing day. We'll catch you in the next episode, peace. Hey, everyone. Go check out my website plantbaseddoctorjulescom to find free downloadable resources and remember that you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Dr Jules Cormier, and on YouTube at Plant-Based Dr Jules.