A diet rich in minerals is essential for a variety of bodily functions, including building strong bones and teeth, blood, skin, and hair, promoting proper nerve function, and aiding metabolic processes, like turning the food we eat into energy.
If you’re eating a well-balanced diet full of whole foods, you’re likely getting the minerals you need for optimum health. Foods rich in magnesium specifically include whole grains, nuts, and green leafy vegetables.
Though it’s the fourth most abundant mineral in the body, it’s estimated that 50 to 80 percent of Americans are deficient in magnesium. This important mineral plays an essential role in your body’s biochemical processes — from proper formation of bones and teeth, relaxation of blood vessels, and muscle and nerve function (including the heart), to the regulation of blood sugar and insulin sensitivity and the creation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy currency of your body, we need magnesium to thrive.
A deficiency in cellular magnesium can result in the deterioration of your cellular metabolic and mitochondrial function. This can pave the way for more severe health problems. Scientific evidence has even exposed how magnesium is essential for heart health.
Magnesium And The Heart
One of the biggest functions of magnesium is as an electrolyte, which is necessary for all electrical activity in your body. Not having electrolytes like magnesium hinders electrical signals from being sent or received, which keeps your heart from pumping blood.
Your heart simply can’t work properly without enough magnesium. And potential effects of such a deficiency can lead to high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, cardiovascular disease, and sudden cardiac death.
Magnesium And Cardiovascular Disease
Nearly 610,000 people die of heart disease annually in the U.S., making it the leading cause of death for both men and women. But magnesium can lower this risk significantly.
A systematic review and meta-analysis published in 2013 concluded that “circulating and dietary magnesium are inversely associated with CVD risk.” In other words, the lower your magnesium intake, the higher your risk for CVD.
The Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education foundation, has also found that magnesium can replace most common cardiac medications:
[M]agnesium shines brightest in cardiovascular health. It alone can fulfill the role of many common cardiac medications: magnesium inhibits blood clots (like aspirin), thins the blood (like Coumadin), blocks calcium uptake (like calcium channel-blocking durgs such as Procardia) and relaxes blood vessels (like ACE inhibitors such as Vasotec).
Magnesium And Blood Pressure Control
Uncontrolled high blood pressure (HBP) has the potential to injure or even kill you. Often referred to as “the silent killer” because it has no symptoms, HBP can damage your arteries, heart, and other organs without you even knowing it.
But recent research has found a link between magnesium and blood pressure management. By relaxing and dilating your blood vessels, magnesium allows for a reduction in blood pressure.
Data from 34 clinical trials involving more than 2,000 participants used dosages of magnesium supplements ranging from 240 mg/d to 960 mg/d, and discovered that higher magnesium intake was associated with “healthy reductions” in blood pressure.
Lead author Dr. Yiqing Song said,”Such suggestive evidence indicates that maintenance of optimal magnesium status in the human body may help prevent or treat hypertension.”
How To Optimize Your Magnesium Intake
The recommended daily intake of magnesium differs depending on age and sex, but for men it is 400-420 mg, and for women it is 310-320 mg. It is thought that these amounts can be achieved through diet alone.
Suzanne Steinbaum, a New York City cardiologist, explained why you do not necessarily need to take a supplement: “As clinicians, we need to stress the importance of a well-balanced meal, not only for all the cholesterol lowering and sugar-modulating benefits, but for ensuring an adequate amount of magnesium in the blood,” adding that”checking magnesium levels as part of a screening for heart health may become an essential part of prevention and for treatment of blood pressure.”
Eating or juicing plenty of dark green leafy vegetables is also beneficial. Among the greens highest in magnesium are: spinach, Swiss chard
turnip greens, beet greens, collard greens, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, bok choy, and romaine lettuce.
And other foods rich in magnesium include: Raw cacao nibs and/or unsweetened, unprocessed cacao powder, avocado, seeds and nuts, fatty fish, squash, herbs and spices like coriander, chives, cumin seed, parsley, mustard seeds, fennel, basil and cloves, and fruits and berries.
via Collective - Evolution