29th January 2018
Magnesium
Someone very wise once said. ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?’ Actually, it was John Maynard Keynes (yes, I looked it up).
In my last blog I wrote about Magnesium, thus:
‘As for magnesium. Magnesium deficiency is increasingly recognised as a major health issue and can greatly increase the risk of sudden cardiac death. I now routinely test patients for magnesium levels, as does the rest of the health service, which has belatedly woken up to the importance of this chemical. Magnesium deficiency can also trigger atrial fibrillation (AF) which, in turn, vastly increases the risk of stroke.
But I feel I am running away with myself a bit. I need to stop and take stock. The last thing I want people to do, is to worry too much about the levels of this and that in the blood. I do not want you rushing to the doctor, or private lab, to have everything repeatedly checked.
Magnesium level deficiency for example. This is almost unknown if you do not take an acid lowering drug such as omeprazole, or lansoprazole (both proton pump inhibitors (PPIs)). Unless you are taking one of these, of any other ‘zoles,’ long term, you are extremely unlikely to be magnesium deficient.’
Well, as it turns out I was wrong. Who me? Someone sent me links to a paper published in the BMJ Open, published this very day, 29th Jan 2018. As it turns out magnesium deficiency is far more common that I thought. The paper is entitled: ‘Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of cardiovascular disease and a public health crisis.’
‘Subclinical magnesium deficiency is a common and under-recognised problem throughout the world. Importantly, subclinical magnesium deficiency does not manifest as clinically apparent symptoms and thus is not easily recognised by the clinician. Despite this fact, subclinical magnesium deficiency likely leads to hypertension, arrhythmias, arterial calcifications, atherosclerosis, heart failure and an increased risk for thrombosis. This suggests that subclinical magnesium deficiency is a principal, yet under-recognised, driver of cardiovascular disease. A greater public health effort is needed to inform both the patient and clinician about the prevalence, harms and diagnosis of subclinical magnesium deficiency.’
The paper can be read in full, here. http://openheart.bmj.com/content/openhrt/5/1/e000668.full.pdf
So, when I said I don’t want people to rush about getting the levels of this and that checked, with regard to magnesium I was wrong. I do want people to rush about getting the levels of magnesium checked. [Although I suspect you will not get very far with your local GP].
What is the normal magnesium level?
- Normal’ serum magnesium levels 0.75–0.95mmol
- A serum magnesium <0.82mmol/L with a 24-hour urinary magnesium excretion of 40–80mg/ day is highly suggestive of magnesium deficiency.
- Serum magnesium levels above 0.95mmol/L may indicate hypermagnesaemia
There are more complex tests that can be done, that may need to be done? Because the vast majority of magnesium is not in the blood, it is stored in cells/tissues/organs, you can be down to virtually your last drop, without the blood level being affected.
To find out how your magnesium stores are looking, you can give a magnesium infusion, and see how much is then excreted.
Thoren’s intravenous magnesium load test for diagnosing magnesium deficiency
Provide ~360–480mg of magnesium intravenously over 1hour
If <70% (less than 70%) of the magnesium load comes out in the urine over 16 hours, this is highly suggestive of magnesium deficiency
I have never heard of anyone having this test, ever. Most doctors will never have heard of it either. I only know about it, because I just read this article. Maybe someone can tell me who does it, and how it costs.
Anyway, funny how things turn out. Here I am writing a blog of vitamins and supplements and two days later, out pops a major review article on magnesium. I must be psychic. Or maybe not. But I thought it was important to make you aware of this research. I leave it up to you to decide how to act upon it.
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
Since magnesium is easily excreted, unless you have renal issues, why not supplement and let your kidneys do their job. Also, most magnesium supplements, taken in excess, result in diarrhea, which might be a clue you are taking more than your gut can handle.
Doesn’t this depend on the type of magnesium ingested. I’ve read that many magnesium supplements in tablet form do not break down and are excreted whole. Personally, I’ve started using magnesium ‘oil’ transdermally. I make my own; as a pensioner, much cheaper.
Hello Frances, Would you mind telling me what you use to make your own magnesium oil. I currently buy Holland and Barretts magnesium spray which is quite expensive. I also use magnesium salts in bath water.
Many thanks
Irene
Half distilled water and half pure magnesium flakes in a small spray bottle
Over 20 years ago, I started having rapid heart beats which did not follow any pattern. At times they were during the day, and at times they were at night and would wake me up. They lasted about a minute at the start, but it got longer and longer. I went to a local highly respected cardiologist in Baltimore and he ordered every test in the book. After all the results were in, he said, “the tests were all normal, and that’s good news! So, I want you to start immediately on a low dose statin and a low dose beta blocker.” I hit rewind and told him I thought he was crazy! I went home, started magnesium supplementation, and have not had one problem since the day I started Mg! (I also got a MS in Nutrition for myself, my family, and the patients in my dental practice!
Right on. please click to https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/844214
Good on ya, mate.
I’ve known it was important ever since my dentist told me about it back in 1987. He is also a “health nut” and was interested in knowing about my prolapsed mitral valve, which was causing my heart to bang and pound around in my chest, so I told him my story – basically it started out as a murmur of pregnancy which didn’t go away and was then classified (wrongly or rightly, I don’t know) as a prolapsed mitral valve after I had an echocardiogram in ’89. My MD placed me on a beta blocker which helped the banging and pounding but I was always skeptical of problems down the road. Now I have higher BP than I should have (although hard to measure because I have white coat syndrome, as well) but when I take BP at home my readings were normal until about 6 months ago and are now a bit higher. I do not want to take an Rx drug but magnesium is only tolerable to my body in doses of 325 mg per day or less. At any rate, the mag certainly does assist with the heart pounding, for sure.
I also just read an article saying they are studying magnesium for use in alzheimers patients. I would imagine almost nothing that magnesium wouldn’t help, and that’s the truth.
Thank you for the information in this supplemental article, Dr. K.
The question now is do I find a way to take potassium/magnesium in great enough quantities (if possible) to help with the pounding, or do I submit to my MD and take lisinopril or losartan? Who knows – whichever way I go, it will be the wrong way – Murphy’s Law always applies to me!!
magnesium can be absorbed through the skin, either using oils (which uou can make yourself) or through Epsom salts baths.
@ILowe: Yes, I make my own mag oil and use it on my feet (it makes me itch if I try to use it elsewhere) and I also soak my feet often in the mag chloride flakes or plain Epsom salts.
I have been, unsuccessfully, trying to respond on the blog previous to this one, where Gary Ogden and I were conversing about the use of certain Rx drugs and avoiding the use of supplemental potassium, but for some reason nothing I post is getting through, so I’ll try again here. I sure hope, using the Losartan now, that I can have dietary sources of potassium because my family (me included) eat a lot of pistachios, black walnuts, and a few other things which are high in potassium. Anyone know about this angle vs taking the potassium in supplement form whilst using an Rx medicine?
I hope maybe Gary will see this posting and answer here . . . 🙂
The herb Arguna is very good for the heart. It may lower blood pressure as well.Oops, Arjuna.
I’ve been taking magnesium citrate (for awhile magnesium glycinate) for about the last year, 3.9 grams (recommended) in powder form, in a glass of water, to alleviate cramps when I wake up. I take it in the evening with my food. I’ve been tested though, so have no idea if I’m over or under-loaded. I must say that it has reduced the frequency of cramps in my lower legs, I rarely get them now as opposed to getting them almost every morning when I stretched.
Could you please tell the reason you moved to Citrate from Glycinate – I believe the Glycinate compound is more bio avaiable..
Sam, simple. Cost, though the glycinate comes in a pill, so it is easier to take. And in any case, how do I measure the difference between the two?
Don’t both these magnesium salts ionise in the stomach and become identical, or is there some subtlety that I don’t appreciate?
For some reason, I still get dreadful morning leg cramps even though I do a magnesium oil transdermal rub as well as taking a magnesium supplement (4 forms of magnesium); just wonder if some other mineral is missing.
Frances,
I don’t suppose you are taking statins, are you? That is exactly what they did to me, and it took me (not my doctor) a while to realise that they were caused by statins. Needless to say, I don’t take statins any more.
I find cramps to be affected by multiple minerals. They can also be caused/exacerbated by salt and perhaps potassium. If you’re taking magnesium, try more salt and/or more potassium (the latter is most easily taken using a salt substitute).
I also started taking in more salt (after reading The Salt Fix). While this has not affected my blood pressure, I have started getting cramps and having to take magnesium again. I’m not sure why. I think there’s a relationship between salt/magnesium/potassium, and too much or too little of any one of them (in relationship to the others) causes cramps. I stopped taking magnesium for months, and then had to restart. Is this due to increased salt intake in those months, not taking in enough magnesium, or both? It’s hard to know.
Possibly calcium, although people who eat dairy get too much.
@ Anna M: The “people who eat dairy” don’t generally get too much calcium from consuming dairy foods. Too much calcium is almost always caused from consuming supplements. I avoid calcium supplements themselves, because some of my other vitamin pills contain calcium as one of their *side* ingredients.
Calcium which comes from the food source “dairy” is not the same as the calcium in a vitamin pill.
Very interesting. As an aside, I was looking up the principle author James J DiNicolantonio on Pubmed to locate this paper, and he has also number reviews on various minerals and macronutrient intakes and CVD. Could be another treasure trove to explore:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=DiNicolantonio%20JJ%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=29360523
Link not providing info. ” History not found.”
And also The Salt Fix by Dr James DiNicolantonio is well worth reading. He’s coming out with some really interesting stuff.
Link fixed
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=DiNicolantonio+JJ%5BAuthor%5D
Also here
he has been on a roll recently (and not a bread one), a whole bunch of recent review papers are listed on his twitter feed
Ha Malcolm – just read your 45 post and thought of the supplement chapter in my book, and pal James Di Nicolantonio’s latest paper (a rather saucy one) – but you fixed everything before I got a chance to ping u…
You’re fast off the mark man… 🙂
http://www.thefatemperor.com/blog/2017/11/22/the-book-is-on-the-way-published-in-the-us-feb-6th-2018-lchf
Best
Ivor
Scotland vs Ireland Ivor, we were always quick. I predict 26 -18
We await your equally quick ‘retraction’ – May as well get it done ‘afore time…
– James O’Mahoney / DownUnder
I think Scotland might have given Australia ‘a hell of a beating’ this year?
Ivor do you have a view on the consumption of Sat Fat for APOE 3/4 and 4/4 carriers ?
Also how do you stand on the good results low fat advocates get with heart patients ie the likes of Ornish, Esseltyn. Do you think they would have got just as good results with a high fat regime ie decreased calcification scores ?.
I’m sad enough that I researched the soil levels of magnesium in Glasgow a few years ago, wondering if it was linked to the heart disease problem. “Median ratio comparisons between MgO in Glasgow top and deeper soils and the Humber-Trent
region show lesser levels of enhancement in the Glasgow soils (x1.1-1.8) than those reported for
England and Wales, and values in the Glasgow rural and urban top soils are marginally lower
(x0.7) than world averages.” http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/18009/19/OR08002.pdf . I guess it’s not a huge difference but interesting nonetheless.
Functional hypoparathyroidism is corrected with magnesium too. I know all too well how hideous the cardiac symptoms are when my hypoparathyroidism is badly controlled. I’ve yet to meet an Endocrinologist who even considers testing magnesium, they’ll all test it when asked but god, is it too much to ask that the ‘specialists’ do their job and heed the guidance?
“Magnesium deficiency can also trigger atrial fibrillation (AF) which, in turn, vastly increases the risk of stroke.” So 2 weeks ago my elderly mom went to her GP for some chest congestion. He noticed a rapid heart beat and immediately sent her to the hospital emergency dept. Of course that’s a nightmare, and for some reason he didn’t send her to her cardiologist but she was able to get out in roughly a day and a half. She then went to her cardiologist who changed the dosage on her BP meds. So she saw 3 doctors and all ignored magnesium and potassium levels, which play a part in AF. On top of that one of her BP meds is a diuretic, which regularly depletes mg and K. This is how medicine is practiced today.
Your Mom should always have an advocate with her whenever she visits a doctor. They can ask questions she might not think of or be aware to ask, etc. She should always take all her pill bottles with her and question the doctor if one offsets the other, etc., or the advocate should check it out for her. I always accompanied my Mom to her appointments and they would have had her on numerous unnecessary drugs if I hadn’t intervened. Sadly, the staff at the nursing home where she was a resident at age 86 didn’t read her chart (or never bothered to look in the first place) and she was given a medicine she’d had reactions to several times and ended up in the ER. I tried to explain this to a nurse who called me (the nursing home was in a town about 300 miles from my home, so not exactly a hop, skip and a jump) but the nurse sounded pathetic in telling me she could not take my Mom off the drug without the doctor’s permission and that the doctor was “gone for the day”. I asked about a “supervising doctor” but apparently they had no such thing. So many sad stories about the abuse of the medical system. Sounds like population control to me. . . . .
sundancer55, I think you might have hit the nail on the head with population control, though I suggested the pssibility on another blog and got black marks for it. What other explanation is there for the huge number of people dying from prescribed drug administration, and governments failing to investigate?
When my mother was a similar age she had to go into hospital. She was told to take all her medications with her. They deleted one which was essential, added some and changed the dose of others.
When the day came for her release I went to collect her and was kept waiting for half a day while they faffed around. Allegedly the problem was that “the doctor” had gone off shift and they had to wait for him to come back to review her prescriptions. During this time she had missed her meal and I had not yet gone to the shops to buy anything for her dinner.
Eventually the doctor returned, and it turned out that he had ALREADY arranged her medications and left them at the nurse’s station. Then they refused to release her because the nurses were changing shifts and would only do so after they had seen all of the patients who were remaining in the ward.
It turned out that they had cancelled one of her important drugs, which required an emergency call to the GP, and she still had quantities at home of the ones they had decided they would not release her without their re-prescription.
Honestly you could not make this stuff up. Not unless you were some kind of writer of farces, or a sadist. Jeremy Hunt would probably approve.
Check out the Iodine connection as mentioned before. Have a personal interest in this as my 91 year old Mother was 5 years ago put on the full stroke/art fib battery. I managed to persuade her to come off Statins but know I will never get her to drop Warfarrin despite it killing her
You can get an rbc magnesium. That’s the only way to know. Same is true for potassium:serum levels can be normal but one can still be significantly low in k. Rbc will tell. But hard to find these blood tests!
Sent from my iPhone
>
Agree. RBC magnesium should be done along with 24 hour urine and checking potassium and kidney function. I personally take Mg Glycinate. I had 2 successful ablations in 2001 for AF by Natalie at Cleveland Clinic. I am now 68 and still ok, occasional SVT, short runs if diet is off or stressed.
Dr Carolyn Dean from America is a major advocate of Magnesium supplementing. She recommends Red Blood Cell Magnesium testing. I have tried to get this done in France and Spain, where you can walk into a lab and ask, and pay for, a blood test, but everybody just looks perplexed!
Her book, ‘The Magnesium Miracle’ is very good, she sells dietary supplements (Re-Mag) in liquid form which are expensive and very hard to import.
We now use Magnesium flakes dissolved in Vodka as a ‘rub’ (google Magahol) or you can buy Magnesium Oil, not an oil, but a supersaturated solution, and Magnesium salts in the bath or foot bath as it is supposed to be well absorbed trans-dermally, and also take Magnesium Malate supplements. Magnesium is quite difficult to orally supplement, as many types cause diarrhoea.
I was hoping she was Canadian and that would increase her credibility : She graduated from Dalhousie Medical School in 1978, holds a medical license in California and is a graduate of The Ontario College of Naturopathic Medicine – now the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM) in Toronto. She served on the board of Governors of the CCNM for six years.
I’ve had an RBC magnesium done. Fairly cheap, but had to self order online as my doc had no knowledge of it. I supplement with magnesium malate and magnesium glycinate, plus potassium bicarbonate, which have greatly relieved nocturnal leg cramps and heart palpitations.
Thanks Dr Kendrick….all is forgiven. Last year I invested in 3 X 25Kg of magnesium flakes, and had decided that I was still going to use them! Of course I have no way of knowing if I have a magnesium deficiency….just belt and braces in our later years. I have been studying vitamin and mineral supplementation since your recent blog, and will be investing in a specific multi vitamin, gentle Vit C , and fish oil capsule. We already have an excellent quality diet, but my husband is getting over the dreadful flu ( I missed out, thankfully), so, I will get him back up to par asap. Using supplements is an about-turn for me, as my time in the NHS programmed me to believe our diet was sufficient; as we age, I no longer accept that view. My old-fashioned nursing certainly kicked in this month, and I just wonder if the modern population had a better understand of essential home nursing, the A & E departments might well be saved the awful scenes we have witnessed recently?
The best Muti Vit I have come across, due to its decent dosages on each ingredient, is the two a day by Life Extension (no personal connection other than a customer who takes one a day because the B12 and folate included does the job on one a day)
Dr K, re the Omeprazole, Lansoprazole, blahblahszole users. They can’t be so very few in number if Omeprazole was the number one most prescribed drug in Scotland a few years ago. I believe it’s still the third most prescribed. Patients are left on these for decades. My friend was prescribed them for twenty one years, all without a cursory glance at the magnesium of b12 levels. I had five glorious years of plummeting health on them. The over-prescribing of these PPIs is the next big medical scandal to come out. I hope it waits it’s turn and Thyroid mistreatment gets the press it deserves first though.
FYI, ‘from-the-horses’ mouth’,pharmacists Joe and Teresa Graedon,have much info at their life-saving website: https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/ Entering the search, ‘PPIs’ yields 171 results…all of which are fascinatingly horrific.
Thanks for that link Dar Dobs. What an enlightening site! I could spend hours, days, weeks on there.
If people are going to take a supplement it would be wise to advise them that the oxide form is not a very wise choice. Citrate is better and glycinate better than that. Thanks.
I know soils are depleted, but, what are the food sources besides Spinach.
I love and use the malate form.
Yes this makes a lot of sense.. a naturopathic Doc or said my MI was caused by magnesium deficiency.. I have also had heavy metal toxicity.. which you alerted me to in one of your posts.. After 30 chelation sessions those metal levels have dropped right down.. MAGNESIUM is included intravenously in my chelation.
I would strongly suggest you include GROUNDING in your quest to find the true cause of heart disease. Walking on wet grass or the beach, wet sand in bare feet is the best thing I can do for my heart health.. Read the ” Foyryh Phase of Water” by Gerald Pollock, to find out how grounding charges every cell in the body..
After my MI , I could feel another MI was coming.. Walking in the beach for 2 hours every day saved my life.. it was after that I read the book and understood why it was so goof for me..
I now try an include 1 hour barefoot grounding every day of my life..
That should read “the fourth phase of water” sorry for the typo.
That walk on the beach also helped you to inhale airborne particles of iodine. Much help to the heart, as well as magnesium.
I live in an area of the USA where it’s winter for 6 months of the year and grounding just isn’t going to happen for me. And a grounding mat is simply not the same thing. Luckily, I do live where there is an abundance of natural selenium, which is another good trace mineral many people do not think about.
I am not well, suspected Lyne-like illness or insect borne disease according to Dr D Klinghardt (not recognised in Australia; we suffer alone). I’ve spent a fortune to get well again, from far infra-red sauna to multitude of supplements prescribed by naturopaths after the orthodox doctors failure with steroids, antibiotics. I’ve purchased the bedsheet (cost $au$228), in addition a small grounding mat, and smaller mat. I am fortunate to live on an acre and do walk barefoot, Unfortunately, earthing/grounding has not helped me. Maybe just my experience; however; a word to the wise before you invest as it might help some conditions, but not mine. I am open to suggestions.
Perhaps you should see Dr Greg Emmerson at Logan in Qld.. If you have Lime Disease..
I think earthing works better in wet ground..
Lyme disease
Try an earthed mouse mat for your PC thats assuming you have a mouse
You might try an all-meat diet (particularly beef). I know it sounds totally crazy, but I’ve seen multiple people who eat only meat (aka “carnivory”) say their tick-borne illnesses were put into remission/cured with an all meat diet. The reason they eat only meat is that what caused them the fewest symptoms.
Maybe some parasite cleanses. Or eat 3-5 fresh garlic cloves per day, wait 15 minutes after opening or crushing them.
At age 64 I had a concern about my cardiac health. Without boring everyone with detail it turns out that unless I have chest pains (preferably going to my left arm and feeling nauseous, giddy with a stiff jaw, etc) I’m unlikely to ever be treated to such expensive things as ‘tests’.
Not entirely unreasonable I suppose but it means I’ll probably not know if I’m deficient in anything until I show some distinct sign of being ill. As for such exotic things as CAC testing this is in the stuff of dreams. Luckily I do get to scrap samples of poo on pieces of cardboard every few years but that’s about it.
Meanwhile I’m wondering if taking magnesium supplements (which I do) has been shown to be effective?
Thanks Dr. Kendrick!
When I researched Magnesium some time ago I found that Magnesium Bisglycinate was the most absorbable form. See vivanaturals.com . Available: https://www.amazon.com/Viva-Naturals-Magnesium-Bisglycinate-Chelate/dp/B00HQP51ZG/ref=sr_1_19_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517259676&sr=1-19&keywords=viva+naturals .
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA
Would suggest hair mineral analysis then not only can you get magnesium long term levels checked but also ratio with calcium. Ratios are equally important. Cheap and non-invasive test best obtained through a nutritional therapist. ARL Analytical Research Labs are (horribly) thorough if you go for full report but do do a simpler one which is good as does Doctors’Data.
Excellent information. This was actually the second time a commenter posted the link this paper. The first time I read it in full. Today, I printed it because I need to read something at least three times to fully cram it into the brain. I am concerned about all those people taking diuretics, which, as noted in the paper, can deplete Mg. Very easy to supplement, and the tastiest foods have lots of it. A public health crisis. Alarming words, and likely true.
Wow what a coincidence!
0.75 – 0.95 mmol/l (the denominator was missing in the first instance) seems to be an awfully narrow range. More so if some, according to the article, consider 0.82 or even 0.9 mmol/l as the threshold for intervention.
The wikipedia entry gives much wider ranges but can’t seem to agree on a single range:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomagnesemia
Such honesty! So it would seem that for those of us who have hypertension, arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation, diabetes and psoriasis, taking magnesium, vits C, D3, E, multi Bs and K2 might help. My cardiologist this week told me to come off all of them and take only apixaban, bisoprolol and spironolactol, as vitamins can interfere with the drugs and are “dangerous”. The same department advises a high carb low fat diet for the diabetes. And ramipril for the hypertension, which, like candesartan I refused, because of previous adverse reactions. And statins, of course. Likewise refused as I developed diabetes and kidney failure while on simvastatin. (Now under control with LCHF diet). The same hospital was brilliant when I had a ruptured appendix three years ago. NICE doesn’t train the surgeons, but has control of most other medical personnel, it seems.
Doctor and hospitals might be great for emergencies or for diagnosis; however, after 50+ years of searching, we are on our own when it comes to autoimmune diseases and others …
And NICE is run by Big Pharma and the UK population worry about the NHS becoming privatised, laughable isn’t it
Funny, I read the previous blog entry, the comments, & made a rare comment tonight, and then started reading that very paper (I downloaded from openheart earlier in the month) and been on a couple of magnesium sites that I hadn’t been on before when I noticed this entry. I’m a big fan of 85+% chocolate for magnesium (and other minerals) and have consulted my favourite go-to book (the Jaminet’s Perfect Health Diet) from which the following extract is taken ‘Seaweed, nuts and nut butters, coffee, tea, and chocolate are good sources of magnesium. Perhaps this accounts for their health benefits; for instance, eating lots of chocolate reduces rates of cardiovascular disease by 37% and stroke by 29% [ref quoted]’. Good job Green and Blacks was on offer last week – I bought a mini stockpile.
If you are UK based the following might be of interest. About 18 months ago a food programme, probably food unwrapped, did a program on dark chocolate and had a lab test about 6 brands. They found the brand that had the highest polyphenols was good old Tescos home brand from I think Ecuador. I buy their 85% one at £1.05 a bar much less than Green and Black who were in the test
Thanks. I don’t stick to one make or brand and can play swings and roundabouts (have one bar of the Tesco left). Sugar is the 2nd ingredient of the Tesco 85% Plain Chocolate which is 47% fat (29% SFA) vs the 53.5% (32% SFA) for G&B’s 85% (& the G&B doesn’t have Lecithins). Sainsbury’s keep sending though vouchers for £6 off £30 shops and this usually coincides with one of G&B’s 85%, Lindt 90% or Sainsbury’s 85% taste the difference being on offer.
My favourite is Co-Op 85%. It used to be called Fairtrade, now it is “beyond fairtrade”. Whatever that means, I prefer the flavour to most of the others.
Also Mercola has just brought one out with very low sugar
‘Seaweed, nuts and nut butters, coffee, tea, and chocolate are good sources of magnesium’
This is right up my street 🙂 I recommend Montezuma’s chocolate, including 100% one.
I take magnesium supplement when my eyelids start to twitch, but maybe I should just increase my dark chocolate intake instead ….
A little comment about chocolate and magnesium… my husband (who has type 2 diabetes) and I now drink hot cocoa in the afternoon, with no sweetener at all! Surprisingly good. Just good ol’ Fry’s cocoa, whole milk and a drop of vanilla, yum! Froth it up and it’s even better.
Such interesting posts and comments, thanks!
Thanks for the recommendation Agg – I’ve look out for Montezuma’s.
Marguerite – I also buy cacao powder which is great for mixing in with the likes of Greek yogurt and blackberries.
@ Agg: When you get twitchy eyelids or a tic type movement, increase your B6. Works for me every time and you know where I got that info? You won’t believe it . . . from a book written by two little old ladies (they were siblings) who give out anecdotal health advice (meaning based on their own PERSONAL experiences and the experiences of their friends and family)! They actually wrote a second book, as well, because the first book was soooooooooo popular and flew off the shelves in the mid 1990’s. The title was something about Chicken Soup.
I’m both lazy and a great coward (I hate having blood drawn). So I just take a 200 mg magnesium malate pill once a day, and hope that compensates for any dietary shortfall. I don’t think there is any risk of overdosing.
It’s often tricky to get the exact amount you want; in this case it’s a 1300 mg magnesium malate pill containing 200 mg of actual magnesium. Some vendors are a bit tricky in their labelling, so it’s worth checking the amount of the element you want rather than the weight of the whole horse pill.
The functional medicine docs often use RBC magnesium (and other metals) to look for both deficiency and excess. RBC levels are taken a marker for tissue levels. I don’t know how well validated this approach is, say agains the mineral loading tests, but if you ask these docs they’ll tell you the tests and resulting corrections correlate with clinical outcomes. At least RBC mineral tests are cheap and available at the big commercial labs, at least in the US.
Malcolm, this new paper only confirms your reputation as a clairvoyant in addition to a skeptic.(The definition of clairvoyant is having heightened senses or being extremely perceptive.)
“RBC magnesium” can be ordered from many of the clinical labs. It may be low despite a normal serum magnesium level.
SpectraCell and GenovaNutraEval also provide these values.
There is some debate amongst clinicians about the validity and accuracy of these, but nonetheless many of us use these results in clinical practice.
I use a very old fashioned method of mineral and electrolyte replacement which I learned on the BodyBio.com website. There supposedly sensitive receptors for minerals in the tongue and in the mouth. By “tasting” the minerals we may be able to sense when there is too little, too much, or just enough of the substance being tested. Then, the substance is introduced each day, and testing is repeated to see if the deficiency is corrected. Likewise, if too much of a mineral is detected, then it is reduced in the supplements/diet until it is corrected. This may be useful for copper and zinc for which we are not only interested in levels, but also the ratio. This test is supposed to adjust for that. I use it myself, and I can taste the differences, and “think” that it works, however I have not “studied it” to follow micro-nutrient blood cell levels before and after.
Here are some links to the instructional videos in the context of using it to reduce mercury load:
1. Liquid Minerals and Getting Rid of Mercury part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_SwCfKyh-Q&list=PL34033022C9EF25D5&index=2
2. Liquid Minerals and Mercury part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCXqIN_I3-s&index=3&list=PL34033022C9EF25D5
3. Liquid Minerals and Mercury part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvZ7KfWDhZw&index=4&list=PL34033022C9EF25D5
I would really like to hear what you think about this, or if you have ever heard about it, or have used it for your patients.
I find this very interesting!
Thank you for the very solid reference!
It is known among us LCHF-adherents that about 30 % of us experience cramps in the calves during the night when we start on this regimen. I myself experienced this when I jumped on the diet 2009. Quick “research” then pointed to Mg-supplement to resolve this issue. And indeed it was very efficient in relieving the problem.
I guess we must be more careful and looking also for subclinical deficiency effects.
Hi Goran, I found that night-time dehydration also gave me early morning-leg-calf-cramps – a quick glass of water usually did the trick.
Göran, why would that be? Of course, LCHF means you don’t get to have whole grain, but meat, especially liver, nuts and veggies have plenty magnesium.
North south divide and heart disease ?, hard soft water ? Magnesium levels ?
https://www.kinetico.co.uk/hard-and-soft-water-explained/hard-and-soft-water-uk
Check this link: it will make things even more confusing.
Thank you Dr Kendrick. Does anyone know how bathing with Epsom Salts (magnesium sulphate) might be beneficial?
The skin is the largest organ you have, and will absorb the mag sulfate or any other kind of magnesium salt (mag chloride for instance). There is really no way to tell how much you will absorb though, because every BODY is different. After using it for bathing or for foot soaks for a month or so, have mag levels tested again and see if there’s improvement for you. But Epsom salts have been used for years and years to help with sore muscles and sprains, etc. Soak for about 20 minutes or so, at least.
I dont know of any studies, however experience with my patients is positve. Reduced cramps and nervous tension…… With kids on the ASD spectrum it has proved a great adjunct in many aspects of their health and wellbeing.
From what I’ve read, Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) draws ‘toxins’ out of the body, whilst magnesium chloride is absorbed into the body, very beneficial. Therefore, don’t bathe with both in the bath water.
Thanks for recognizing need for a correction and acting. see https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/844214
Great attitude and reading from an MD.
Göran
Thanks Malcolm for this reset on Magnesium. It is important !
I have taken magnesium tablets since 2012. In addition to eating good organic foods. My reason is that as we age, our bodies are genetically programmed to ‘age’ and part of that aging process is reduced capacity to absorb from food essential vitamins and minerals.
At first I took Magnesium orartate but because of the cost I switched to Magnesum citrate last year which has been significantly cheaper to buy and is available at a local pharmacy. Magnesium citrate is absorbed in the gut.
I completely avoid Magnesium oxide as it is not easily absorbed and as we say here, it gives me the ‘shits’. But it is the cheapest and most readily available for sale in pharmacies and health food shops.
Side note: This morning Dr Mercola published a long article on why we should should avoid Magnesium Citrate. I know some folks here like Goran, use Dr Mercola as a major source of information on health. But I am skeptical about his site. it is so full of advertising & product promotion. And this article about Magnesium Citrate makes me even more skeptical. I’m giving it the flick.
I am still a supporter of Dr Mercola. He needs to make money somehow, and I agree with the great majority of what he writes. It is difficult, I can tell you, to keep working away at something – without achieving any income from it.
Which is one of the laudable aspects of Dr Greger, I dont agree with everything he says eg cholesterol, but he runs his site for free. The only sales he has made are through a book and possibly a recipe book. Anyone who has written a book will tell you that you dont write one expecting to make any money which is good because the vast majority will not make any.
Smatersig, I do not really want to reprise the Vegan debate we had a while ago…It would rive a few of us completely off the wall !
🙂
But Dr Greger is not the only vegan ad free website. It seems to be the norm in vegan & vegetarian circles. I suspect that the converts there are keen to recruit more newbie converts…As part of improving their credibility and virtue maybe….
There is no Vegan debate Bill least not on here, there is only a debate about health and amonst the topics that crop up are LCHF, Paleo, WFPB, Vegan, Pesci, Veggi and so on. My concern on here is that there is still a tendancy to allow people, with inpunity, to mention out of the blue and some times related to topic aspects of LCHF and meat eating. Now dont get me wrong this is as it should be. I have never responded with suggestions of meat trolls or meat industry reps because I see the whole spectrum of various diets as worthy of inclusion in the debate. But of course that means that WFPB has to be talked about because there is so much data to look at with regard to it. The problem is that any challenges to hypothesis surrounding sat fat or animal protein are seen not as valid debating points but some kind of vegan trolling
The saying ‘truth is its own reward’ may not put supplements on your plate – but it is a context in which whatever you have can be truly appreciated.
I feel that Mercola’s biases are not un-obvious to me at least – but nor does that deny the value of helpful information and inspiring interviewees. There are many.
Also as an Englishman I haven’t the same cultural reception for the American ‘show’ format and marketing. Though I cant abide most modern Brit docutainment! But as they say – different strokes for different folks. Tuning in to the signal – is tuning out from the noise.
I’d had ‘The Salt fix’ in mind as a possible purchase after adding the lo salt to the list of narrative control for the protection of sickness. I noticed that http://www.thesaltfix.com fails (even as link from within his own site) but http://thesaltfix.com works. He didn’t offer a contact form/email to be notified.
As I see it the authors have scanned through a hundred and something studies to extrapolate their findings – which is the kind of thing you held some hope for at the end of your DD book.
As for income, I feel the need has to be addressed and the economy has to align to support it. That often does not seem evident in those who call a new direction ahead of their time so as to lay a foundation for times to come. Is it a choice between a deadly security of a lo risk diet and a new day every day in an exciting and challenging exploration and discovery?
I have to second this. Not only that, but a lot of Dr. Mercola’s products fill a need. I just watched a video of him promoting products for washing dishes, especially in dishwashers, that to not contain harmful chemicals.
As a person trying to make sure I don’t have a cancer recurrence, I’ve noticed a two-pronged trend: as the publicity and knowledge of the inadequacy of conventional treatments grows people are walking away in slowly increasing numbers but there are also more and more people offering services to them of various sorts, and some seem to be gouging. It is hard to know what is reasonable, but there’s an alternative doc in North Carolina, (and he wrote a good book and I read it) who charges 600 dollars for a cancer consult. Since insurance won’t pay, it means people have to pay out of pocket. Others are charging from a low of 85 for a consult on up to 500. Consults can be done by phone or skype. I don’t see the overhead. These are not all doctors, in fact most are not, just people who hopefully know a bit of what they are doing.
I guess I need to add that the best ones offer a mix of free info with paid gigs. I’ve been getting Dr. Mercola’s newsletters for about 15 years, and I have learned a tremendous amount. It was interesting to me as a nurse to read from him that Vioxx was a dangerous drug, yet be giving it to patients, and then a couple of years later it was pulled from the market. He sold high quality coconut oil at a time when it was not really available even in the health food store.
I come across all these teaser ads from various doctors who don’t quite tell you what the conclusion is because you’ve got to pay for their newsletter. And we can’t always pay for medical journals or understand them. I rely on the likes of Dr. Mercola to do that for me and it is all free.
Might I also add that our dear Dr. Kendrick is also doing that for us and it is also free.
Dr K,
You really should consider putting a tip jar on the website if that is possible. I’m sure a lot of folks would hit it. I know I would
Bill,
Well, I subscribe to Mercola’s newsletters and most of the time find them intriguing but certainly, as Malcom, not always. But, really his is certainly not my only source of information.
I guess I have done my “homework” on CVD reasonably for 20 years now and realize that my good wife was ahead of me (not least on the magnesium issue) and probably saved my life after my MI by feeding me with a broad spectrum “CVD” supplement. I think the supplement was called Dr Donsbach but authorities killed his business as far as I remember.
Thanks Goran for the reply. I appreciate your comment about this issue.
Dr K I am also aware that Mercola needs to earn money to cover the costs of the site he manages. However it is the extent of this that I question. Mercola’s site seems largely driven by product placements and advertising. So that naturally leads me to wonder if his articles are also driven by the need to ‘promote’ the products for his advertisers.
Here is the link to the Mercola article I am talking about :
https://articles.mercola.com/vitamins-supplements/magnesium-citrate.aspx
He says about Magnesium Citrate that it’s main use is to alleviate constipation. And that if we are not constipated we should avoid it because it will cause diarrhea. Now I have just checked the label on my Magnesium citrate that i use. It’s made by a largish company here in Oz called Swisse. There is nothing on the label about such symptom. Nothing at all. And I suspect that by law they are obliged to mention such side effects if they are possible.
Also I have been taking this Magnesium citrate most of the past year and never noticed any such ‘symptoms’. Am I special – with a cast iron stomach perhaps- or is Mercola simply wrong ?
I also notice that the types of magnesium he recommends, like magnesium glycinate & magnesium threonate, are far more expensive to buy and completely unavailable locally but very available via his site…Ummmm.
Case closed ?
Ditto on the magnesium citrate. I’ve been using it for about a year and aside from other causes, I’ve not gotten the rns from taking it daily (with my evening meal). Ditto on the cost as I said earlier.
A brief PS. By way of contrast here is what Ivor from the “Fat Emperor” web site link above, says on this issue :
“We have always provided free material over the past years (talks, interviews, blog posts etc). And we will continue to do so indefinitely. That said, if you appreciate what we are doing for the people, the only thing we’ll ask is that you consider ordering the new book. Not only will that support our efforts into the future – you’ll also have all you need to know for you and your family…empowering them to eat rich and live long! ”
Now that approach to me, seems more worth supporting.
Thank you for this timely addendum. I have just been discharged from hospital with a huge goodie bag of pharmaceuticals to prevent a further MI. I made my feelings known about PPIs even I though I was sternly told that my stomach would soon have holes from the aspirin and antiplatlet meds if I didn’t take a PPI. Boy, it would have been poetic justice to suggest that he read your cited research!
Sorry, I forgot the link: https://www.precisionnutrition.com/stop-vitamin-d
Yes – life is always about balance within many variables. Knowing about the relationships between minerals, vitamins and etc in our body is an ongoing education.
A significant factor in your linked page and the Study on Mg deficiency is that higher calcium to magnesium intake – which includes Vit D needs a corresponding Magnesium adjustment.
But also there are many other variables also (hard/soft water etc).
The mind that wants a rule so it can go back to sleep is the sort of thinking that sets a wrong course for 50 years before a correction can wake it up. As Malcolm sort of says, it’s dangerous being right.
I lean to suspect Vit D fears simply because Pharma want to promote them. But that too could be a rule that denies the recognition of the balance point. There are studies where astronomical Vit D intake showed no adverse effects. But that may have been in a less toxified, depleted, unbalanced, malnourished and overfed population. The K2 mitigation is becoming more well known and the magnesium balance feels also critical to be aware of.
Malcolm, you will not be popular with some of your colleagues… the temerity to admit an error/oversight will put you in the same class of heretic as….. Tim Noakes, et al
– How will your White- Frock-coated College-Fellows retain their ‘dignity’ and standing..with traitors in their midst – admitting fallibility ???
Looking on the Bright Side of Life, it’s a perfect excuse to have more luxuriant Mg Salt Baths !
(OK, not easy – if your name is Brian and you’re stuck on a stake.. 🙂
Lorna, the Mg is absorbed directly via the skin… the more you expose / more water in the bath – the Better.
Besides, it makes you feel Good, and nourishing the Heart & Soul is cardio-protective.
– Adding a glass of (French) Red Wine – internally – extends the effects…
This research article might make all the difference – if I print it and show it to my GP. He refuses me tests that he doesn’t understand, but comes through if I “educate” him. Not unreasonable.
Blimey Malcolm. This is dynamite (potentially). I have not, until recently, been a believer in dietary supplements. Surely that’s what food is for, I thought. But food nutritional quality is not static it seems; it’s been deteriorating steadily. Given my own CAD and calcium score I will check this out further with done urgency
I’ve learned a lot from reading The Magnesium miracle by cdn. born Carolyn Dean, MD, ND. Would be without it, magnesium, i.e.
Seek out Dr Sarah Myhill’s website. Dr Myhill has a very informative section on Magnesium deficiency and the link with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, her speciality.
Dr K, can I please ask if you take any form of Co-Q10? In the list of supplements on the previous post I noted that it was in that list. Regards, S
My great-aunt used to drink tea from a saucer laced with Epsom Salts. She died in 1965 aged 96. Didn’t do her much harm!
And that’s just the physical side of magnesium deficiency – research seems to indicate that it’s likely to be what’s driving so much mental ill health these days:
“Eby has the same question about the history of depression that I do – why is depression increasing? His answer is magnesium deficiency. Prior to the development of widespread grain refining capability, whole grains were a decent source of magnesium (though phytic acid in grains will bind minerals such as magnesium, so the amount you eat in whole grains will generally be more than the amount you absorb). Average American intake in 1905 was 400mg daily, and only 1% of Americans had depression prior to the age of 75. In 1955, white bread (nearly devoid of magnesium) was the norm, and 6% of Americans had depression before the age of 24. In addition, eating too much calcium interferes with the absorption of magnesium, setting the stage for magnesium deficiency.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201106/magnesium-and-the-brain-the-original-chill-pill
…and more recently, another article in the same ezine from today:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201801/magnesium-depression
When one of my very close relatives was in a psychiatric unit suffering from severe depression, not long after having been previously hospitalised with anorexia nervosa, my suggestions (from my own research into nutritional deficiencies) to their consultant psychiatrists were met with virtual hostility. They most likely didn’t bother to read any of the papers I sent them about the subject, preferring to prescribe antidepressants (to a teenager) with almost fatal consequences. They could not see that the anorexia had probably depleted essential minerals and that the ‘diet’ the patient was put on in the unit was designed to increase body fat and not at all nutritional! they kept saying that ‘the tests’ don’t show a deficiency, despite my pointing out the problems with those as described by Dr Kendrick.
Only after a prolonged battle would they agree to the patient having daily nutritional supplements such as magnesium, vitamin D their opinion of what an ideal level should be was seemingly picked out of thin air), Omega 3 EFAs and a good quality multivitamin/mineral (all from Cytoplan which are ‘food state’ supplements so very bioavailable).
Then the patient started to get better….
Which the probably attributed to the antidpressants…
On the other hand, how long have Italians and French been eating white bread and white pasta? Probably longer than the 1950s. do they have higher rates of depression than Germans, who kept up sourdough and whole grain to a higher percentage throughout? Probably not.
I just remember an ancient Italian guy selling excellent white flour “county” loafs and boasting that he kept his excellent health without all the German whole grain stuff.
I use supplements liberally. There is concern of too much and proper balances. To solve the problem I propose periodic supplement abstinence, say a day or two weekly to give the body a chance to sort out what it really needs. Better still would be periodic water only fast.
What I have found with supplements is that some I tolerate quite well eg Vit C, Iodine, B12 and Folate and Fruitflow but others after days 3ish give me stomach upsets eg K2, L Arganine, Lysine
Smartersig, LArginine needed but is hard to absorb. However If you take Citruline Malate as a supplement it will be absorbed and changed into LArginine in the body without the stomach upsets..At least this is the case for me.
Citruline Malate is easy to buy as it is used by gym jocks and body builders who often take it in largish quantities.
Vitamin K2 is not water soluable. It is soluble only in oil. Maybe this is why it gives you stomach upsets. So taking it with other oil based foods might help maybe ?
Thanks for those tips Bill, I will look into both for sure. I will try the K2 with Avocada first
The link between magnesium deficiency and low vitamin D status:
“Magnesium deficiency: Recent findings suggest that high magnesium intakes may reduce the risk of vitamin D insufficiency. Magnesium regulates the activity of critical enzymes in vitamin D metabolism, which would explain how magnesium deficiency negatively affects vitamin D status (48).”
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/vitamins/vitamin-D#osteoporosis-prevention
Quote: What is the normal magnesium level? Normal serum magnesium levels 0.75–0.95mmol. A serum magnesium <0.82mmol/L with a 24-hour urinary magnesium excretion of 40–80mg/ day is highly suggestive of magnesium deficiency. Serum magnesium levels above 0.95mmol/L may indicate hypermagnesaemia
What is “normal”? Carolyn Dean’s optimal magnesium value (using the RBC-Mg test) is 2,47 – 2,67 mmol/L (6,0 – 6,5 mg/dL). Up until 1963 ref in USA was 2,06 tot 2,88 mmol/L (5,0 tot 7,0 mg/dL). The less we get (via our food), the less we need? (Source: Stille Slopers, by Wim Zeegers)
Who’s right? My hero Dr Malcolm Kendrick (pease come to Holland again…) or Dr Carolyn Dean, “The Doctor of the Future”? Help!
To add to your issue, the intracellular can be deficient while serum levels are ‘normal’.
With all this talk about various forms of Magnesium supplementation, I can’t believe no one has mentioned William Davis’s Magnesium bicarbonate water.
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2017/07/magnesium-water-undoctored-style/
My wife and I have been taking this for about a year now and it seems to really make a difference.
I have had an interesting condition since I was a teenager, I am now 56.
Extreme thirst, I crave water and drink about 2 gallons ( 8 liters ) a day and can’t be without water for more than an hour or so.
Since we have started the “Mag water” as we refer to it, my thirst has gone, I drink only about a quart ( 1 liter ) a day.
As an experiment, I stopped taking our normal dose of a couple glasses a day ( 1/2 liter ) of Mag water, and after about 2 weeks my thirst returned in full.
On the flip side, I am now experiencing burning and numbness like neuropathy in both feet.
I have had many batteries of tests run and seen a neuropathist, nothing can be found.
But the neuropathy is sort of inversely responsive to Magnesium, I.E. more Magnesium makes it worse.
Hypermagnesemia? I can find absolutely no research on it.
I now regulate my Mag water intake to balance between thirst and burny feet.
John.
I have – twice. Magnesium hydroxide (the same as plain Milk of Magnesia) added to fridge-cold carbonated springwater (doesn’t have to be springwater – but it does for me – and one not already high in mag). Shake for 30 secs – back to fridge. repeat shaking 30 secs after 30 mins. Keep in Fridge. I drink a measure or tot of this before bed neat – but make up drinking water for the day with a proportion of mag bicarb water in it. (I also vortex the water – which makes it less ‘granular’). Sidenote: In looking up vortex or helical flow in blood I found that that it is normal to vortex blood before testing for platelets as the granular clumping in the blood can pass for (or perhaps contribute to the development of) clots.
I reported my benefits which are supple freedom of musculature – esp ankles and calves in the night. There may be others – but too many other things going on to determine what belongs where. I have never yet noticed any downside to taking mag this way.
The mag sprays make me very ‘itchy’ – which is itself a sign of deficiency perhaps.
Green and Blacks 85% 😉
Other foods that lean me into Mag sufficiency √
Live this day well √
John have you ever checked your B12 result? Extreme thirst and burning feet can be symptoms of B12 deficiency/Pernicious Anemia and, if left untreated too long, can lead to permanent nerve damage. Doctors are not brilliant at spotting it and the serum b12 test itself isn’t all that reliable. Active b12 or Methylmalonic Acid/Homocysteine tests are better. https://www.ailsafrank.com/could-you-be-suffering-b12-deficiency
What doe sit cost and how available is it John ?
It is very cheap. One large bottle of Milk of Magnesia makes about 20 liters of mag water.
It tastes nice and is very refreshing.
We drink so much of it that I have set up a CO2 bottle and make my own soda water to use with it.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Equate-Milk-Of-Magnesia-Saline-Laxative-Liquid-1200-mg-26-Oz/15754359
Oops should have been Dr. William Davis’s Magnesium bicarbonate water.
From what I’ve read long-term stress depletes magnesium – a possible link there with the “stress as major contributor to heart disease”.
Regards,
Frieda Paton
This segways well into Mark Sissons (recent?) interview with Mercola. Not specifically mentioning Magnesium – but illuminating the damage associated with endurance exercise – esp on a crap diet as was normal in his day – and for some still is. I find Sissons inspiring. Mercola has my gratitude for the focus and richness of interviews and info. But in my view is seeking health as a crusade to avert sickness and death – where Sissons may well die in his pool from over bliss – but truly lives the health and joy in being that he relaxed into after finding out that everything he thought he knew was wrong – well perhaps that’s an overstatement – but it has the right sense of a deep shift of orientation. His original ‘health regime’ was killing him.
Is magnesium oxide wrongly demonized for having low bioavailability? Magnesium Oxide Delivers More Magnesium with Far Fewer Pills https://www.algaecal.com/expert-insights/magnesium-oxide-delivers-more-magnesium-with-far-fewer-pills/ Magnesium Oxide Shown to be Well-Absorbed http://doctormurray.com/magnesium-oxide-shown-to-be-well-absorbed/
I was thinking of this term (bioavailability) earlier and saw that it isn’t just whether our body accesses the supplement significantly – but whether the particular need is met. For example if blood serum is near ‘normal’ but cellular levels are very low – do different forms of intake fare differently in addressing the cellular need?
I have a sense that the ideal path is to (Honour the Mother – that is to) ensure full health to a living soil – that our food grows in and of. Where minerals are bound up in plant or other biological food sources is likely the optimal way to receive them.
Randal I read through both the links you provided. Both attempt to show that magnesium from supplemented Magnesium oxide is absorbed and absorbed at far more than the 4% which is asserted by some sites.
However neither of the links discusses the issue of magnesium oxide leading to diarrhea. And frankly that is an important aspect of this issue. Nobody wants to take a supplement which gives us the sh!*s.
And that is my personal experience and my brother’s also. So I will stay with Magnesium Citrate.
Bill,
There are timed-release or sustained-release tablets on the market. The one I use provides 500mg magnesium (as dimagnesium malate) per dose of 4 tabs.
Easy to take, no nether consequences.
The only question is – does it actually deliver?
As I’ve mentioned, my doc won’t provide tests he’s never heard of.
Can you tell the name and where you get it from. Thanks
How overwhelmingly complex is not our physiology! 20 000 parameters playing with one another. My own expertise in superalloys for aircraft engines is by comparison just a child’s play.
Poor MD’s and especially those who claim they KNOW while at the same time failing in giving the health back to their patients.
Whatever – you are your own best testbed. When you have been seriously and regained your health by some specific interfering action on your physiology you tend to believe that this is the way to go and probably it is, not least for yourself.
I believe it is a whole system in which all parts are in communication at once. Why then would it ‘fail’ or go wrong’. Perhaps blaming the instrument or tool goes with the territory. But through the body we live and share in this crazy and wonderful world as both a participant and a casting director. The latter is less obvious once having blamed the tool, the props, the scenery, the bad guys.
Put another way, a scientific experiment can only ‘fail’ in being set up poorly – but even that result recognised is a discovery by which to adjust our set.
I agree that what works for us is a real relationship discovered and at least a genuine stepping stone. I see that participation in our own health (life) is an ongoing awakening responsibility and that is not just a matter of following guidelines or rules, but of accepting a consciously made decision and standing in it. Perhaps after trying everything else or after much study. But owning our own decision is an inner alignment or congruency of purpose. I cant do that for anyone else and if it were possible it would deprive them of their health-freedom (setting up dependency of entanglement). However, I can join with others in support for their having a real choice rather than as framed by a falsely framed set of (even well meaning) ‘experts’.
Hi Dr Kendrick
Just seen this NYTimes article re CVD risks due to a new factor. Please, what do you make of this?
quote
Few doctors, and even fewer patients, have heard of CHIP. But it is emerging as a major cause of heart attacks and stroke, as deadly as high blood pressure or cholesterol.
By GINA KOLATA: JAN. 29, 2018
It’s been one of the vexing questions in medicine: Why is it that most people who have heart attacks or strokes have few or no conventional risk factors?
These are patients with normal levels of cholesterol and blood pressure, no history of smoking or diabetes, and no family history of cardiovascular disease. Why aren’t they spared?
To some researchers, this hidden risk is the dark matter of cardiology: an invisible but omnipresent force that lands tens of thousands of patients in the hospital each year. But now scientists may have gotten a glimpse of part of it.
They have learned that a bizarre accumulation of mutated stem cells in bone marrow increases a person’s risk of dying within a decade, usually from a heart attack or stroke, by 40 or 50 percent. They named the condition with medical jargon: clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential.
source:
Thanks
I know nothing about it. I would need a bit more of the science stuff before I could make any comment. One thought is the stem cells also included endothelial progenitor cells EPCs (about which I have written quite a lot). EPCs can become endothelial cells, or monocytes and/or macrophages. Were this group of cells WBCs, EPCs, endothelial cells to start ‘going wrong’ you would have considerable problems within the endothelial layer. So, there may be something here.
A quick search about CHIP. Accumulation of DNA damage from old age, radiation/chemotherapy, and cellular stress just about covers causes. My pet theory is that reduced ATP production and increased ROS by mitochondria is at the bottom of many diseases. Also medications like statins are mitochondrial and microbiome poisons.
Dr Kendrick
Thanks for the quick reply. I suspected that it would not be more than a quick reply at this stage without more research. Maybe your interest therein is pricked? I hope? Any rate if you do follow up at some stage would be keen to read your fuller response.
Yes, been following your fascinating chain of comments / blogs on EPC’s and NO.
Appreciated for all the amazing health stuff (and other commentary) that you so willing share to a wide audience of health addicts (nuts?) or just concerned people trying to optimise their health as best they can. Really appreciated.
NEJM article from last year on clonal hematopoiesis.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1701719
Thank you. Such useful Information.
Vitamin D3 is a powerful stimulator of nitric oxide—“There are not many, if any, known systems which can be used to restore cardiovascular endothelial cells which are already damaged, and Vitamin D3 can do it,” Malinski said. ”
A new study conducted by Ohio University scientists suggests that a little more sunlight might help restore damage to your cardiovascular system.
The study shows that Vitamin D3 — which is made by the body naturally when skin is exposed to the sun — can significantly restore the damage to the cardiovascular system caused by several diseases, including hypertension, diabetes and atherosclerosis. Vitamin D3 supplements are also available over-the-counter.
The study, by Marvin and Ann Dilley White Chair and Distinguished Professor Dr. Tadeusz Malinski and two graduate students, Alamzeb Khan and Hazem Dawoud, has been published in the International Journal of Nanomedicine.
“Generally, Vitamin D3 is associated with the bones. However, in recent years, in clinical settings people recognize that many patients who have a heart attack will have a deficiency of D3. It doesn’t mean that the deficiency caused the heart attack, but it increased the risk of heart attack,” Malinski said. “We use nanosensors to see why Vitamin D3 can be beneficial, especially for the function and restoration of the cardiovascular system.”
Malinski’s team has developed unique methods and systems of measurements using nanosensors, which are about 1,000 times smaller in diameter than a human hair, to track the impacts of Vitamin D3 on single endothelial cells, a vital regulatory component of the cardiovascular system. A major discovery from these studies is that vitamin D3 is a powerful stimulator of nitric oxide (NO), which is a major signaling molecule in the regulation of blood flow and the prevention of the formation of clots in the cardiovasculature. Additionally, vitamin D3 significantly reduced the level of oxidative stress in the cardiovascular system.
Most importantly, these studies show that treatment with vitamin D3 can significantly restore the damage to the cardiovascular system caused by several diseases, including hypertension, atherosclerosis, and diabetes, while also reducing the risk of heart attack. These studies, performed on cells from Caucasian Americans and African Americans, yielded similar results for both ethnic groups.
“There are not many, if any, known systems which can be used to restore cardiovascular endothelial cells which are already damaged, and Vitamin D3 can do it,” Malinski said. “This is a very inexpensive solution to repair the cardiovascular system. We don’t have to develop a new drug. We already have it.”
These studies, performed at Ohio University, are the first to identify the molecular mechanism of vitamin D3-triggered restoration of the function of damaged endothelium in the cardiovasculature. While these studies were performed using a cellular model of hypertension, the implication of vitamin D3 on dysfunctional endothelium is much broader. The dysfunction of endothelium is a common denominator of several cardiovascular diseases, particularly those associated with ischemic events.
Therefore, the authors suggest that vitamin D3 may be of clinical importance in the restoration of dysfunctional cardiac endothelium after heart attack, capillary endothelium after brain ischemia (stroke), hypovolemia, vasculopathy, diabetes and atherosclerosis. This suggestion is strongly supported by several clinical studies which indicate that vitamin D3 at doses higher than those currently used for the treatment of bone diseases, may be highly beneficial for the treatment of the dysfunctional cardiovascular system.
“Professor Malinksi has an international reputation for outstanding and innovative research related to the cardiovascular system,” Ohio University Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Frank said. “This latest work is yet another example of his impact on this field.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by Ohio University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Thanks for this information. I suppose it confirms much of what I have been saying for some time about vitamin D.
Thank you for interesting information.
5000 IU of natural vitamin D/day has been in my CVD medicine box for some years now.
Bottom line for entries into my box is that all indications are that i might be good for your heart, with no known side effects and reasonably cheap.
New effort to post. Thank you for interesting information.
5000 IU of natural vitamin D/day has been in my CVD medicine box for some years now.
Bottom line for entries into my box is that all indications are that i might be good for your heart, with no known side effects and reasonably cheap.
Irene, the recipe I use for magnesium ‘oil’ is as follows: 50/50 as previous commenter has said, e.g. 50 mg of magnesium chloride flakes and 50 ml of non-tap water. If this is too strong and stings, add more water. Apparently 8 sprays is equivalent to one supplement of 400mg and should absorb in 20 min.
I’m a bit disappointed that magnesium seems to have hijacked the thread – I was hoping to get feedback on readers’ opinions or reactions to the various other vitamins and supplements Dr K mentioned. I had an MI five years ago and ever since have been an avid user of multiple supps. My favourites (for want of a better word) because they seem to be the ones most universally regarded as possibly beneficial for people with a dodgy ticker are Co Q10, turmeric, fish oil, lycopene, garlic, grape seed extract, hawthorn extract, vitamin K2 (this only a recent discovery) and yes, magnesium. A few others I tried and have discarded. I can’t honestly say that I can discern any positive effect from any of them. But I’m still alive, and according to my fairly regular check-ups everything is OK, except for my very high heart calcium count (around 850 according to a recent heart CT scan), which is (presumably) what caused my MI in the first place. Vitamin K2 I have started taking in hope (as Dr K mentions) that it might reduce or at least help stabilise the calcium deposits. Perhaps worth adding that I’m 56 years old and still lead a “normal” life, inshallah!
Oops! I posted the above incorrectly – thought I was reading posts answering Blog 45. Apols!
Mark I take almost all the ones you list and Chondroitin sulfate, Vitamins C & D3 and fresh garlic or kyolic garlic capsules.
Hi Bill. Yes I’ve been taking the Kyolic garlic capsules for years, but I’ve read a lot that suggests dried garlic use is questionable i.e. not much in the way of benefits – so I may stop taking them. About 3 months ago I started taking one or two crushed cloves of fresh garlic with my breakfast, which may be more efficacious. On the other thread (45) I’ve been advised to take more D3 to as apparently it helps the K2 to reduce calcium deposits. I’m trying to narrow down my supplements intake so that I take the ones most beneficial. Also thinking of dropping the hawthorn and grape seed.
Mark,
I fully agree with you that there is a lot you can do on your own!
Though I find this focus on magnesium very intriguing. It sounds very fundamental to me.
Bottom line is to keep away from all “health service” if possible. !5 years after my serious MI I was hit by unstable angina and made the mistake (encouraged by a friend) to return to the HS and realized that nothing was to be gained. I was keenly aware that I had to do research on my own as I had done before and again I did a solved my problem “outside the box”.
I’m a believer in Arjuna for the heart, also capsaicin which is hot pepper.
Mark,
I am really curious as to how you measure the effect of any of those supplements on yourself – I mean testing a whole population is in principle easy – you record how many people fall ill or die off, but what signs do you, as one individual, use to decide these things?
Hi David. I agree completely. I take these supplements and vitamins because I read that they may help, but as I mentioned in my original post I can’t say I feel any different and don’t really know whether they are doing me any good or not. It would be instructive to have input and analysis from a trustworthy health authority, but as yet it seems we must rely on as hoc opinion and research. Best, Mark
Mark, David, and others
Fascinating discussion. Your question above: “I am really curious as to how you measure the effect of any of those supplements on yourself … but what signs do you, as one individual, use to decide these things?” My response is below.
Excellent question. For myself I had metabolic syndrome, moved onto LCHF (4+ years ago) improved much (weight down BMI now 23 ; BP meds gone ; HbA1C now good etc.) but still AFib after 20 years.
But, notwithstanding LCHF I believe I am still Insulin Resistant = Trigs elevated, ApoB high, HDL-C / ApoA too low, usCRP not low enough. All these (indirect) IR markers, except for ApoB, are sort of ok but not good enough.
So, I researched Dr Google for clues tips ideas to improve my health seeing IR as the target.
Therefore, as an answer to your question: I have tried many different “supplements” but at subsequent lipid tests I have seen no significant change. Rather frustrating.
If anybody has any ideas to share as to which what supplements, or lifestyle, or actions that I can test (n=1) to lower my Insulin Resistance while on LCHF I would be really grateful. I will give them a try.
Apparently (per Prof Noakes) about 30% of those who convert to LCHF may not get the lipid markers that they should/expect. I appear to be 1 of the 30%.
Thanks
robert lipp, I don’t know you would see any noticable change in the short term. I think I do, but I have changed diet, lifestyle and added supplements all at the same time, so who knows what is beneficial, anymore than the belief that it is doing some good. I rely on others such as Malcolm Kendrick, Suzanne Humphries, Affifa Hamilton, Weston Price, all those in the orthomolecular field, and many more. I read, and see if what I read is plausible. If it is, then I go with it. In my view it will be chronic deficiencies that cause problems, and they won’t necessarily be fixed by a late change when the damage has been done. How late is too late? I’ve no idea, in my case the damage might already be irreparable, but my grandaughter might benefit.
Doesn’t anybody take blood tests to check vit supp effects. As I mentioned previously I found that the following had positive effects
Vit C on Lp(a)
Vi D3+K2 on vit D levels
B12 & Folate on Homocysteine
Krill on LDL along with Green tea instead of coffee
I am about to test one of myThyroid markers T3 If memory serves me I dont have the readings in front of me, after 2 months of Iodine supping
smartersig, I expct there are a few peole who get their blood tested, but what good would that be anyway? (Note the sneeky use of a “?”) If as an example, you had a magnesium blood test, it would probably say things were normal, but the reserves could be bordering on negligible. So what has the test told you? For any of the tests, you could be in line for a battering from medics because the figures were outside the current defined limits of what is considered correct. As the limits were changed in the past few days, what joy, there is now a wonder pill to fix the problem.
If you are only talking about Magnesium you may have a point but I was talking more generally about supp’s. So for example if you want to know if there is any benefit in Vit C then you could check Lp(a) before and after and if like me you see a reduction then you have at least had positive result in that one area. Vit D would be another easy and accurate item to measure. Maybe I am a numbers guy but when I see numbers change I am more inclined to stick with the regime
We need to have enough vitamins, and it’s difficult to get enough from food, for examle, vitamin C. As my earlier post, that’s an example. By all means have your blood tests and be comforted by the numbers. In respect of nutrition “chronic” is the watchword, so in my opinion, short term numbers have little significance.
Thanks smartersig and AH.
Yes agreed, measure before and after to see if the numbers change significantly in the right direction.
In my case, what I have tried so far, the numbers have not moved significantly.
So I am looking for suggestions (I follow LCHF bordering on Keto + IF 16 hours/day) to (i) lower elevated Trigs, (ii) lower raised ApoB, (iii) raise depressed ApoA, (iv) lower elevated usCRP. As I said above “All these (indirect) IR markers, except for ApoB, are sort of ok but not good enough”
Thanks and appreciated
Forgive me Robert if you have already gone over this but have you read the magnesium article put forward the other day. Gives encouragement on all those markers with references, worth a read
smartersig,
re your comment:
Vit C on Lp(a)
Vi D3+K2 on vit D levels
B12 & Folate on Homocysteine
Been there done that with success.
Bill Lagakos said it well: “context matters”.
If you have alcohol, refined carbs, flours, etc on a regular base, – a “normal” western diet – you may need a lot of magnesium to protect your health?
But Bill,
It is almost universal knowledge that magnesium loosens the bowels. That is why most laxatives contain magnesium. The most common is Milk of Magnesia, or is that just in America? That product is probably 50 to 100 years old. I think if you took enough, eventually you would get diarrhea.
Yes Anna, Milk of Magnesia is indeed used for constipation and has been for ages. Magnesium oxide is often sold to help prevent muscles spasms in athletes.But it is also laxative. On the other hand magnesium citrate does not have thus effect on me & it’s readily available. For example a local supermarket has it on half price special this week : A$16.00 for a container of 120 tablets with 150 mg of magnesium in each 500 mg tablet. So I will buy up this week. I take three a day.
I take magnesium taurate which has the least effect for loose stools and IMO the best of all the different types of magnesium.
Smartersig – iodine
I think you’ve mentioned iodine a few times in your comments.
A recent episode of BBC’s “Trust me I’m a doctor” covered iodine. A few details here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09pvwmb
Thanks Charles, missed that one will watch it now
Here’s a link to a great blog by Dr Michael Eades on magnesium:
https://proteinpower.com/drmike/2005/07/29/magnesium-and-inflammation/
The blog ties in with CVD – it discusses c-reactive protein (an inflammatory marker) and the effect of magnesium on inflammation. Lots of other good stuff on magnesium – type of supplement to look for, dosages.
The FDA has reviewed the available data and does not believe the evidence supports the general use of aspirin for primary prevention of a heart attack or stroke. In fact, there are serious risks associated with the use of aspirin, https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm390574.htm
Randal I looked at that link. Very interesting and useful. But I have just checked the magnesium level in our local mains water supply. It is 10.09 mg per liter and has an alkalinity level of 60.9 mg per liter – probably from other salts in the water.
However I have no idea whether this level is good bad or indifferent ! Any thoughts ?
Sorry I meant you Charles in reply to your comment about Dr Eades article.
This is a good writeup on mg http://openheart.bmj.com/content/openhrt/5/1/e000668.full.pdf
Bill in Oz,
I have four water sources here on the farm, 3 deep wells and one cistern that collects spring water. All four sources tested between 8 mg/L and 11 mg/L magnesium. This is Western Pennsylvania, USA. I don’t think that this is a significant source of magnesium.
As I mentioned above I supplement with Magnesium Bisglycinate from Viva Naturals.
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA
Interesting Science Daily article today on Vitamin D3 –
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180130140242.htm
Frederica, re adding d3 to fix endothelium.
“The dysfunction of endothelium is a common denominator of several cardiovascular diseases, particularly those associated with ischemic events”.
I would like to know what the authors believe caused the endothelial dysfunction in the first place.
When a “remedy” works you readily turn into a strong “believer”. This happened just now to my wife who has been troubled by aching joints in her hands destroying her sound night sleep. Doing “research” it turned out to be a clear cut carpal tunnel syndrome manifestation.
So I asked her yesterday evening. Why don’t we try magnesium spray on your hands? And we did! This morning she was just exited by joy. She had been sleeping like a log.
This is for sure “anecdotal” (or rather a “case” as Malcolm has accurately pointed out) but it is in my mind a “scientific” experiment which we have now carried out. The happy outcome is supported by physiological facts and several other “anecdotes” including my own experience when the initial cramps in my calves (after adhering to the LCHF concept) were resolved when I took an oral magnesium supplement.
Goran, I’m really pleased for your wife. I had the same amazing experience but with a small amount of mag citrate powder. Several months of the best sleeps ever – albeit with some pretty vivid dreams! In more recent times however, I’m finding that sleep has become erratic once more. Also, the restless legs that I thought had become history have returned. Thinking maybe I need to stop taking my nightly magnesium. As someone mentioned earlier – maybe once replete the magic wears off?….
Incidentally, I also make up my own mag citrate spray. I read somewhere that underarm absorption is very effective. As a bonus, it makes an effective and safe deodorant.
Hi Rosie, for great restful sleep try a tablespoon of honey 20 minutes before you want to be asleep. It works like a charm every single time.
The details of why this works are in the book ‘A new honey revolution’ but the basics are that your brain needs energy to sleep properly. When you fall asleep the brain shuts off your insulin response in order to keep its fuel from being stored. The honey provides the much needed fuel. If your brain runs out of fuel during the night it releases stress hormones which, through a long process, provides more energy to the brain. My suspicion is that during this flood of stress hormones we experience nightmares, stressful and uneven sleep. The honey prevents this.
It’s been 9 months now and every single night has been wonderful. No more stress, no nightmares, just restful sleep.
The steps are:
1 heaping tablespoon 20 minutes before sleep (only 17 grams of carbs)
Rinse mouth out with water as honey is slightly acidic and you don’t want to brush away your teeths hard outer layer.
Brush teeth, go to bed in dark room, and fall asleep within a couple of minutes. If you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and then lay back in bed thinking ‘I’m wide awake now, I’ll never fall asleep’ the next thought you’ll have will be ‘holy moly it’s morning, what a great nights’ sleep’
9 months into this and my kids and I have all been to the dentist and no cavities. Try it once, you won’t be disappointed. Try to get local raw unheated honey. Let me know how it goes.
Will give this a try Doug many thanks. If it works I will suggest it to my 91 year old mother who has some sleep problems
Rosie,
Interesting!
It is not improbable that the effect of magnesium wears of with time – as with getting used to alcohol. You need higher doses to achieve the same pleasant (?) effect. This may be regarded as simple as the ubiquitous homeostasis.
I am taking high doses of natural vitamin E which evidently keeps my unstable angina at bay. However I started at 1600 IU and this worked fine for about three years when the angina came back. Consulting the book from Dr. Shute the wear of effect was mentioned and the advice was to increase the dose. Presently at 2400 IU/day I seem to be in control again.
Might be the same with magnesium.
Doug/Goran
I’m definitely going to try the honey, thanks for this info, Doug.
Goran, I think you make a good point. I must test this theory out (not on a honey night!).
I’ll report back
You might find this interesting: http://www.drbriffa.com/2014/08/22/not-all-men-with-symptoms-of-an-enlarged-prostate-have-an-enlarged-prostate-whats-going-on/
Well well, you learn something new every day. Thanks for the link John. Excuse me while I get some nuts.
Preferably brazils (aka bolivians as brazil nuts don’t come from Brazil) as then you will get the important mineral selenium too.
A note about nuts, Stephen, apparently Brazil nuts are such a good source of Selenium that you should not have too many, or you may get too much.
John, one could try jumping up and down to strengthen bladder muscles. Might work for other organs as well. That is what I use the mini trampoline for.
Mark R
I didn’t spot vitamin c in your list of supplements.
I don’t know if you are new to this website but you’ll find plenty on vitamin c on previous blogs and comments.
You may want to check out Linus Pauling/Matthias Rath and their views on the role of vitamin c on how it strengthens the arteries, and the damage caused by insufficient vit C. And also Dr Suzanne Humphries. Essentially, they both (I think) are singing from the same hymn sheet on how important vitamin C is.
Hi Charles. Thanks. Yes I’ve added vitamin C to my list after reading this blog and the comments. Also going to boost my D3 intake. On the other hand I’m thinking of stopping using fish oil supplements after the various comments about the oil becoming rancid – and perhaps try and eat more oily fish, though I already eat it once or twice a week.
I use Krill oil and certainly get little or no upset or burpy stomach unlike when I use fish oil
As for vitamin C, don’t overdo it as so many people do. More is not always better. Keep it around 400 mg. See The recommendation by the Linus Pauling Institute: http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/vitamins/vitamin-C#LPI-recommendation
As for vitamin D, you should really know your blood level for accurate dosing:
See: https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/i-tested-my-vitamin-d-level-what-do-my-results-mean/
Without knowing your blood level, I wouldn’t overdo this vitamin either. 1000 IU (or 2000 IU every other day should be fine.
Be careful with turmeric, it can contribute to iron deficiency.
The Linus Pauling Institute is rather “cautious” in it’s recommendations, and certainly much lower than Linus Pauling would have recommended. 400mg a day is an unsatisfactory figure for the fundamental reason you have not taken into account the person’s weight, which has a bearing on the dose of every other substance required, so why not vitamin C. Next there is the lack of adjustment of dose depending on the person’s circumstances. The dose is influenced by the toxic load caused by pollution, the stress caused by diseases/infections and any stress which affects the HPA axis.
400mg is way lower than any other animal of a similar weight to humans. Why is 400mg enough? What are the supposed problems with higher doses?
I think I would rather believe Suzanne Humphries.
Linus Pauling himself (as me) took 16 grams per day – quit a difference!
@AH Notepad
” 400mg a day is an unsatisfactory figure for the fundamental reason you have not taken into account the person’s weight, which has a bearing on the dose of every other substance required, so why not vitamin C.”
That is simply not true. Unless you are a child or extremely over(/under)weight, usually doses are not adjusted. At least that is the case with most substances. And even if you would adjust this 400 mg dose to the weight of a person, you would never get a megadose.
“400mg is way lower than any other animal of a similar weight to humans. Why is 400mg enough? What are the supposed problems with higher doses?”
Studies conducted at the National Institutes of Health showed that plasma and circulating cells in healthy, young subjects attained near-maximal concentrations of vitamin C at a dose of 400 mg/day
( http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/vitamins/vitamin-C#LPI-recommendation )
Most mammals can produce their own vitamin C, so you cannot compare the intake of humans with that of animals.
Besides, in humans their is a mechanism that can recycle oxidized vitamin C.
There are several studies documenting negative effects at higher intakes. Do a search, I am sure you will find them.
@Göran: Quite a difference indeed. My credo is “moderation in all things” 🙂
Obviously you have another credo 🙂
I am now suitably petrified that the 10 + grams a day of vitamin C I am taking can do me irrepreparrable harm.
No! Wait! What is this I see in the very lpi report you cited, under “Safety”
”Toxicity
A number of possible problems with very large doses of vitamin C have been suggested, mainly based on in vitro experiments or isolated case reports, including genetic mutations, birth defects, cancer, atherosclerosis, kidney stones, “rebound scurvy,” increased oxidative stress, excess iron absorption, vitamin B12 deficiency, and erosion of dental enamel. However, none of these alleged adverse health effects have been confirmed in subsequent studies, and there is no reliable scientific evidence that large amounts of vitamin C (up to 10 grams/day in adults) are toxic or detrimental to health. The concern of kidney stone formation with vitamin C supplementation is discussed below.
With the latest RDA published in 2000, a tolerable upper intake level (UL) for vitamin C was set for the first time (Table 3). A UL of 2 grams (2,000 milligrams) daily was recommended in order to prevent most adults from experiencing diarrhea and gastrointestinal disturbances (17). Such symptoms are not generally serious, especially if they resolve with temporary discontinuation or reduction of high-dose vitamin C supplementation. ”
So the 400mg appears to be a bit of a red herring. Messrs Humphries, Cathcart, Pauling, Rath, Levy, Klenner et al all agree that the biggest problem with taking vitamin C is taking too little.
Incedentally, the Linus Pauling Institute report recommends AT LEAST 400mg per day. That is we should have more and they go on to say 10g per day would not be a problem, So sorry I will be continuing with my reckless doses.
Leon,
Dr Cannell, who oversees the website you mention, recommends starting D3 at 5,000 IU per day for a month or so.
Then check your blood level of 25(OH)D and make adjustments accordingly.
The idea is that 1,000 to 2,000 IU is probably not enough to bring the average Joe up to a sufficiency level.
The danger of overdosing is exaggerated. If you take 20,000 IU a day you should probably monitor regularly.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1568519
Seems taking 1 g of Vitamin C per day over 11 years will double your risk of kidney stones. Absolut risk from taking this amount is 1 in roughly 670, so not very high.
Bill in Oz
I’ve no idea about magnesium levels in tap water – never thought about checking it either.
I note you take magnesium citrate and bulk bought some tablets.
Don’t you also take it in powder form too?
Any preference between the two form you take?
I searched for magnesium citrate powder on iherb and randomly chose the Now product. But it all seemed very complex in mixing it up – the water had to be a certain temperature and also involved measuring out 8 fluid ounces of water in relation to the amount of powder. Something like that.
I lost interest at that point but I am convinced after this and the previous blog and fantastic comments that I should be adding magnesium to my supplementation. Especially from the sleep and mental health side of things – nature’s chill pill.
Charles I find powders more time & effort to take. Just as you did. So I prefer tablets, capsules etc. And as it happens there is an Australian company called ‘Swisse’ that now makes magnesium citrate tablets and is selling them in one of my local supermarkets @ A$16.00 for 120 tablets on special.
An easy choice !
🙂
Charles, I just looked at the Iherb site and I see there is Solaray, Magnesium Citrate, 400 mg, 180 caps for around A$14.00 which is a good deal…But the postage will make it about A$23.00 for me here in Oz. So more or less the same.. But maybe for you it would work ?
3 Eggs per Day good or bad? Study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28077734
Funded by the egg marketing board, see bottom of reprt
http://www.eggnutritioncenter.org/
Wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow ban research funded by people with a financial axe to grind!
We might just swap them for research done by those with an idealogic axe to grind, and their idealogies are not always benign.
I want to know hoow the chooks were treated – caged, confined to a shed or pastured ?
Eggs are only as good as the feed they get. And feed pellets used for caged chooks and chooks locked up in shed do not cut the mustard.
We feed our chickens cracked corn, multigrain, and sometimes even the pellets because they have higher protein. Mostly in winter. We also sometimes cut up scraps for them and they even beg for deer meat and scraps on the occasion when my husband shoots a deer. There is a natural competition for food between chickens and dogs…But they run around all day scratching and pecking for food all over the place, living their soap opera lives. My husband pays more attention to them than I do and he fills me in on the gossip.
I recently learned that Himalayan salt contains about 0.2 % of magnesium according to the provider when I asked. With a recommended intake of about 400 mg/day, as per the reference Malcom provided, you just need 2 grams of this salt to cover your needs.
This seems to be a very cheap way of of getting what you need in terms of magnesium.
Anyway spraying on your skin with any (?) magnesium salt solution seems to be a quick and cheap way to solve deficiency problems.
Göran, can you explain the maths please? 0.2% of 2 grams (2000mg) is 4mg. Is this the recommended daily dose?
AH
You are right! This was a calculation error I made.
I am a little bit embarrassed 🙂
Himalayan salt seems though to be good but does not solve any magnesium deficiency issues. Sounds like the spray is a better way to go, 27 mg per spray according to what I read on the spray bottle. With 10 – 20 sprays you are safe?
Himalayan salt is really expensive here Goran. Over $17.00 for 200 grams and it is mostly ( 95%) just sodium chloride.
Funny!
I just checked on this and find I can buy Himalaya salt in a supermarket in Sweden at about 6 USD /kg.
Goran, Hamalayan salt is not available for sale in any local supermarkets..Only in one expensive health food store. Every place is different I guess.
Try Redmond Real salt if you want mg in your salt
On thing I have noticed and which I may have mentioned before is that when ever I have a chick pea curry with mushrooms and spinach included I sleep like a baby, thats is no toilet breaks in the night. I assumed this was perhaps the fiber but it strikes me that it may be the salt. Dont know how much they put in but based on my morning thirst its probably more than my usual whole food pant based meal. Could salt be a night time remedy for people with enlarged prostrate ?, I feel an experiment coming on.
Krill oil/fish oil and rancidity/oxidation
Some interesting comments on storage/freshness.
I’ve tried several fish oil brands (always softgels) and they all state store in a cool, dry and dark place. No mention of refrigeration. I’ve never had a problem with rancidity and I never leave the container open.
(Same applies to vitamin C powders – Dr Suzanne Humphries has stressed keeping the containers closed asap to avoid/minimise oxidation of the powder/crystals.)
Here’s another great blog by Dr Michael Eades on this topic:
https://proteinpower.com/drmike/2005/10/20/oxidized-fish-oil/
For those who want to know more about krill oil supplementation, visit his website and put krill oil into the search engine – there are about 8 posts specifically on krill oil.
Hi Bill
Thanks for the heads up on Solaray – £8.13 plus P&P for 180 magnesium citrate capsules looks like value for money to me.
Off Topic or On ? Dr Kendrick, I have just been reading (rereading ? ) your post from February 2014 “A sorry little patient tale”
I find myself perplexed by the near universal prescription of statins. And come to the conclusion it is designed to make us older folk into zombies before we all kark it.
Which makes me wonder : “How many doctors take statins themselves ?” Are they too stainised and so becoming zombies ?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I do remember that the Daily Mail ran an article a few years back in which a doctor with an Indian sounding name explained how he used to prescribe statins happily until he himself was prescribed them, and suddenly discovered just how troublesome those muscle pains can be! As I remember, he gave up on statins after getting a taste of his own medicine. Perhaps someone here can supply the link!
David, was that Dr Aseem Malhotra maybe ? Website is http://doctoraseem.com/
Or maybe Dr Rangan Chatterjee – https://drchatterjee.com/about/
Both have appeared on UK BBC programmes.
Randal’s website link below is good on this topic.
Bill, you are not the only one perplexed. I have acquired a ‘pre-diabetic’ pack from NHS; 3 pamphlets produced by the British Heart Foundation, and aimed at addressing the problem of type II diabetes and ‘high’ cholesterol. I see that pre-diabetics are advised to get HbA1c below 48, and total cholesterol below 4. In order to achieve these targets, the Eatwell Plate should do the trick. I think not!
I can hardly believe I am reading such tommy-rot in 2018.
No wonder we need to be discussing the use of vitamin and mineral supplementation on this blog…when the NHS is advising us to minimise our intake of saturated fats, (get seed oils to replace butter); eat ‘plenty” of starchy carbs, and worst of all….COUNT CALORIES.
When my total cholesterol was ‘successfully’ reduced to 3.3(!) nearly 5 years ago, with the aid of high dose statins, I felt that I was at death’s door. Enough was enough….my glucose levels were out of control despite 2g metformin, sitigliptin and pioglitazone, my B/P was erratic, despite meds.
I know I have told my tale of woe here over the years, and how I ultimately left all the medications behind, but to think that nothing has changed in the advice being handed out today, makes me wonder if there is an under-current to get us oldies off this mortal coil. I heard this week that a 78 year old female is still being prescribed statins, despite having constant muscle pain. When she previously questioned their use in relation to raised glucose levels, she was tested for type II, and when the results came back OK, she was told to continue with the statins. NO history of CVD, smoking or drinking. It beggars belief.
The answer Jennifer is encouraging older folk to tell the quacks to f**k off. This takes courage especially when statin consumption is near universal in folk over 65.and ‘demanded’ of us by younger medical ‘professionals’ who do not take then themselves.
Now that you are have refused to take statins, has the pre Type2 Diabetes also also disappeared ?
Bill. as an aside before answering your question…25 years ago I received some good advice whilst doing a short secondment as a bed manager in NHS. ( how on earth did I land that thankless role during the political obscenity of the time). The role was so stressful, but the gem has stayed with me since…..’Jennifer, get your ‘f**k you money’ behind you asap, and you will manage any situation thrown at you.
However, it took me some years to realise that the medical treatment I was receiving for well over 10 years was actually causing me a slow death. I spent 3 months researching all the meds I was taking, then the penny dropped: I felt that I had never needed any of them in the first place. I discussed it with my GP, and the response was rude and dismissive…..but I kept the language sweet, and just left the surgery with a referral to an endocrinologist, who would no doubt ‘enjoy having me as an ‘intellectual challenge’. After an intelligent half hour’s discussion, it was concluded that I need not be on the buckets full of meds after all, so within a week or two, I was off the lot. I look back now and feel that I ought never to have been prescribed any of them in the first place….I had been caught up in the ever-diminishing ‘thresholds’, trapping us into statin therapy, antihypertensives, and all manner of hypoglycaemic therapy. I explained to the consultant that I intended to revert back to the management of ‘senile onset diabetes’ that I had learned back in the 1960s as a student radiographer, and he wished me good luck. I have not looked back since. My excess weight dropped off perfectly naturally, to a BMI of 23.5, and has remained as such since. I do not know what has happened to my “type 2” because I do not go for blood tests, and I have absolutely nothing to suggest there is a glucose problem. I have an excellent Ophthalmic Optician, who assures me my eye health is very good, with no aging problems ( needed specs due to measles at 4 years of age). I do not know what my ‘ cholesterol’ level is either….but it must be pretty darned good, as I am in excellent health.
I had intended not to respond on this blog, as my story has been told so many times, and I have very little else to contribute….but I hope that answers your question.
I just could not resist letting off steam here, after reading the garbage in the NHS pre-diabetes pamphlets, so thanks for reading my story.
.
Hi did you have any problems coming off the BNP meds. Keep trying to come off mine but my body jumps up
Biddy99. Firstly, I never suggest that anyone should copy what I have done. I believe that I never actually required B/P meds in the first place, and that is why I had/ do not have any problems. Over 10 years I had 2 X 24 hour B/P tapes analysed, and monitored my B/P at home …there were no abnormalities ever…..suggesting I had white coat hypertension. It was not until I discussed the situation with a GP, who also displayed white coat hypertension, then ultimately being advised by the endocrinologist, that the drugs I had been taking for years were inappropriate.
Sorry that should have said bp meds
Jennifer,
an amazing story, well done.
Thank you Robert. I must reiterate what I have constantly said…..I merely tell my tale, and never advise anyone to copy my method of turning my back on Big Pharma. We are all different, and I can only think I was able to safely come off all meds, because I actually never needed them in the first place. During the first couple of years I was concerned that I might take a turn for the worst, and that stressed me out a bit. But, nothing happened, fortunately, despite being warned by my GP that I could succumb to a ‘cardiac’ event. I am more relaxed about that now, but I feel that modern medicine is a bit like crystal ball gazing, and based on frightening us into submission to Big Pharma.
Modern medicine is based on the complete opposite to personalized medicine. When we are told that it might be dangerous to allow AI to diagnose and suggest treatments because they are too rigid and rule based, you have to realise that is what we have already. Its a one size fits all approach. So take the example of a heart attack, the one size fits all approach is that you are first of all a complete moron incapable of understanding the possible complex reasons for your condition/event. Secondly you are assumed to have the will power of a child in a sweet shop. There is no way you could possibly make radical lifestyle changes because the average person could not, mind you the average person is also never given the full lowdown on what lifestyle changes are needed because they are children in sweet shops. Its a circular argument which is refuted by the likes of Dr Esseltyn who maintains that when people have had life threatening events they are, in the majority, very willing to do anything, adopt everything. Finally the reson for the heart attack is singular, even when there is little evidence to support it. What I mean by that is that if you are found to have little or no blockages they still proceed on this basis. My readings/reserach/ramblings over the last 5 years has now led me to a position where I feel I want to hold a talk for people out there on ‘What to do to avoid or if you have a heart attack’. I know I will get attacked for not being a GP but I am motivated by the knowledge that if I knew then what I know now things would be different. Apologies starting to ramble a bit
Jennifer,
“modern medicine is… based on frightening us into submission to Big Pharma”
A woman I know, late 60s, healthy, never had a heart problem, was put on statins on the basis of a cholesterol test (incidentally, she was not told to fast before doing the test, which is the correct procedure).
Hearing from her friends about the dangers of statins, she asked the doctor whether she could stop taking the statins.
“Sure,” he replied. “Go ahead and stop taking them — if you want to have a heart attack!”
Thank you Jennifer for telling your own story….In sharing we strengthen each other’s resolve.
Maybe it is worth while mentioning that magnesium deficiency aggravates hypokalemia and renders it refractory to treatment by potassium.
( http://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/18/10/2649.full ).
It is also important to note that the calcium/magnesium ratio is should be considered:
Modifying effect of calcium/magnesium intake ratio and mortality: a population-based cohort study.
Consistent with our hypothesis, the Ca/Mg intake ratio significantly modified the associations of intakes of Ca and Mg with mortality risk, whereas no significant interactions between Ca and Mg in relation to outcome were found. The associations differed by gender. Among men with a Ca/Mg ratio >1.7, increased intakes of Ca and Mg were associated with reduced risks of total mortality, and mortality due to coronary heart diseases. In the same group, intake of Ca was associated with a reduced risk of mortality due to cancer. Among women with a Ca/Mg ratio ≤1.7, intake of Mg was associated with increased risks of total mortality, and mortality due to cardiovascular diseases and colorectal cancer.
( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23430595 )
In 1964 already, Mildred Seelig writes:
SUMMARY
The widespread assumption that the average
daily intake of magnesium is sufficient to
maintain equilibrium in the normal adult has
been questioned. Analysis of published me
tabolic data indicates that the minimal daily requirement is not 220 to 300 mg. per day,
as has been reiterated, or even 5 mg. per kg.
per day as has also been suggested, but probably at least 6 mg. per kg. per day.
The available clinical metabolic data provide
evidence that at intakes below 6 mg. per kg.
per day, negative magnesium balance is likely
to develop, particularly in men. Women seem to retain more magnesium than men at
low and marginal magnesium intakes. At
intakes above 10 mg. per kg. per day, strong
positive magnesium balances develop, which
probably reflect repletion of suboptimal tissue
stores. High protein, calcium and vitamin
D intakes, and alcohol all function to impede
retention or to increase the requirement of
magnesium, particularly in those on low
magnesium intakes. On magnesium intakes
above 6 mg. per kg. per day, little interference
with magnesium retention by calcium, protein or vitamin D has been reported.
The diet in the Orient apparently provides
6 to 10 mg. per kg. per day. The Occidental
diet, however, provides an average of 250 to
30() mg. of magnesium daily, or less than 5
mg. per kg. per day for most adults. Because
the Western diet is often also rich in protein,
calcium and vitamin D, and alcohol ingestion
is common, it is suggested that the optimal
daily intake of magnesium should be 7 to
10 mg. per kg. per day.
The existence of subacute or chronic mag
nesium deficiency is difficult to diagnose.
Because the tissues damaged by magnesium
depletion are those of the cardiovascular, renal
and the neuromuscular systems, early damage
is not readily detectable. It is postulated that
long-term suboptimal intakes of magnesium
may participate in the pathogenesis of chronic
diseases of these systems.
( http://www.mgwater.com/seelig_the_requirement_of_magnesium_1.pdf )
On potassium and hypertension:
MPS 17-01 The effects of long-term enriched potassium salt consumption on urinary protein and occult blood in Chinese living in nursing houses.
After 1-year follow-up, SBP and UNa/K of participants were significantly different between two groups (means were 152.9 ± 22.5, 161.8 ± 27.9; 1.9 ± 1.2, 3.8 ± 2.4 for intervention and control group respectively, p < 0.0001).
( https://journals.lww.com/jhypertension/Abstract/2016/09001/MPS_17_01_The_effects_of_long_term_enriched.1207.aspx )
That's a very big difference in blood pressure, much more than just salt reduction can do.
However, as to salt, it depends on your genetics:
Lifestyle intervention might easily improve blood pressure in hypertensive men with the C genotype of angiotensin II type 2 receptor gene.
No significant change was observed in systolic blood pressure (SBP) (mmHg) in the A genotype, but a significant decrease was observed in the C genotype (150.0-141.5, P = 0.024).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26244077
Magnesium can reduce BBB (Blood Brain Barrier) permeability and promote BBB clearance of Aβ (Amyloid-B peptide) from the brain—-
Amyloid Plaques. One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease is the accumulation of amyloid plaques between nerve cells (neurons) in the brain. Amyloid is a general term for protein fragments that the body produces normally. Beta amyloid is a protein fragment snipped from an amyloid precursor protein (APP).
Amyloid beta. Amyloid beta (Aβ or Abeta) denotes peptides of 36–43 amino acids that are crucially involved in Alzheimer’s disease as the main component of the amyloid plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer patients.
Magnesium Reduces Blood-Brain Barrier Permeability and Regulates Amyloid-β Transcytosis.
Zhu D1, Su Y2, Fu B3, Xu H4,5.
Author information
Abstract
Poor Mg status is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we provided the first evidence that elevated Mg levels significantly reduced the blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability and regulated its function in vitro. Transient receptor potential melastatin 7 (TRPM7) and magnesium transporter subtype 1 (MagT1) were two major cellular receptors mediating entry of extracellular Mg2+ into the cells. Elevated Mg levels also induced an accelerated clearance of amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) from the brain to the blood side via BBB transcytosis through low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein (LRP) and phosphatidylinositol binding clathrin assembly protein (PICALM), while reduced the influx of Aβ from the blood to the brain side involving receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) and caveolae. Mg enhanced BBB barrier properties and overall expression of LRP1 and PICALM whereas reduced that of RAGE and caveolin-1. Apical-to-basolateral and vice versa steady-state Aβ flux achieved an equilibrium of 18 and 0.27 fmol/min/cm2, respectively, about 30 min after the initial addition of physiological levels of free Aβ. Knockdown of caveolin-1 or disruption of caveolae membrane microdomains reduced RAGE-mediated influx significantly, but not LRP1-mediated efflux of Aβ. Stimulating endothelial cells with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) enhanced caveolin-1 phosphorylation and RAGE expression. Co-immunoprecipitation demonstrated that RAGE, but not LRP1, was physically associated with caveolin-1. Thus, Mg can reduce BBB permeability and promote BBB clearance of Aβ from the brain by increasing the expression of LRP1 and PICALM while reducing the level of RAGE and caveolin-1.
KEYWORDS:
Alzheimer’s disease; Caveolae; LRP; MagT1; PICALM; RAGE; TRPM7
PMID: 29383689 DOI: 10.1007/s12035-018-0896-0
This website is the go-to for all things Magnesium, info that has been around for many decades [ as has Drs Pauling,Klenners &Cathcart on Ascorbic acid protocols, viz Dr Saul’s doctoryourself.com] : The Magnesium Online Library http://www.mgwater.com/index.shtml
My wife is now ecstatic about the health effects of magnesium after only a couple of days of successful administration through foot bath and spraying since she couldn’t tolerate oral supplement due to her sensitive intestines.
Her problem with frequent visits to the bathroom seems now to be gone (too early to judge?) and a problem which has almost invalidated her for a year or so.
How about Q10. Watch this video by a cardiologist that uses it in his practice – very important for the heart. He takes patients off statins and gets them taking Q10 and preformed studies on his patients. Q10 lowers oxLDL etc.
Please listen to the above video more than once, too much info. Like don’t throw away old statins: great fire ant killer. What to kill a house plant: one statin will do it.
Sorry Randal. I seem to be missing something. Which video link ? I can’t see it.
sorry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gaJH-DvdnU
Thank you Randall. I will remember this Dr’s statement at around 45 minutes about statins for a long, long time.
“Mental impairment from statins approaches 100%.”
And when they are given to the elderly this is not noticed as dementia is considered ‘NORMAL’
Standard medical practice is “medicate to zombidom and then let them die..”
Magnesium (mg)/stress/noise stress and blood serum levels
Dar Dobs – many thanks for the link to the Magnesium Library. Plenty to look at but under the
“links to over 300 articles discussing mg or mg deficiency” section, I selected stress. I guess no surprise to followers of Dr Kendrick.
4 links are available but I found the article entitled “mg, stress and neuropsychiatric disorders” most relevant to this particular blog, the CVD stress hypothesis (and to me personally as a noise sufferer).
I’m a layman but the basic headlines/takeaway (I think) was that stress/stress from noise results in a drop in the mg stored in the body (“erythrocyte mg” and “myocardial mg”) and increases in the serum mg. The article refers to it as “a shift of magnesium from the intracellular to the extracellular compartment”.
Exactly as Dr Kendrick wrote above: “the vast majority of mg is not in the blood, it is stored in cells/tissues/organs”.
For those self experimenters who do cortisol stress tests, checking magnesium serum levels might be another option (especially when the neighbours are noisy or you live next to a busy main road).
Busy main roads…reminds me of a BBC documentary a few years back on sleep disorders on this topic. The residents were interviewed and some said the noise was an issue and some said they slept like a log. But they weren’t sleeping like logs…
…once the residents were wired up and samples of this that and the other were taken, the science said differently.
I’ve gritted my teeth and fought tooth and nail against adding another supplement (mg) to my supplement regime, but the juggernaut weight of knowledge presented in these 2 blogs on supplements has made resistance futile.
Our study revealed significant associations between serum Mg and 25(OH) D levels. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3915480/ In other words you need both. IMO vitamin K2 is required in order to have your calcium metabolism work correctly if taking D3.
I bumped into https://drcarolyndean.com/2018/02/make-heart-month-magnesium-month/
(after browsing her 99p kindle book).
The link is related in good part to this very blog page.
I appreciated landing in
https://drcarolyndean.com/2014/12/a-comedy-of-medical-errors/
But perhaps as an Englishman reacted against the product promotion even while recognising that if a product doesn’t exist that ought to be available – medical researchers are part of doing so and promoting it (ionic magnesium).
The other 99p book mentioned here somewhere by Verner Wheelock turned out to be already bought on my kindle (?) but by ch4 I already feel it a very good resource for those who trusted a global ‘consensus’ because it was globally endorsed by many of the most prestigious and reputable – and find it hard to revise their perspective.
The political undertones don’t surface often because greed and reputation is felt to be sufficient to account for the ‘mistakes’. But there are global initiatives that lay down the basis for ‘consensual’ mandates across various sectors.
I have mentioned Dr. Dean and her liquid supplements here a few times but no one ever responded so I assumed no one was interested. Her products are very expensive and most people cannot afford it no matter how much “better” they are. But her information is good, and so is the information provided by Dr. Sircus regarding all types of natural medicine.
Getting more interested in this subject due to the surprisingly positiv effect noted on my wife by the spraying and the foot bath I now tried to find a “scientific” support to our (n=1) experiment but was “hit by a rock” when reading the following paper.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579607/
Being a researcher myself I have trouble ignoring a solid paper of this kind. Perhaps “the devil” is in the details. In the natural science I am familiar with (metallurgy) we never see any needs for placebo controlled experiments although we often argue about cause and effect in actual experiments.
If we are now personally noting a “placebo” effect it is for sure a very strong one and I will certainly not disturb my wife with my own doubts injected by this paper.
And Epson foot bath are really relaxing even if the magnesium you may get from it is very small. The Epson paper seems to be on thin ice if I should believe the paper I linked to.
Goran I skimmed through the article you gave the link for ..I noticed that none of the studies did the simple experiement of having a long hot soak in warm/hot water with epsom salts..Which is the most popular way especially for people wanting to relax muscles etc.
They did all sorts of other things like spraying on Magnesium oil or only letting people in a magnesium bath for “12 minutes”. What the f**K ??????!!!!!! And then there was the interesting report on “near drownings” in the Dead Sea because dead sea water is high in Magnesium salts….I always thought it was impossible in the Dead Sea.
In other words that study is not a reliable one. And it’s working for your lady. When you are on a good thing mate, stick to it !
Epson is a printer brand, epsoM = Magnesium sulfate.
Useful info @ https://www.epsomsaltcouncil.org/
(The trouble with being punctual is: there’s nobody to appreciate it ;-))
Göran, the truth of their findings is hard to judge but I found a part of their preamble deeply interesting. The layers of dead corneocytes, skin cells, that form the outer layer of skin:
“(corneocytes) are embedded in a lipid matrix composed of ceramides, cholesterol, and fatty acids. The stratum corneum functions to form a water-repellent barrier to protect underlying tissue from infection, dehydration, chemicals and mechanical stress”
Firstly that makes it obvious why fatty acids are so useful for skin restoration but also it is another example of the way cholesterol lowering drugs can cause harm. I have had two friends taking the recommended mixture of aspirin and statins who have mentioned that their skin was easily damaged. They both thought it was due to the aspirin but it seems much more likely that it was down to the statins.
Indeed! Happy to see you are coming around. From 2012:
I use borax water (1 rounded tsp borax in 1 litre water) as a supplement. I have no idea if it does me any good, but it hasn’t killed me. This edited extract from http://www.health-science-spirit.com/borax.htm persuaded me to give it a try:
“About half of the total body magnesium is found in bones and the other half inside the cells of tissues and organs. Only 1% is in the blood, and the kidneys try to keep this levels constant by excreting more or less with the urine.
In contrast, 99% of calcium is in bones, and the rest in the fluid outside of cells. Muscles contract when calcium moves into the cells, and they relax when calcium is again pumped out and magnesium moves in.
[Calcium accumulating in cells] leads to only partial relaxation of the muscles with stiffness, a tendency to cramps, and poor blood and lymph circulation. The problem gets worse the more calcium moves from bones into soft tissue.
With boron deficiency too much calcium moves into the cell while magnesium cannot move inside to displace it. This is the condition of old age and of the boron-deficiency diseases leading up to it.
For boron to be fully effective in reversing tissue calcification ample magnesium is required. For elderly individuals I recommend 400 to 600 mg of magnesium together with the daily borax supplementation spaced out during the day.”
Thanks for bringing this to our attention Martin. I have never heard of Boron being needed to be healthy. And I have never heard of the ‘discoverer’ of it’s importance for preventing arthritis, Dr. Newham here in Oz. So I was interested to see what he has written himself, especially as he was a soil scientist in West Australia when he made this discovery, though originally from New Zealand.
Here is something he wrote himself on the subject. Unfortunately it is not dated. But it does state he was then living in the UK. All in all an interesting thought provoking article.
http://www.encognitive.com/node/1387
By the way Borax is still available here ( from hardware shops ) to get rid of ant infestations.
This pdf by Newham was published in the USA in 1994. It is also interesting.
Click to access Boron-and-Arthritis.pdf
There is an interesting aspect to this Boron issue. Boron is taken up from the soil and available in well grown fruits and vegetables. So hypothetically we can get what we need from these foods.
However chemical fertilisers like superphosphate, block plant uptake and thus the crops are deficient which then generates human deficiency and arthritis..Yes another way that farming organically yields better food I guess..
Bill, lots of trace element work was done here, at the Waite and CSIRO eg
Click to access Trace_Element_disorders_in_SA.pdf
Bill in Oz , thanks for the boron link.
Craig, thanks for that pdf link summurising the decades of trace element research work was done here in SA at the Waite and CSIRO. I did not know about it.
There is so many areas here with high calcium soils ( with very high ph soil levels ) and so many areas with soil consisting of deep sand, that trace elements like cobalt, copper, manganese and molybdenum are often completely missing or present in inadequate levels.
And I noted the section on boron toxicity ( too much ) in many close to sea level areas of South Australia due to sea inundation in the geologic past…
What I think especially interesting is that often the soil research work was driven by stock ( sheep & cattle ) not thriving or getting chronically sick in these areas. But I wonder what diseases the local GP’s saw in the people living in these areas… We are not that different in our need for trace elements in food !
I think I am lucky to live in the Adelaide Hills in a part with reasonably good black soils where Boron toxicity & most of the other deficiencies do not occur.
Interesting tweet from James DiNicolantonio:
“Magnesium deficiency = a side effect of overconsuming sugar. High-sugar diet = Hyperinsulinemia = magnesium wasting out the urine. High-sugar diet = Insulin resistance = prevention of magnesium movement into the cell”.
May be slow down your alcohol?
Magnesium deficiency in alcohol addiction and withdrawal.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1844558
This is such an interesting discussion. Thank you everyone – and thank you Malcolm for bringing this to our attention. Personally, I have not taken supplements but do have pumpkin seeds (about 1/4 cup) in my salad everyday. 🙂
Off topic but interesting, I think it was George Henderson or someone else who had been dredging up papers and books from the past
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrmmwvmxzrtupip/Animal%20Fat%20CVD%201966.pdf?dl=0
looking back at the history of heat disease from the perspective of 1966. Things were very different then.
Chris C, yes very very interesting ! And even more valuable because as an article it is ‘readable’ unlike many more recently written research reports.
Summing up : it seems that heart disease was almost unknown before the 18oo’s and rare until the 1920’s.
And so even back in 1966 people informed knew that angina pectoris was not due to saturated fat & meat consumption; nor was it due to obesity or lack of exercise.
Sugar & smoking tobacco were the key associated factors.
By the way here is another Dropbox article from the past. It was written by Dr Lester Morrison in 1973. Morrison experimented with Chondroitin Sulfate for about 30 years. In the 1960’s he started an experiment with 2 groups of human with CVD. One group were prescribed CS. The other were not but took the standard CVD medications. The trial lasted 5 years. It made an astonishing difference in the survival rate. In fact I suspect now the trial would have bene called off for ethical reasons because the survival rate of the CS group was so much better than the other.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/17vsix1d1qbctft/morrison1973.pdf?dl=0Dr
I think I must check out what the “dropbox’ website is.
Bill,
Thank you for this great reference! How could anyone argue against these facts? Except Big Pharma!
Chondroitin sulfate has been ignored for decades Goran. Unfortunately it is a natural substance and therefore cannot be patented by pharmaceutical companies…
And on the other hand it is mostly sourced from the ligaments of cattle sent to slaughter in abatoirs. So no one of vegetarian or vegan inclination approves of it either. .
Well!
Bone broth where cartilage joints are essential is a stable in our kitchen (24 hr of slow cooking!). It is also recommended as the most nutritious food achievable, not least if you have gut problems. Is Chondroitin Sulfate involved in this – I have never heard of it – ?
And vegetarians are in my present world view locked into a religious dogmatic world view encouraged by the political correctness.
Goran, I agree completely. Bone broth is a way to go. But on a warm 37 degree Summer day, ( like all this week ) we try to minimse cooking & it’s heat….
Also unfortunately here in Oz many of us cannot afford to slow cook for 24 hours….Electricity, solar & wind generated ( as encouraged by our PC governments) is so expensive we minimise it’s use.
Thanks! Yes a lot of stuff dredged up from the past is interesting and well presented. I am especially fond of papers by the likes of Gerald Reaven who plotted graphs of individual responses rather than using sophisticated statistics to obscure things into a “consensus”.
AFAIK Dropbox is a site where you can dump information for others to read or download. People post papers there which would otherwise be paywalled or which are only found on real old fashioned paper.
Actually I suspect the CS trial would never be done today because who would finance it? Even recently I recall a researcher lamenting that while he could get a grant for the low fat arm of a study he was told that if he “wanted” to have a low carb arm he would have to finance it himself. This was a well known and much published worker in the field.
Thought some of you might be interested in this information. I’m big on using nuts and seeds to get certain nutritional support and have recently been using hemp seeds again. I used them a couple of years ago and when I ran out I simply forgot to reorder them, I guess. They have a wonderful profile. Check it out. GLA, EFA’s, the whole nine yards. A superfood, as it were.
http://www.purehealingfoods.com/hempHeartsInfo.php
hemp seeds: 25% Omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acid content. Opinions on dietary intake of omega 6 differ.
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA
We need SOME of all the omega’s, Philip. The article explains that.
There are a lot of people on this forum who keep posting links to dot gov sites. Other than PubMed, I avoid dot gov sites for several reasons but the main being that I do not want my information from the gubmint! Certainly I don’t want NUTRITIONAL information from those guys.
Nothing Boring About Boron.
Pizzorno L1.
Author information
Abstract
The trace mineral boron is a micronutrient with diverse and vitally important roles in metabolism that render it necessary for plant, animal, and human health, and as recent research suggests, possibly for the evolution of life on Earth. As the current article shows, boron has been proven to be an important trace mineral because it (1) is essential for the growth and maintenance of bone; (2) greatly improves wound healing; (3) beneficially impacts the body’s use of estrogen, testosterone, and vitamin D; (4) boosts magnesium absorption; (5) reduces levels of inflammatory biomarkers, such as high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α); (6) raises levels of antioxidant enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, and glutathione peroxidase; (7) protects against pesticide-induced oxidative stress and heavy-metal toxicity; (8) improves the brains electrical activity, cognitive performance, and short-term memory for elders; (9) influences the formation and activity of key biomolecules, such as S-adenosyl methionine (SAM-e) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD(+)); (10) has demonstrated preventive and therapeutic effects in a number of cancers, such as prostate, cervical, and lung cancers, and multiple and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; and (11) may help ameliorate the adverse effects of traditional chemotherapeutic agents. In none of the numerous studies conducted to date, however, do boron’s beneficial effects appear at intakes > 3 mg/d. No estimated average requirements (EARs) or dietary reference intakes (DRIs) have been set for boron-only an upper intake level (UL) of 20 mg/d for individuals aged ≥ 18 y. The absence of studies showing harm in conjunction with the substantial number of articles showing benefits support the consideration of boron supplementation of 3 mg/d for any individual who is consuming a diet lacking in fruits and vegetables or who is at risk for or has osteopenia; osteoporosis; osteoarthritis (OA); or breast, prostate, or lung cancer.
PMID: 26770156 PMCID: PMC4712861
Be ketotic . . . but only sometime Dr. Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=O9R-HttnhyM
Randall, I still do not trust anything that Davis says. Tooooo much scaremongering without any real research to back it up…
There are 15 comments replying to Davis’s talk in your link. All are critical of his remarks. And he has not replied to a single one.
Some useful information here
http://peoplesrx.com/the-best-kind-of-magnesium-for-you
regarding the different forms. I was particularly interested to read their opinion on mag oxide. It generally gets a bad press but may be a viable alternative to the citrate form after all. The amount of citric acid in mag citrate bothers me slightly..
Doug
I tried the honey a couple of times so far. Couldn’t face a heaped tablespoon as yet! A couple of teaspoons seems to give me good quality sleep but didn’t help me to fall asleep quickly. I definitely think this is worth further experimentation and am interested to know if anyone else has tried it.
Hi Rosie,
As with anything, timing’s everything. 20 minutes max between consumption and sleep. Also make sure the room is completely dark, none of those little red lights that are on every type of electronic. I use a power bar to eliminate power to my tv and receiver to achieve this effect and blackout curtains.
A full tablespoon seems daunting but is doable, I have a little glass of water with me and swallow big chunks with a little sip to wash it down. I actually had to start off with 2 tablespoons until my body made the necessary adjustments. Now I’m down to one tablespoon.
I hope this helps you. Let me know if you want more info. I regularly check back.
Doug
Rosie why are you concerned about the citric acid in Magnesium citrate ?
Citric acid is present in all citrus fruit like lemons, oraanges, limes, mandarins, tangellos, grapefruit, cumquats etc. And it is usually broken down naturally in the gut fairly rapidly anyway.
Also the author of the link you provided, acknowledges that MgO ( Magnesium Oxide ) causes diarreha in most people. So best to avoid it unless you have constipation maybe
I guess because I’ve been using the powder form which I understand is at least 85% citric acid compared to citrus fruit at around 4%. But of course by adding it to a hot drink the acid is diluted. I know tablets may be better for this reason but my thinking was to avoid the fillers they contain. Swings and roundabouts!
Craig – meds and skin damage…and sound of blood flow in ear
One of the things I love about this website is that you find that are not alone with obscure symptoms, such as skin damage.
I have always wet shaved until I came out of hospital laden down with meds. Wet shaving became a nightmare – nicks and cuts all the time. No matter how gently I shaved, how carefully, following the stubble grain, no matter how much gel or foam or type of blade. Cuts, nicks and scabs.
Suffered the indignity of being in a shopping centre on one occasion and getting the comment about being in public with the area around my mouth being covered in chocolate (i.e. my shaving scabs).
Also, and just once, somewhere in the comments in a previous blog, someone mentioned they could hear the pumping sound of blood in their ears. Me too – that never used to happen until recently. It’s always my right ear and the sound ebbs and flows with my heartbeat. The only thing I can put it down to, having had a high CAC score, is it is some side effect of the blocked artery. Hopefully this is not some harbinger of imminent doom!
Charles, I am certainly not diagnosing, heaven forbid, I have the blood flow sound at times, I assume it is pulsating tinnitus. Blocked ears are a picture also, again, comes and goes. It does not distress and the rest of me is functioning. But of course there are other causes and I keep away from doctors, rightly or wrongly. I am not suggesting you do not investigate
Living in harmony, thinking positive, well, life gets in the way does it not.
I do take one or two vitamins and have recently added magnesium, here’s hoping.
Sorry if I’m repeating myself, the first reply I typed went off into thin air.
Charles I am a long term victim of tinnitus from aspirin use as a child in the days before Panadol etc.
Aspirin damages hairs in the inner ear. But when I took bp tablets (candesartan) for a while it got worse and six months of statin use probably didn’t help but I can’t remember …
Nowadays I get the squealing plus crunching gurgling and throbbing. It is my embedded sphygmomanometer. High insulin is supposed to make it worse and some people get worse tinnitis from nitrates in toothpaste and all sorts of things. Supplements can therefore be tricky and there are lots of foods which are high in salicylate (=raw aspirin). Mine is often worse after eating so the insulin theory is plausible.
Yes I started to develop tinnitus from aspirin so stopped using it. I was conned into starting low dose aspirin and the tinnitus became permanent.
I’ve also read of the insulin connection, and I have recently found that when my thyroid goes high it gets worse, and reduces again (but no longer goes away) when I get my thyroid back to normal, or low.
Chris C,
Sorry I can’t be more sympathetic to the somewhat delayed release of your mother from the hospital. Although I don’t see why she wasn’t served her meal if she was still there. You can’t fathom what a day in the life of a hospital nurse is like and how time consuming discharges and admissions are.
Just be glad that you can’t fathom it. Patients often get a false impression that a discharge, just because it is in the works, can happen quickly. They are a lot more bogged down in red tape than they used to be.
Agree it’s not the nurses’ fault BUT they could actually have waited until she was ready to be let out BEFORE they rang me to go fetch her. Then I could have gone to the shops, and avoided the rush hour traffic nightmare. I suspect the lions led by donkeys syndrome, none of them were singing off the same hymn sheet.
Here one of the three available hospitals is pretty good, one is really crap and the third used to be well regarded but has taken a serious nose dive in the last few years. My father and one of his brothers worked for the NHS from its inception until they retired, but in their day decisions were made by the medical staff and “admin” provided backup. A nurse I knew once gave me the dates when the number of non-medical staff exceeded the number of medics, and the number of managers exceeded that of nurses, both back in the eighties.
I don’t see Jeremy Hunt or Richard Branson improving things much.
Vitamin D https://youtu.be/KAo1H4152ZI and concurrance with Dr. K’s statemets about the benefits of sunlight. Because of the infra red component, I wonder if this explains the comfort given by log fires, which isn’t obvious from central heating.
Wunsch also has an interview with Mercola about the downside of LED lighting. It’s easily found on youtube, but unfortunately Mercola’s interruptive style spoils the message.
Smell like quackery:
https://www.psiram.com/de/index.php/Alexander_Wunsch
Couple of gems from this critical summary I linked above:
– Wunsch believes that the light emissions from mercury (which he maintains emanates from all fluorescent tubes and energy saving light bulbs) will resonate with mercury we have ingested from the enviroment, multiplying its toxicity. Most of the mercury lines are filtered out by the phosphor these days.
– wearing your watch on your left wrist will inevitably make you sick over time
– we get only 1/3 of our ATP from food and 2/3 from light via eyes and skin (how do blind people survive then?)
– ATP cannot be stored and we cannot survive for 15 s withoug (I bet he sleeps with a couple of 1000 W of incandescent lights at night – bound to keep him warm at least)
Probably smells more like delusion…
This should be on the front page news but is not – Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates all traces of cancer in mice. http://www.kurzweilai.net/cancer-vaccine-eliminates-tumors-in-mice
How about Proline. Proline enables the walls to release fat buildup into the bloodstream, decreasing the size of the blockages to the heart and surrounding vessels. Proline, therefore, decreases the pressure built up by these blockages, decreasing the risk of heart disease. https://www.livestrong.com/article/456822-proline-amino-acid-benefits/
Randall – ‘ A leading cause of heart disease, arteriosclerosis occurs when the blood vessels, or arteries, that carry oxygen and nutrients from the heart to the rest of your body become thick and stiff from the buildup of fat on artery walls. ‘
I think that’s a deprecated, dilapidated concept. If it were true perhaps call a plumber to fix?
Randall I suspect that Chondroitin sulfate also works because it supplies collagen to the arteries…And maybe L proline does as well.
Also the key question is what causes the build up of blockages in the coronary arteries. I think most of us here agree with Dr Kendrick that stress and it’s consequences the key.
In this way of explaining things, Cholesterol is not a cause. It is part of the process whereby the body tries to repair the damage done to the arterial inner wall and endothinnial layer of the arteries by stress etc.
Concentrations of CoQ were found to be lower in insulin resistant body fat and muscle tissue.
When the researchers replenished CoQ, insulin resistance or pre-diabetes was reversed.
Co-author Dr Daniel Fazakerley from the University of Sydney’s School of Life and Environmental Science and Charles Perkins Centre said CoQ provides a vital role in converting nutrients like fat and sugar into usable energy.
“CoQ is found in mitochondria, the power plants in the cells of our body, where it is required for the flow of electricity to the cell’s ‘motor’ which is responsible for energy production,” he explained.
“Energy production can also generate reactive chemical species — often referred to as ‘reactive oxygen species’ or ‘oxidants’ — as by-products, which can be damaging to cells.
“Previous studies have shown that these oxidants can cause insulin resistance. Our study has found that lower mitochondrial CoQ enhanced oxidant formation by mitochondria.
“Importantly, by replenishing CoQ in mitochondria, either in cells or in animals, we were able to restore ‘normal’ mitochondrial oxidants and reverse insulin resistance.”
Published in eLife today, the research provides a missing link in our understanding of how changes in our diet can trigger insulin resistance, said co-lead author Professor David James, Leonard P. Ullmann Chair of Metabolic Systems Biology at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre.
“Eating a high fat, high sugar diet has long been known to be a major risk factor for obesity and pre-diabetes and our latest work brings us one step closer to understanding how and why,” Professor James explained.
Co-lead author Professor Roland Stocker from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and the University of New South Wales added that the findings provide direction for potential future treatments for insulin resistance and pre-diabetes.
“Replenishing CoQ could prove an invaluable preventive measure for insulin resistance- or pre-diabetes-linked diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and dementia,” he said.
“However, oral CoQ supplements may not effectively restore mitochondrial CoQ due to its low absorption,” Professor Stocker explained.
“This work has provided an impetus for us to find alternate means of increasing CoQ in mitochondria to treat insulin resistance and pre-diabetes. If not an external supplement, perhaps we can stimulate the body to form more of the coenzyme itself — or find ways to prevent levels from lowering in the first place.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Sydney. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Daniel J Fazakerley, Rima Chaudhuri, Pengyi Yang, Ghassan J Maghzal, Kristen C Thomas, James R Krycer, Sean J Humphrey, Benjamin L Parker, Kelsey H Fisher-Wellman, Christopher C Meoli, Nolan J Hoffman, Ciana Diskin, James G Burchfield, Mark J Cowley, Warren Kaplan, Zora Modrusan, Ganesh Kolumam, Jean YH Yang, Daniel L Chen, Dorit Samocha-Bonet, Jerry R Greenfield, Kyle L Hoehn, Roland Stocker, David E James. Mitochondrial CoQ deficiency is a common driver of mitochondrial oxidants and insulin resistance. eLife, 2018; 7 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.32111
Errett, I like seeing Australian research scientists being published. However when I rad this sentence “However, oral CoQ supplements may not effectively restore mitochondrial CoQ due to its low absorption,” Professor Stocker explained.”, I thought ‘Bugger they are still behind by a mile.
I’ve been taking CoQ10 for years. But for the last 4 years I’ve been taking it in the form “Ubiquiol” which is far more easily absorbed and is the active antioxident form of CoQ10. And this easily absorbed form has been available for purchase for years..I get it from Iherb as that is reasonably priced.
So.. Sorry Daniel J Fazakerley, Rima Chaudhuri, Pengyi Yang, Ghassan J Maghzal, Kristen C Thomas, James R Krycer, Sean J Humphrey, Benjamin L Parker, Kelsey H Fisher-Wellman, Christopher C Meoli, Nolan J Hoffman, Ciana Diskin, James G Burchfield, Mark J Cowley, Warren Kaplan, Zora Modrusan, Ganesh Kolumam, Jean YH Yang, Daniel L Chen, Dorit Samocha-Bonet, Jerry R Greenfield, Kyle L Hoehn, Roland Stocker and David E James……
No cigars !
Bill—I thought the same thing—I have been using Qunol Ultra for 5 years—-I’ll check out Iherb—Thanks—All The Best
https://elifesciences.org/articles/32111
Probably explains how statins increase diabetes risk, among others.
I’ll read it later.
“Eating a high fat, high sugar diet has long been known to be a major risk factor for obesity and pre-diabetes and our latest work brings us one step closer to understanding how and why,” Professor James explained.
Hmmm, strange how this only occurred once we started overdosing on “heart healthy” Omega 6 seed oils eh?
Off topic, but interesting:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/cutting-asparagus-could-prevent-spread-of-breast-cancer-study-shows
Asparagus is considered very healthy in Germany, and a true cult develops during the six weeks of asparagus season. Why would this protein have an this kind of an action? The only similar thing I am aware of is that fish oils have an angiogentic effect and promote age related macula degeneration (AMD) and spread of prostrate cancer.
On a side note, both whether you can degenerate L-asparagine which will give you smelly urine and whether you can smell it are determined by genetics.
Before anyone gets scared off the long standing solid research on fish oil supps you might like to read Mercola’s take
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/31/omega-3-fats.aspx
On the other hand, those fish oils are probably even more delicate than the seed oils, and there are a few studies out there that show that many fish oil capsules contain oil that is rancid. Those oxidation products are probably nastier than the pure oils.
My take is the same as for seed oils: if they come in their natural packaging (a fish or a nut), they are fine but not after extraction and storage.
I believe I have suggested you read this before?
https://deniseminger.com/tag/dha/
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/04/omega-3-fats-angiogenesis-and-cancer-part-i/
This is another attempt to fix a problem that continues to be deliberately misunderstood by the pharmaceutical funded researchers – see this by Seyfried and Huysentruyt in 2013; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3597235/pdf/nihms-448949.pdf
for an explanation of why this is the case in metastatic cancer.
Very interesting paper, thanks. After quick perusal it does not seem contrary to the idea that angiogenesis promotes metastasis.
Eric,
The article points out the problems that current thinking about metastasis has in the light of what is actually known about how cells can move around the body.
From what I understand, when e.g. liver cancer metastasises to other other organs it no longer is liver cancer but a non specific ‘neoplastic’ cancer with many characteristics of a macrophage – the ability to move out of the cancer into the lymphatic or blood vasculature, avoiding the immune system, then back into tissue at some remote location where it fuses with tissue cells to, potentially, start a metastatic cancer.
The point of the article is to ‘knock down’ current theories, something I think you will find that it does quite convincingly.
Interesting point is that plants, while having cancers, do not have metastatic cancers since they have no macrophage equivalent to fuse with cancer cells and transport cancer around.
This is slightly off the Magnesium focus of this post. But it is about the role of stress in aging in general, not just CVD ! Published last year in September.
https://www.worldhealth.net/news/aging-and-stress/
Eric, please read this http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v09n05.shtml after reading suspect guff like that.
Good short video on how to repair arteries with supplements https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkeUKxwwflk
Ascorbic acid and Vitamin C are different. Ascorbic acid does not repair arteries as in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePzJbllNCPg
Randall, I think Darren Schmitt does no favours for the chiropractors. His presentation style is poor, and when at 5:11 he starts comparing cholesterol in artery walls to toothpaste in a wall, he has no credibility. He started off by saying he has never said any of this before. Is that something about vitamin C, or something about toothpaste. To say cholesterol doesn’t belong in a damage site in an artery wall indicates he has a problem. It’s part of the repair process.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
Vitamin C is ascorbic acid, just make sure you get the L version and not the D. If ascorbic acid is not vitamin C, it is a damn good placebo because I feel better through taking this non-vitamin C.
Hi Where do you buy your VC from and how much do you take
I get it from Pure Source Nutrition in St. Albans. They sell on ebay. I have around 8 to 10g a day, unless i’m unwell, then I have as much as it takes to feel better. I also have more if I’m breathing smoke from bonfires or fumes from anything, or if I go to houses where they use those air pollution units called “air fresheners” or if there are people around using smelly perfume, and anything else that seems a good idea to have an antidote for.
Randall-
Oh no, Linus Pauling was wrong!
However , … , the mixture that man is hawking in his videos would contain a lot of rutin as well as vitamin C plus some other flavonoids. There have been several links to good research papers about rutin for cvd treatment in this series but don’t ask me which of the 45 + n episodes they were quoted in.
If you want a very good source of rutin with some Vit C, heaps of Vit K, nitrate and other goodies you can’t go past parsley. Grows like a weed in a pot on a balcony or in a little bit of ground and it doesn’t cost 15usd a bottle.
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?dbid=100&tname=foodspice
Tabouli salad is a good way to consume it. I just like to pick a handful of parsley and chomp away when I’m gardening.
I also have this growing in my backyard which is a real powerhouse of nutrients:
https://www.milkwood.net/2014/01/30/snacks-for-salty-sea-dogs-foraging-pigface/
Perhaps I could dry some and FLOG IT OFF and retire on the profits? Bill are you listening?
Hey Craig, pig face grows WILD in my garden. My lady grows it for the flowers ( lots of different bright colours ) but o far no fruits..maybe no native bee pollinators around here..
As for parsley, yes I love it in salads and grow it every year. In fact I just seed saved about 400grams of parsley seed yesterday.. I’ll be sowing it again when the weather cools down slightly..It’s been 37-39 degrees here all week. Not good for seed germination as the soil dries out so fast.
Groan! Another chiropractor!
Putting prejudice aside, this guy uses powerful imagery (asc. acid = paint on the car -> can you use a bucket of paint to drive to the store), but he doesn’t say why these other substances that in his eyes make up real Vitamin C are important.
I’d yet like to see some more reasoning why they are important and how they are preserved in those outrageoulsy expensive (at least here in Europe) “Standard Process” capsules.
Randall, Linus Pauling in all his research work made no distinction between vitamin C naturally in foods & drinks AND vitamin C in tablets/capsules.
So I am doubtful about this aspect.
Seems we may have been taking far too little Vit D, well some of us, anyway.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541280/
I have been acting on this for the past 5 years, even since reading Jeff T Bowles books on Vitamin D. He is scathing about pharmaceutical companies attempting to deter people from taking it with fake warnings of toxicity..
John – I have read that 20 minutes of full sunshine when it contains adequate uvb is enough to generate between 10000iu up to 20000iu of vit D which seems to be a limiting amount. That’s up to ~2 times the amount suggested to take as a supplement by that paper. Age and various medical conditions can interfere with the generation and conversion of vit D and high factor sunblock can reduce uvb exposure by up to 90% but there is still a possibility of getting adequate D with long enough exposure given that 20000iu full potential.
Phytate in cereal and legume foods however locks up calcium and phosphorous in insoluble forms which opposes the operation of vitamin d (and can cause rickets more easily than low sun exposure), also very relevant to the topic of this blog post it locks up magnesium.
eg
“Both cereal grains and legume seeds are rich in phytic acid. Iron absorption of native iron and fortification iron may be very low because of the high phytate content of cereal porridges; this was reported by Cook et al. (1997) and Hurrell et al. (1992). Also Navert et al. (1985)reported that we will absorb approximately 20% more zinc and 60% magnesium from our food when phytate is absent. In the same vein (Hurrell, 2003) reported the iron absorption rate in the wheat porridge increased to 12% when the phytic acid was removed.”
Unleavened breads and “healthy” whole grains and seeds are notoriously high in phytate. Those who eat those kinds of foods would need to supplement even more magnesium and vit D plus other minerals.
We soak our porridge oats overnight in kefir whey and make all our breads with sourdough to reduce phytic acid and phytate. I also understand that soaking or sprouting beans, legumes and nuts has the same effect.
Craig, I suggest that before coming to conclusions about cereals in food and phytates, it might be useful to read the link posted by Eric some days ago.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wrmmwvmxzrtupip/Animal%20Fat%20CVD%201966.pdf?dl=0
It is an old research paper from 1966 looking at CVD rates in the UK over the previous 200 years..
Cereals have beenn a constant in the British diet for many centuries whether as breads, biscuits, porridge etc.. But this research paper examines the evidence available and comes to the conclusion that CVD was virtually unknown by doctors and undescribed medically prior to 1810’s. He also suggests that the key drivers of CVD have been increased per capita sugar consumption and up to 1966, vastly increased cigarette smoking…
I think these broad conclusions are plausible. What do you think ?
Also another process has been a work since the 1960’s. There has been vastly increased production of cereals like wheat & rice since then due to the genetic breeding advances of the Green Revolution. This has involved using other related wild species of grasses. And I think there is evidence that this breeding process has lead to the introduction of genes & proteins into cereals which we are not adapted to.
If this is true, then an appropriate response would be to avoid those grains with these genes & proteins by sticking to breads made from traditional heritage grain types.
Finally there is good reason to think that the adoption of modern quick dough making methods by use of added chemicals is also important. So sticking to breads that use the traditional sourdough starter method of making bread etc crucial.
In a sense this means avoiding almost all cereal breads available for sale in our modern shopping centers. It means being extremely picky !
But the lesson is that it is not cereals which are CVD causing. It is what we as humans have done to them and how we prepare them as food in our modern societies. In fact I think we are not evolved for such food. But most of us are evolved to safely eat & enjoy traditional cereal foods prepared in the traditional ways.
What do you think about this ?
Bill in Oz
Why so little CVD in 1842? Life expectancy in London, labourer 17 years, middle class gentlemen 38 years. Leading causes of death (middle class) in Victorian era: cholera from contaminated water, arsenic in wallpaper and dyes, fumes and explosions from gas lighting, lead in paints and children’s toys, unsanitary bottle feeding of infants, corsets for women. No ill effects observed from wheat consumption.
IMO it’s a perfect storm. Wasn’t it Peter Cleave who opined that it was ridiculous to blame traditional foods for modern diseases?
We are told to eat a low fat diet and stay out of the sun. Add statins and D3 goes down the toilet, probably along with NO.
Many foods but wheat especially have been bred for yield, and also pest resistance, but you can’t tell it humans are not pests and should not be poisoned. Producing an increased yield from the same size rootstock diminishes the amount of minerals and other micronutrients picked up from the soil. Constantly removing crops and not improving soil nutrient levels adds to the problem, ie. magnesium among others.
Add in excessive quantities of Omega 6 “heart healthy” seed oils, and a corresponding lack of Omega 3s from grain-fed meat and salmon, pollution of all kinds, multisyllabic additives in food, shampoo, makeup, room odorisers (WTF???) then scatter in some polypharmacy. We may be living longer, though that now seems to be ending, but we are less likely to retain health.
I would think from the viewpoint of most other species on the planet, humans are a pest and should be poisoned.
Bill, I read that paper some time ago. It mostly to seems to be about angina but what I think in general is that is an interesting bit of anecdotal historical research which certainly seems to support the author’s ideas about sugar and tabac but it hardly holds up to the standards of evidence which you have suggested other linked papers in this series should adhere to. It also suffers from the notion that a lack of evidence is not the same as evidence of a lack. But one large lack of that whole paper is that it doesn’t mention what most people actually died of. They must have died from something or other but what? Accidents and disease, surely, but at the moment of death of a long lived person ??? more so if there was no attending physician. How many doctors would have turned up to interrogate a dead pauper?
I also think that I definitely wouldn’t want to have been living in those times rife with infectious diseases beyond counting, widespread nutritional diseases ( rickets, scurvy, pellagra) and primitive surgical practices.
It doesn’t seem to be possible to remove phytate ( and other nasties) cheaply, completely. Why bother to eat the wheat stuff(cheap) and then pay for the supplements(expensive) when you could sidestep that situation entirely?
Chris C,, I agree with all your remarks here Chris. This is why I have for decades preferred organic foods to conventionally grown ones. Most organic farmers ( and yes there are exceptions ) know more about their soils and their environment and ‘take care’ of them.
Craig I’m sorry but I disagree with some of your remarks about the 1966 paper. In that paper there is a discussion of how knowledgeable doctors in the 1680’s-1920’s were about CVD…Prior to the 1920’s most doctors had very little knowledge or experience of it. T
Why ? Because there were so few patients.
You accept this and then assume that doctor’s only treated the rich in the 1680’s-1920’s. And then go on to assume that the rich did not have much CVD.
Both your assumptions are I think wrong. Yes doctors relied on wealthy patients to gain and income but most doctors also assisted the poorer sections of British society if they could.
Why ? Well firstly they lived in a deeply religious Christian society where ‘Charity’ was strongly emphasized. Secondly they also needed opportunities to learn & to practice; and poorer patients presented themselves often.
You also miss an important point in the article : CVD appeared in the UK doctor’s manuals and medical journals, following the growth of the sugar trade and the tobacco trade. ( Ironically both dependent on another potent evil named slavery in the Americas).
The people who adopted them as daily habits,were the British upper classes who were wealthy people of British society… In other words it was the rich who first started dying from CVD… Poorer and working class folk adopted sugar & tobacco later on in the 1890’s – 1920’s… And following on from this, there was a reported rise in cases among these classes
You say also that this is anecdotal. I do not accept that either. The article is an historical analysis. Based on historical evidence. It was still mostly an ‘unscientific’ time.
Bill, I believe you are crediting me with a post that I didn’t post.
Bill – Dr. K wrote this two years ago
‘ Until 1948, not a single person died of Ischaemic Heart Disease (IHD), (IHD is what most people would call heart disease), anywhere in the world. Then, suddenly, millions were dying of IHD. IHD is a relatively broad diagnostic code, which incorporates myocardial infarction (MI).
What was the cause of this epidemic? Well, in 1948 the WHO decided that disease diagnoses ought to be standardised around the world, so that researchers would have some idea what they were actually looking at. So they created the International Classification of Disease (ICD). Which included IHD. Not, of course, in France, where they use their own diagnostic system – until 1968. ‘
I think it drives a truck through the idea of attempting to accurately understand what physicians were diagnosing 200, 300, 400 years ago, and what the great majority of unrecorded deaths were due to if we don’t even know what was happening earlier than 70 years ago.
Historical research yes, but only into what was written down. Historical writings are notoriously incomplete and fragmented.
Except in the 1950’s Dr Dennis Burkitt was working in Uganda and he reported virtually zero incidence of heart disease and heart attacks. He knew what they were and yet they did not exist to any degree. He put this down to a high fiber plant based diet
I’ve gone way past the ten wordy posts which would put me on Martin’s naughty list so I’ll just post these references and leave you all in peace. It’s none of my business to be telling others what they should eat but I think one should be aware of the consequences of different choices. Phytate, and wheat in particular are emotive topics surprisingly, more like politics or religion.
In the following most of the diets are traditional and usually plenty of sunlight available, even adequate calcium in some cases. Zinc deficiency from phytate is closely coupled to magnesium deficiency although it isn’t mentioned (other minerals) so it is relevant to the topic of Dr. Kendrick’s Part 45b!
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0142968X.1978.11904209
‘studies of Reinhold and his co-workers (Reinhold, 1975) suggest that the high incidence of mineral-deficiency diseases (notably zinc deficiency) in the rural population of Iran is due to the high intake of dietary fibre. Experiments by the author conflict with this view and show that, when a fibre-rich and phytate rich cereal product is fed to rats, phytate is the major determinant of zinc availability. ‘
http://www.bmj.com/content/3/5824/446.abstract
‘Eight Pakistani children with late rickets and two Pakistani women with osteomalacia were given a chupatty-free diet for seven weeks, substituting leavened bread of lower extraction. On this diet serum calcium levels rose to normal or near normal, levels of serum inorganic phosphorus rose slightly but significantly, and serum alkaline phosphatase levels showed a definite rise indicative of healing bone disease’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523417/
‘Young children and adolescents, especially non-white individuals, on a strict vegetarian diet or a diet that is high in phytate, which binds calcium, can also be calcium deficient, which leads to rickets (33–35). This, in combination with vitamin D deficiency, is often the precipitating cause of rickets in children of Middle Eastern descent living in Great Britain and African American children in the United States (32–35).
The calcium deficiency and associated secondary hyperparathyroidism increase the requirement for vitamin D, since the vitamin D is rapidly metabolized to 1,25(OH)2D. ‘
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319418092_Under-Fives_Rickets_in_a_Tropical_Dairy_Farming_Region_Kiambu_County_Kenya
‘Significant risk factors towards rickets detected were consumption of breakfast cereals (Odds ratio (OR) 3.8) and porridge made with multiple cereal/legume composite flours (OR 6.7). Protective factors were daily child exposure to sunlight (OR 0.035), consumption of meat (OR 0.34) and living in open residential houses (OR 0.42)’
Hi Craig, the studies you provided links to are interesting in the own right. However none of us here are Pakistani or Ugandan etc. We may be the same species -homo sapiens- but the circumstances of our lives in Western societies are completely different : Different climate, housing, diet, society, medicine etc..
So I do not believe they are applicable.
Also Craig, while I agree with Dr Kendrick on most matters. I think that on this aspect I will disagree. It’s true that the WHO only set world wide iuniform standard descriptions of CVD in 1948. But that does not imply that all medical reports from before this time are worthless. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater please.
Bill – ” do not believe they are applicable”
People in England? Americans? Iranians? It’s as applicable as any other cross-cultural comparison e.g. the next part #46.
Bill, you’ll give the Hills Tribe a bad reputation. Here, enjoy the raisin toast :
John U, this article is more of an opinion piece, isn’t it? He summarizes a few other works, reports nothing new and calls for doses on the order of 10000 IU for adults which he says can do no harm. No mention of testing serum levels, balancing with Vitamin K2 and magnesium.
I agree that we should be taking much more than the guidelines say, but this guy appears to harbor extreme views.
Linus Pauling in a very short video gives an example of Vit C not helping but when Lysine was added, the results were almost miraculous https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=PN8up1U6wNQ
Yes interesting Randall. But it is very anecdotal.. And concerns just one person who took Lysine with Vitamin C..
Still it’s worth someone here trying it out for a few months and then reporting back.
But not me. I’m on enough already…
Hi folks!
Can anyone explain what is exactly a product called “fully reacted magnesium”? There are many brands selling it, which I won’t name here, and some of them include the acronym TRAACS: “The Real Amino Acid Chelate System”. Such marketing grandiosity sends shivers down my spine.
They claim that the magnesium cations provided by this compound are totally absorbed, as opposed to other formulations which are poorly absorbed, as it seems. It is also more expensive, obvoiusly! I don’t know what to make of it.
If you can make a nutrient to be fully absorbed, then why are they adding supplements to almost every foodstuff which happen to be poorly absorbed? Don’t they want babies to absorbed those expensive B vitamins they add to all baby food products?
Can’t this “fully reacted” techinque be used to improve absorption of nutrients in general?
Many thanks!
Hi Anonymous ! How deep are your pockets ? If you want to spend some excess cash by all means try out fully reacted magnesium”..
For while I was taking Magnesium Oratate which is one of fully reacted compounds..But it was expensive and my pockets have got shallower in recent years..
I suspect that most of us with less cash to splash will stay with cheaper magnesium compounds like Magnesium citrate…
Pomegranate juice consumption for 3 years by patients with carotid artery stenosis reduces common carotid intima-media thickness, blood pressure and LDL oxidation. Indeed, your mouth and your arteries are lined with the same cell type: epithelial cells. http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/how-clean-your-arteries-one-simple-fruit
Pomegranates?
anybody have any other information on this natural food supplement?
thanks
I have recently made an alteration to my morning smoothie. I now have beetroot and spinach blended with some natural pomegranate juice. Studies showed an 83% increase in human serum PON-1 when people used pomegranate juice for a year. So whats the big deal with PON-1 ?. PON-1 is a molecule attached to the surface of HDL (the so called good cholesterol) and as we age HDL naturally loses some of it and thus suffers a reduction in its ability to cleanse arteries of oxidised LDL and plaque. Pharmaceutical companies would love to come up with a drug that raises PON-1 but in the form of Pomegranate juice we have a natural promoter. Sadly good Pommie juice is not cheap but you do not need loads of it in your smoothie, the rest of the needed fluid to give your smoothie some mush can be made up with water. I also blend my smoothie with a cheap Kenwood blender that does the job nicely. Wash your Krill oil tablet down with this Pommie based smoothie as I do.
An increasing resting heart rate correlates with increased CVD and overall morbidity.. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/article-abstract/2670454?redirect=true
I think this is worth considering here..
Vit C and lysine
I’ve just added lysine to my vit c supplementation. My understanding – firstly, vit C to strengthen arteries (done that…also, it possibly lowered my lp(a) levels) and then secondly incorporate lysine to help halt progression of plaque build up and, maybe, just maybe, help reverse the process. (Even Matthias Rath in his Nov 2017 talk was cautious about reversibility for those with high and chronic CAC). Or perhaps just take pomegranate juice/fruit and cut out all supplements!
However, it could be a year before I report back on this. I had my CT – CAC scan in Dec and it’s too early/too expensive to have the calcium score done regularly.
There are videos on youtube, advising caution if supplementing with lysine. I don’t know of the realities but one claim is it causes hardening of the arteries. There may be other adverse effects.
Please post link to some of these videos. IMO some sites are accused of helping Big Pharma.
The accusation pharma influence may well be justified. That’s why I haven’t posted links. It’s up to people to do their own research on this one.
The Big Vitamin D Mistake
I posted the link earlier but I suspect that not many folks bothered to read the abstract of the paper, so I am including some of it below.
This is HUGE in my opinion and explains why the RDA for vit D has been so low.
Quotes:
“A statistical error in the estimation of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin D was recently discovered; in a correct analysis of the data used by the Institute of Medicine, it was found that 8895 IU/d was needed for 97.5% of individuals to achieve values ≥50 nmol/L.”
“This could lead to a recommendation of 1000 IU for children 1 year of age, and around 8000 IU for young adults and thereafter. Actions are urgently needed to protect the global population from vitamin D deficiency.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541280/
John it may be that most people here already know & accept the basic thrust of this article. Certainly I have for the past 5 years… I take 10,000 IU’s a day…Usually at night before bed.
It assumes governments might be interested in extending lives. It is a pity the report damages it’s credability by using relative %ages instead of absolute %ages.
Thx
Blood sugar update, today was the turn of two egg omelette including mushrooms, onions and on the side two lightly fried tomatoes. The omelette was fried using coconut oil.
My usual chemist was closed today so I had to go to an alternative who used a basic meter the type you would have at home. Not as sophisticated as the usual chemist I go to. The reading came in at 73 which is way lower than the lowest so far with a bowl of white rice at 83. The machine difference adds a little doubt but not so much that you could not confidently say that the afor mentioned breakfast causes little in the way of sugar spike. This has created a breakfast changing moment for me. Clearly oats (113) has to go or at least be doctored. I will try oatmeal although I am not sure how palatable it is. Next will be some high fibre bread as requested by another member, if it can hack it then it would be a nice addition to the Omelette although I dont eat bread myself.
Lysine supplementation
“advising caution if supplementing with lysine…hardening of arteries”.
Bit of a panic reading that.
So, revisited Pauling and Rath, also Mark Sissons’ Daily Apple, Vit C Foundation and a few others to see what they had to say about this essential amino acid. (Essential – like vit C we can’t make it ourselves and need to get it from diet).
Not unduly alarmed.
Rath writes about keeping “arterial wall strong and elastic” with vit C and lysine.
No one seems to advocating mega-dosing on lysine.
Perhaps it’s moderation in supplementation – getting the level right to get the arterial strength/elasticity and not overdosing on lysine where the arterial elasticity is lost and they harden.
For those taking lysine, more on this topic can be found here:
http://vitaminc.foundation/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12031
Thanks Charles I will take a look at this.
CVD/Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) scores and supplementation: magnesium/Vit C/Vit K2/Vit D
Calcium has loomed large for me and i was pleased to see that the vit C guy Dr Thomas Levy has looked at calcium.
For those who have had a CVD incident, for those worried about their CAC scores, this 2014 presentation may be of interest in places:
At 41 mins Dr Levy discusses reversing calcium levels, which includes:
Magnesium
vit C
vit D
vit K2
and a few more.
And then at 1 hr 10 mins there is a 9 item protocol summation slide:
vit C
lysine and proline
vit D3
vit K2
magnesium glycinate
omega 3
vit E
beta carotene
vit B complex
Big doubts now about tucking into chunks of Brie and Gouda for their vit K2.
Charles that is an interesting video. Thanks for posting it here..I am not sure hat to make of the remarks about dairy foods…They are one of the best natural sources of K2 available in the western diet…Maybe we need to take plenty of Magnesium if we have a high dairy food diet…
His comment about Magnesium displacing excess Calcium in the body supports this idea..
More from Dr Levy on magnesium…
https://www.peakenergy.com/articles/nh20140407/The-dangers-of-magnesium-deficiency
test test test
Ok, had to do a test so I’ll try posting this again! What is going on with WordPress anyhow?
I need to know if natto is ok to take with losartan? The way this article is written it’s kind of hard to know for sure. Sounds as though natto would be good for people with high blood pressure (better for men than women, apparently).
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/02/joseph-mercola/need-sinus-relief/
This article starts off talking about sinus conditions and morphs into talking about blood pressure, so just stay with it. 🙂
Hi Andy, I have copied your comment to here as it was a bit lost up above …You wrote
“Why so little CVD in 1842? Life expectancy in London, labourer 17 years, middle class gentlemen 38 years. Leading causes of death (middle class) in Victorian era: cholera from contaminated water, arsenic in wallpaper and dyes, fumes and explosions from gas lighting, lead in paints and children’s toys, unsanitary bottle feeding of infants, corsets for women. No ill effects observed from wheat consumption.”
Some quick thoughts.: The life expectancy figures you quote are misleading. How ? Misleading because of the very high infant and child mortality in all times previous to the last 100 years…Persons who survived the diseases of infancy & childhood had on average much longer life spans than you mention. Not as long on average as today but significantly longer.
This is illustrated by the figure of 17 years for a laborer…On it’s face this is absurd…As a real aveerage life span of 17 years implies that the working class section of the population was contracting. In fact it was increasing at about 2% a year in the UK during the 19th century. A similar remark can be made about the figure you mention for the middle class gentlemen living an average of 38 years.
My remarks above were about sugar & tobacco vis a vis CVD. I did not directly deal with ‘wheat consumption’ or the consumption of other cereals for that matter. However I stand by my remarks in a separate comment above about cereals & CVD. In brief there is some anecdotal evidence that newer breeds of grains ( especially since the 1960’s ) incorporate genes from other grass species that we are not adapted to consume. Also the way that cereal grains are prepared in the processing food industry to make bread, cake, short circuits the traditional grain processing methods that improved palatabilty..
Hi Bill in Oz
Reference for mortality rates circa 1842
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/victorianbritain/healthy/fom1.htm
Andy S.. the link does not contradict my point. Infant & child mortality was huge in Victorian England. This simple fact biases all life span calculations downwards…Whether in rural areas or the new industrialising cities.
My stat posts on wheat and the China study data should make anyone suspicious of wheat, even I am backing off Oats after a few years of thinking the Beta Glucan outweighed any negatives.
Bill in Oz – dairy and magnesium/calcium
I have enjoyed adding Brie and Gouda to my diet for the K2 benefit.
Your thoughts correspond with a review of Dr Levy’s calcium book (I haven’t read it) on the Weston A Price website which states Dr Levy “recommends…magnesium glycinate be taken with every serving of dairy food to combat its purported artery-clogging properties”:
https://www.westonaprice.org/death-by-calcium-by-thomas-e-levy/
It all starts getting complicated, doesn’t it? Perhaps cut back on the dairy or Natto based K2 supplements?
This blog and its comments has highlighted the importance for magnesium: for me with a high CAC score and also stress still being the prime culprit of my CVD incident, magnesium as a calcium blocker and a relaxant is a must.
Charles, thanks for your comments and the link to Weston Price review of Levy’s book. I read it carefully and found this paragraph :
“Curiously, the studies he references to build his argument against calcium and dairy foods apply only to calcium supplementation and not to milk products. There is not one study in the book relating dairy foods to excess calcium or adverse events. In the entire book of over four hundred pages, there are approximately ten pages devoted to dietary calcium, while perhaps only five pages mention dairy foods or milk. In fact, the terms “dairy” and “milk” do not even appear in the index of the book.
I have never regularly taken Calcium supplements.. And certainly not in the last 10 years…But I do love my dairy foods : cheese, yogurt, cream, sour cream and milk in tea & coffee…
Given the lack of ANY actual evidence to support Levy’s dislike of dairy foods, I will be ignoring his advice..However his argument about supplemental Calcium being harmful is supported by the evidence. His argument about the value of Magnesium in blocking Calcium’s damaging effects is also accurate I think.
Many thanks Bill – it’s always good to get a fresh pair of eyes to look at something.
UK death rates slashed!!
Loved it
Taking vit D3 supplement? Don’t forget the magnesium…
…just found the link to this on Mark’s (Sissons) Daily Apple:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180226122548.htm
It asserts (I think) that vit D3 supplementation can increase calcium levels and people may suffer from vascular calcification if magnesium is too low.
Vascular calcification? Presumably arterial calcification too? Never hear about vascular calcification.
Also, not sure if vit D levels from sunlight also require magnesium.
It appears that if you are supplementing with vit D3, and also getting levels checked, you might want to get your magnesium level checked too at the same time. The problems with magnesium checking being covered in this post by Dr Kendrick. The problem with calcium checking – the only way I know is the CT – Coronary Artery Calcium scan and they don’t come cheap.
I can’t resist responding to this, MuhammadJuicy. I thing you will find that Dr. Kendrick’s “rank and authority” is second to none in the opinions of his many followers. Each post is written with care and meticulously researched and eagerly read by all on this site. More would not in any way be ‘better.’
An excellent article. Thanks very much! I did some research as from reading these comments especially I’m a little bit worried that the water in my area is too hard… found some good information here: https://www.kindwater.co.uk/2018/08/how-hard-your-water/
Nice article, nice info for who is suffering from anxiety and depression.
https://www.hupcfl.com