How Magnesium Deficiency Impacts Your Health | Know Your Numbers

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Jan 12, 2024

Discover the critical role magnesium plays in over 600 enzyme reactions that fuel your body. Many people unknowingly suffer from magnesium deficiency, which can lead to muscle cramps, mood issues, and chronic inflammation. Learn how conventional medicine often overlooks magnesium levels and why testing is essential. The discussion also touches on dietary changes and stress management as powerful tools for improving your magnesium intake. Plus, find out about a unique service that offers personalized insights through lab testing.

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INSIGHT

Magnesium: The Relaxation Mineral

Magnesium is the "relaxation mineral", crucial for various bodily functions.
Symptoms like twitching, spasms, cramps, or irritability may indicate low magnesium.

INSIGHT

Magnesium Testing

Standard serum magnesium tests are insufficient for accurate assessment.
Red blood cell magnesium testing provides a more comprehensive measure of whole-body levels.

ANECDOTE

The Lamppost Analogy

Dr. Hyman uses the analogy of searching for keys under a lamppost (where the light is better) to illustrate how conventional medicine often uses convenient but inaccurate tests.
This highlights how serum magnesium tests, while easy, do not effectively assess true magnesium levels.

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Magnesium is a critical mineral that is responsible for more than 600 enzyme reactions in the body, yet most people are not getting enough of it. Magnesium is critical for your cells to make energy, for many different chemical pumps to work, to stabilize membranes, and to help muscles relax. Essentially, anything that is tight, irritable, crampy, or stiff—whether it is a body part or even a mood—can be a sign of low levels of magnesium, and magnesium deficiency has even been linked to inflammation in the body and higher CRP levels.

In today’s episode of a new series I’m calling Know Your Numbers, I dive deep into magnesium. I discuss why millions of people suffer with undetected magnesium deficiency, how conventional medicine misses the mark in measuring magnesium levels, how Functional Medicine treats magnesium deficiency, and much more.

You can test your magnesium levels with Function Health, a company I co-founded. It has been a lifelong dream for me. Function is the first-ever membership that includes 100+ lab tests and personalized insights from globally renowned doctors based on your results. Join Function at FunctionHealth.com.

This episode is brought to you by AG1 and Open.

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Here are more details from the episode (audio version / Apple Subscriber version):

Symptoms of magnesium deficiency (5:23 / 3:25)
Why is magnesium deficiency a problem? (6:19 / 4:21)
Testing magnesium levels (7:27 / 5:29)
How magnesium works in the body (8:45 / 6:47)
Why magnesium deficiency is so prevalent (11:46 / 9:48)
The Functional Medicine approach to measuring magnesium levels (16:14 / 14:16)
Root causes of and conditions related to magnesium deficiency (17:48 / 15:50)
Addressing magnesium deficiency (23:27 / 21:29)