maintain heart health and fight fatigue, pms, and asthma with magnesium.
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Magnesium stops muscle cramping and allows more efficient energy use.
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NUTRITION SUPPLEMENT Vitamins, Minerals, and
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NUTRITION SUPPLEMENT Vitamins, Minerals, and More July/August 1999 [Nutrition Supplement] ...
Although there is no sure cause for chronic fatigue syndrome, traditional chinese medicine can help...
A substance that can help prevent heart
disease—America’s number one killer—is available right on the shelf
of your local health-food store. It may also fight fatigue, ease
symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), treat asthma, and help
control diabetes. This natural mineral is abundant; it’s found in
shellfish, soybeans, barley, nuts, and a variety of other
sources.
The substance is magnesium, which might be called “life’s
lubricant.” It relaxes and expands blood vessels, stops muscle
cramping, prevents inflammation, and allows energy to be used more
efficiently. It does this by blocking the influx of calcium into
cells. But magnesium also works with calcium to maintain both bone
density and nerve and muscle impulses. Together magnesium and
calcium compete and cooperate, one flowing into a cell while the
other flows out. This balance of both minerals is supremely
important to the functioning of cells, allowing them to excrete
what they do not need and absorb nutrients they do need.
Most Americans don’t eat enough whole grains, fruits, and
vegetables, so our magnesium intake is low. A recent Gallup survey
revealed that 72 percent of adult Americans fall short of the
Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of between 300 and 400 mg for
magnesium; 55 percent of adults consume 75 percent or less of the
RDA; 30 percent get less than half.
Heart health
Magnesium is key to maintaining a healthy heart. Having
discovered low magnesium levels in the blood and heart muscles of
heart attack victims, many researchers now believe that this same
deficiency can be linked to hardening of the arteries and
hypertension. They even consider magnesium deficiency a
contributing factor in atherosclerosis, the accumulation of fats
within arterial walls.
Magnesium contributes to healthy heart functioning in other
ways, too. For example, when we lack magnesium, calcium deposits
can accumulate in our soft tissues, increasing the risk of a spasm
in the muscular tissue surrounding the coronary arteries—the source
of all blood and oxygen for the heart.
Scientific studies show that magnesium supplements help lower
blood pressure and may help minimize damage from heart attacks.
Many cardiologists now prescribe magnesium as a matter of
course.
Fatigue fighter
Magnesium may also help combat fatigue. Bodies deficient in
magnesium must borrow from the already low supply in our muscles.
But as our muscles lose magnesium, calcium charges in to replace
it, and our muscles grow tensed and cramped. This situation can
result in debilitating problems, especially the exacerbation of
symptoms associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), an
immune disorder characterized by lethargy. Many doctors are now
using magnesium, often in an injected form, to treat CFS
patients.
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