Magnesium: Element Extraordinaire!
Magnesium is an essential element for normal body function. There are over 300 different enzymatic reactions that involve magnesium. This mineral is necessary for every step of a cell’s energy-creating process, nerve activities, vascular function, and bone formation (to name a few).
Perhaps surprisingly, magnesium is found in your bones (55%), in muscles (26%), in tissues (18%) and in your blood (a small 1%).
Today, medical facilities commonly use magnesium for cardiac care units and to treat eclampsia (hypertensive disorder during pregnancy).
Meanwhile, there are decades of scientific information demonstrating that magnesium is safe and helpful in supporting health when the following conditions apply:
- Vascular and heart diseases
- Hypertension
- Migraine headaches
- Diabetes (particularly type 2)
- Osteoporosis
- Fibromyalgia
Magnesium’s Healthy Role in Your Blood Vessels
One primary enzymatic activity of magnesium is its influence on the vascular system.
Your vascular system consists of copious amounts of blood vessels (arteries and veins), which are continually pushing blood through your body. Each time your heart beats, it forces much of the blood into the arteries, and from there, arteries and veins are on their own. They are lined with smooth muscle. This muscle contracts and expands pushing blood through the vessels.
There are many factors that influence this smooth muscle’s activity, but at the forefront is magnesium. Magnesium is critical to expanding muscles and opening up the blood vessels. Conversely, another important mineral, calcium, constricts the blood vessel and therefore increases blood pressure.
A Balancing Act: Magnesium and Calcium
With two important minerals at odds with each other when it comes to blood vessel contraction and expansion, it is important to keep magnesium and calcium in balance. What happens when they are not in balance? Hypertension.
If the concentration of magnesium decreases while calcium increases, vessels contract longer and your blood pressure goes up.
Other common disorders can occur when these minerals are out of balance – such as migraine headaches.
Migraines occur when the blood vessels of the brain act erratically. The large brain blood vessels are dilated and the small vessels are constricted. Research has found that patients with migraines have low magnesium levels in the brain's blood vessels.
Other Important Functions of Magnesium
This really could be a long list, but here are the highlights of magnesium’s multitude of functions:
- Keeps heart beat regular: Magnesium maintains the heart muscle as well as the nerves that initiate the heart beat.
- Increases bone density: Since 55% of magnesium is found in bone (and teeth of course!) then it obviously important in the formation and maintenance of bone. Magnesium is involved in calcium transport by converting vitamin D into a form that increases calcium absorption.
- Helps carbohydrate metabolism: Magnesium has shown to influence the release of insulin and therefore can control blood glucose levels.
- Relaxes all types of muscles: As mentioned above, magnesium allows the muscles to expand, allowing for muscle relaxation. If you are asthmatic, your lung muscles are tight, correct? Well, magnesium can encourage the lung muscles to expand, allowing you to breathe more freely. Pesky muscle spasms can be the result of magnesium deficiencies too.
- Suppresses PMS symptoms: Magnesium may improve PMS mood changes, fluid retention and premenstrual migraines.
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