 As important as every mineral in the body is, magnesium seems to always rise to the top as one of the most suggested supplements. The same could be said about electrolytes like potassium and other minerals like zinc. But what is making our modern diets so deficient in magnesium that we have to artificially add it in the form of supplements? It's arguably the most important mineral, as it's involved in so many processes, energy metabolism, gene expression, cell differentiation, hundreds of enzymatic reactions in every being. Enzymes being the proteins that carry out many cellular functions. Probably the most notable aspect of magnesium is its synergy with calcium regulation in cells. One of its main functions being to remove that excess calcium from cells, and I'm sure most of you are familiar with calcification, which can happen in different tissues in the body, causing various negative effects ranging from something as fairly insignificant as hair loss to heart disease. That brings us to the first reason we need to consume more magnesium. Our modern diets are so high in calcium we can't match it with the amount of magnesium the average standard American diet has access to. The idea that calcium builds strong bones is so far from the truth that protein is the main building block for most tissues in the body. One interesting anecdote is that cow's milk has over 10 times the amount of calcium that human breast milk does, and that cow dairy is a large component of modern diets. Not to say that high quality, raw, grass-fed dairy should be avoided due to calcium. It exposes the additional lack of fat-soluble vitamins K2 and D3 in our diets to regulate calcium metabolism. And seeing as magnesium is the main cofactor for vitamin D metabolism, it's easy to see why there's a double whammy when you don't get enough magnesium. High calcium and high vitamin D without magnesium can lead to many health problems, and you can simply search hypercalcemia side effects. So consuming dairy may increase the need for magnesium in your diet, but it's such a good source of other vitamins and minerals that we need to focus on the real second issue. Modern agricultural methods do not put magnesium back in the soil, in fact they use large amounts of minerals like potassium and phosphorus that further exacerbate magnesium deficiencies because of antagonistic effects. Those plants being grown won't necessarily die from a magnesium deficiency, but the animal or person that eats those plants will eventually suffer ill health sooner than later, maybe not from a solely magnesium deficiency because our foods right now are deficient in just about everything. The thing is, conventional feedlot animals as well as modern humans are so sick as is that nutrition is never addressed as the root cause. Animals are slaughtered young and humans are used to feeling like crap every day, everyone needs a cup of coffee to get up in the morning, they're not thinking about magnesium and vitamin D deficiency. And that decline in soil quality doesn't apply to just magnesium, most people are deficient in just about any mineral, copper being another notable one to point out, possibly selenium. So now we have both plant and animal foods that don't contain adequate amounts of minerals because of our poor growing practices. In our past, wild quality animal and plant foods, we're so much more nutritious that we didn't really have to consume as many calories to get as many nutrients and the problem is caloric energy actually stresses the body's need for minerals and certain things like B vitamins, so it's a double edged sword, you have to eat more food to get more nutrients, but eating more food stresses your body's nutrients so it's tough. Vegetables, fruits, grains, depending on the food can have high amounts of magnesium but you know there is an anti-nutrient concern, the oxalates, the phytates that bind to that magnesium and prevent it from being digested. Is your body actually utilizing the magnesium when you eat the plant food? Food is not really, you know something like mushrooms that are very high in copper come out the same way they came in for most people so you're obviously not absorbing the copper despite it on paper being an excellent source of copper. Those foods and even mineral waters that do contain magnesium tend to have a decent amount of calcium as well so it doesn't seem like we can even access a natural plant source of pure magnesium. Local foods on the other hand do have magnesium in a highly bioavailable form, it's bound to amino acids so there's no anti-nutrients taking it out but it's simply not enough magnesium. The soil quality that we use to grow meat, milk and eggs is typically subpar and those foods that do have more magnesium particularly from the ocean tend to be so heavily polluted you have to practically poison yourself to get enough magnesium. So we have diets high in calcium, foods lacking magnesium and pollution concerns with promising foods. On top of all of this our highly inflammatory modern lifestyles increase the body's need for magnesium. Are you consuming a lot of highly processed inflammatory foods? Depletes your magnesium stores. Are you in a high Wi-Fi, high radiation environment constantly? That disrupts calcium channels which greatly depend on magnesium for regulation. The poor sleep, stress and anxiety typically from high radiation environments also causes the body to use up magnesium. Did that high stress environment from the Wi-Fi give you SIBO, Candida, leaky gut, dysbiosis? Now you can't even absorb the little magnesium that is in your diet. Are you staying inside all day and not getting enough sun? Adequate needs vitamin D to be metabolized and high calcium from sedentary indoor activity increases the magnesium demand as it's a direct antagonist. And since magnesium is an electrolyte mineral the body can excrete it much easier. So during heavy exercise or sweating you deplete stores fairly quickly and then you have all of these nutrition experts pushing electrolyte supplements which don't contain adequate magnesium or the correct form let alone proper ratios of electrolyte minerals and most of them even have calcium in the supplement which effectively cancels out the magnesium. We could go on and on about the functions of magnesium, the downsides of modern life but how much do we need and how do we get it so we can see if by taking this and increasing consumption we notice something. As with everything I tell people if it doesn't work then move on or find something else. You're supposed to feel a difference with most things you apply to your health. Lifestyle factors certainly play a role here. How much sun you've gotten over the past few years. What other supplements you've been taking. You might have a fairly common scenario where someone depleted their magnesium stores by taking too much vitamin D3 and yes you can use natural foods but even the best ones aren't really that reliable. You can eat all the chocolate, seaweed, halibut, salmon, avocado, yogurt, figs, macadamia that you want those are some of the best foods and if you were to base your diet primarily around those foods it would probably take you a few months to fix a deficiency or you can just take a supplement which is kind of guaranteed absorption. If you do have got issues if your digestion isn't great again no guarantee you're absorbing the magnesium. So there's two primary ways that are discussed oral and transdermal. I've experimented with and mentioned transdermal magnesium in the past however it can be pretty corrosive to your skin, it's time consuming to do, it's inconvenient and I haven't seen studies that actually show it can increase cellular levels as much as oral ingestion. Magnesium glycanate is a highly available form of magnesium that you can take orally, it doesn't cause much digestive stress and you can ensure that most of it is being absorbed. Glycanate in general is a pretty safe chelation for most mineral supplements and I personally use anywhere from 400 to 800 milligrams of magnesium for the past few months. I've heard of people taking higher doses initially especially if you're consuming large amounts of calcium every day from dairy. If you do want to try the transdermal version I believe it's magnesium chloride and there's plenty of oral sprays and supplements most people can get on Amazon and hopefully within a month or two I will have a better version of those mineral supplements available on organ supplements so definitely keep an eye out for that guys but as with everything we talk about health and nutrition this is just one fairly important component of our diets. It's one mineral out of the other dozen ones, all the vitamins, fatty acids, other things you need to be healthy. You might have overlooked magnesium and that's the reason I'm making this video for you guys to try it out. So let me know what you think. You can check out frank-testify.com for the various ways to support me, check out my book, reach out to me for consultations but as always I will see you guys for tomorrow's video.