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Magnesium and major depression (2011)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

81–90 of 235 posts

Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)

#81

I can't speak for depression, but I was suffering from muscle spasms and tremors last year (both external and internal). Magnesium was suggested, I now take two a day and they have almost entirely dissipated. It certainly wouldn't surprise me that the presence or lack of such substances could have significant effects upon the brain too though I have noticed no changes in that regard.

Same thing here. last year I had an almost constant spasm in my right eyelid, after a cure of magnesium it disappeared. I did not find that it altered my mood, I just happy to be relieved from the spasm.

Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)

#82
post #43

I'm a cardio addict and do 250mg liquid Citrate and 200mg of Bisglycinate before sleep. Otherwise restless legs syndrome would kick in badly during the night. Sometimes adding 1.000mg of Gaba also helps with recovery and falling asleep. Just make sure to stay away from cheap Mg Oxide since bio-availability is somewhere in the 4% range and usually comes in Multi-anything pills.

I concur with GABA, and for me also sauna works. Mg only together with Ca/D.

Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)

#83
post #66
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the US government is in charge of feeding people healthy foods, they came up with the now defunct "Food Pyramid" and school lunch, which featured classic gems like "government cheese", "square pizza" and my favorite, mystery meat "salisbury steak"

When the free market is in charge the results aren't much better, why not have another go at the government approach and learn from our mistakes?

The free market is responsible for the biggest large-scale change in sustainable farming and organic produce, meats, and dairy we have seen so far, why not double down on that and accelerate the progress made?

If you would have told me 10 years ago that organic produce, meats, and dairy would be commonplace in a Walmart grocery store, I would have laughed, but here we are.

Conversely it is only through large government subsidies of corn and soy that we have all these cheap, non-nutritious soy and corn byproduct snacks that fill 80-90% of grocery store isles, of which the free market, driven by consumer demand for something different, has now started to penetrate even the snack isles. For example, pea snacks are all the rage now, and I see way more pea snacks, pea crisps, etc than ever before at my local chain store.

Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)

#85
I started taking magnesium supplements about 9 months ago, not for any depression issues, but more for muscle issues. I had a weird leg muscle injury a few years ago that I never really got a proper diagnosis for that happened when doing some light hiking. In doing my own research on that, a condition similar to my symptoms came up, and one of the causes was a magnesium deficiency. I had a few other minor ailments come up, and I have been biking to work for the last few years, and noticed that my recovery time is significantly longer. All of these things cited magnesium as a significant player, so I bought some supplements.

Anyway, I take about 200mg a day, for about the last 6 months or so, and I can not say I have felt any noticeable improvement. This is obviously just a single data point, but even with some specific symptoms that pointed to an Mg deficiency, I didn't see an improvement. If you feel this is some type of magic solution, you should temper your expectations.

Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)

#88

FWIW Gwern has done some careful self-experiments on magnesium supplementation, finding it wasn't all rosy: https://www.gwern.net/nootropics/Magnesium

It's a long read with a lot of data and can be hard to make sense of. Here is the TLDR:

Conclusion

The interpretation which seems to best resolve everything I know about magnesium with the data from my experiment is that magnesium supplementation does indeed help me a large amount, but I was taking way too much.

Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your dosage and form for the supplements you mentioned?

Not directly answering your question, but in general the studies and anecdotes point to around 200 mg of elemental magnesium in the form of magnesium threonate and 4,000 IE of Vitamin D to be a very good combination. The Threonate makes the magnesium available to the brain. Other forms of magnesium are usually taken in the 400-800 mg range.

The standard dose for magnesium supplementation is 200-400mg. [1]

1. https://examine.com/supplements/magnesium/

Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)

#90
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the US government is in charge of feeding people healthy foods, they came up with the now defunct "Food Pyramid" and school lunch, which featured classic gems like "government cheese", "square pizza" and my favorite, mystery meat "salisbury steak"

Woah woah woah, I miss rectangle pizza and 'country fried steak' (maybe decomposing cardboard and ground shoe leather?). It may not have been food but it tasted good.

Of course it tasted good! Those food additive and chemical plants in NJ can do wonders to stale, ammonia-washed meats to trick our brains into thinking what we are eating tastes good! I still indulge in some fast food pink goop chicken nuggets from time to time. With enough sugar-filled "barbecue" sauce, anything can taste good!
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