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Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

81–90 of 412 posts

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#81
post #7

If you put a whole cow into a meat grinder, the resulting paste contains every single micro and macro nutrient required by the human body, in their most bioavailable forms, many of which are completely absent in vegetarian and vegan diets. For millions of years, humans ate ruminant animals who’s herds they followed around, and almost nothing else. People who eat nothing but ruminant meat and organs become slim even i…

Isn't that a bit like survivor bias though? People who are on meatrx (not familiar with the site at all) are already predisposed to thinking that this is the best thing to do, so all the positive things that occur they are attributing to their meat diet. What about the people that didn't get pregnant or who didn't regain their hair? I assume they are not posting about this outcome. I think some sort of peer reviewed…

Who would fund such a study? There’s no money in it.

Food politics is awful and leads people to make terrible decisions. People develop health problems due to pursuing plant only diets (stuff like vitamin B deficiency, anemia, etc).

Many overall health issues can be helped by teaching people to eat smaller, balanced meals and less focus on extreme diets.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because anybody with sense prefers eating food to popping pills.

Come on, this is a bit too aggressive of a statement. On the other hand, there is some anecdotal evidence that nutrients in pills are not absorbed by our gut as well as more "naturally" delivered nutrients.

"Why do we need to drink water anyway? Why can't we all get our fluids from an IV?"

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#83
> Magnesium deficiency can be attributed to common dietary practices, medications, and farming techniques, along with estimates that the mineral content of vegetables has declined by as much as 80–90% in the last 100 years.

This is why, when people defend GMOs with the argument that we've been genetically modifying plants and animals for hundreds of years by selective breeding, that I don't think that argument leads to the conclusions they're looking for which is that its all perfectly harmless.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#84
post #26

From the source: "The high rate of magnesium deficiency now postulated [5,6,7,8] can be attributed in part to a steady decline in general magnesium content in cultivated fruits and vegetables, a reflection of the observed depletion of magnesium in soil over the past 100 years [11,12,13]. A report to Congress was already sounding the alarm as far back as the 1930s, pointing out the paucity of magnesium, and other mine…

Interesting. I recently started using Magnesium Glycinate as a supplement and I feel it truly changed my life, not exaggerating. I’ve suffered from chronic general anxiety for most of my teens and adult life. Magnesium has completely cleared this up, things I thought were just part of my personality (being anxious and other associated things) were actually due to a chronic magnesium deficiency. I just have to make su…

I have been heavy dosing magnesium (glycinate, citrate) for years and am still a nervous wreck. Your mileage may vary.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#85
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, it seems to me like it's rather relatively simple thing to regulate. We already mandate things like adding vitamins to milk or flour. Extending this to vegetables really doesn't seem like big problem: farmers would just have to buy magnesium-enriched fertilizer.

Why pour it in your diet when you can put it in a pill to eat directly along with 30 other vitamins?

Vitamin absorption via pills doesn't seem to work very well.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#86

I know geeks love Norman Borlaug, but there was a catch: the new high-yield varieties are dependent on fertilizers made from fossil fuels. These plants grow fast and have more carbs and less of everything else. There needs to be a second Green Revolution, this time sustainable.

Or, just have 2 billion people on the planet, instead of 8.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#87
post #61
post #7

If you put a whole cow into a meat grinder, the resulting paste contains every single micro and macro nutrient required by the human body, in their most bioavailable forms, many of which are completely absent in vegetarian and vegan diets. For millions of years, humans ate ruminant animals who’s herds they followed around, and almost nothing else. People who eat nothing but ruminant meat and organs become slim even i…

Thanks for sharing - this would be easier to read if you didn't make it sound like everyone should be doing this all of the time. Yes, a carnivore diet will probably bring lots of benefits to many people. At the same time I want to remain open to other lifestyles and tweaks which maybe don't fit into just one category. I want to eat out of choice, not out of habit.

If you don’t have health problems or your health problems don’t bother you then there’s no reason to eat this way. Eating nothing but meat sucks. It’s a medical treatment, not really a diet. Only to be used if it’s necessary.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#88
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason nerds love Normal Borlaug, and that is he probably saved tons of people. Sure, maybe the food is less nutritious (a nebulous term, anyway) but we do have food.

Put another way, one might say he borrowed from the future to save the present.

I wouldn't put all the blame on him. Wouldn't be first or last time the narrowly efficiency-minded nerds and businessmen took a good idea and optimized it into a monster.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#89
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, it seems to me like it's rather relatively simple thing to regulate. We already mandate things like adding vitamins to milk or flour. Extending this to vegetables really doesn't seem like big problem: farmers would just have to buy magnesium-enriched fertilizer.

Why pour it in your diet when you can put it in a pill to eat directly along with 30 other vitamins?

Diet is quite more complicated that just taking a multivitamin, unfortunately. Some nutrients compete for absorption (Zn and Ca, for example) and shouldn’t be taken together. There’s also debate about the need for phytonutrients that also come along with plants. The data is mixed enough that the US Preventative Services Task Force isn’t yet willing to endorse supplements as a means of reducing cardiovascular or cancer risk.

My personal opinion is that the human body may be too complex to say we fully understand a seemingly straightforward solution like just taking a multivitamin. We evolved over an awfully long time before industrialized agriculture and supplements. I’m not trying to demonize them because they have solved the number 1 concern humans had for the last 10,000 years of not getting enough calories, but I think it’s wise to temper the hubris of thinking we understand the human body well enough to expect a simple fix from a pill.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#90
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it does cover more than that and the current title is pretty close.

The guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ask to use the original title unless it's linkbait or wrong.

I get it's there in the guidelines (notably not called rules) however when the title isn't informative I'd rather have the modified title personally.
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