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Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#161
post #44
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For millions of years, humans ate ruminant animals who’s herds they followed around, and almost nothing else. This is just wrong. Nearly all archeological evidence suggests humans were hunter-gatherers. They hunted (meat) and they gathered (fruit, vegetables, nuts, etc). Hunter gathering represents about 90% of human history prior to the invention of agriculture. > And couples who do it get pregnant immediately aft…

It’s not wrong at all. The amount of edible carbohydrates we ate then was basically nothing compared to the astounding amount of carbohydrates we eat now. We eat almost nothing else. Our bodies aren’t meant to be flooded with carbohydrates all the time, and chronic disease and diabetes is the result. Our ancestors didn’t have diabetes and it’s becoming clear that exercise doesn’t fill the gap. There is no diet plan.…

> I have never believed in or practiced a diet before in my life. I have never fallen for a scam in my entire life.

That second sentence alone is a bright red flag with sequins and bells on. But in this context... if you don't believe in this red meat diet, why are you pitching it so hard?

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#162

> 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…

But it does help focus the discussion on whether the changes are harmful, away from “it's a change, and change is bad”.

No, its deployed as a club to argue that all change is good.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#163

I’m not arguing against these findings but the whole subject of nutrition leaves me frustrated at times. Ever tried to have 100% daily recommended intake of every nutrient? I suspect almost nobody achieves that. And yet, despite this, and magnesium issues among likely many other issues, our species has never lived longer, grown taller, survived infancy, etc. more than we have now. That being said, as we understand an…

Yes, I've done it [0]. It's not too hard, surprisingly affordable and not bad-tasting, but you are limited in what you can eat, and it takes some research/optimization that I think is too much for 90% of people.

First you need to learn how to get complete nutritional info. A lot of packaged food does not have a full nutritional profile on its packaging, and will omit many vitamins and minerals that could even be abundant in that particular food. To work around this you should use software like Cronometer [1] that allows you to look up nutritional info against various databases. In my experience the most comprehensive data source is the NCCDB, which has all important vitamins and minerals plus amino acid profiles. You can then estimate full nutritional info for most whole foods you buy in a store by converting the store-bought brand's nutritional info to the NCCDB info. For example if you buy oatmeal that says it has 150kcal per 0.5 cup, and the NCCDB info says 100kcal per X grams, you track your store-bought oatmeal as 1.5X grams per 0.5cup you eat. Note this only works for whole/single-ingredient foods, for processed foods with multiple ingredients the ratios of ingredients will vary too much from product to product for the NCCDB to be useful.

You should also get a food scale so that you can properly measure food that has its nutritional info based on mass rather than by volume. They're pretty cheap, and you can do before/after measurements to make it less tedious to measure small things.

Now that you can get full nutritional info for each whole food, the rest is an optimization problem across macros, micros, amino acids (important if you get a lot of protein from plant-bases sources), price/availability, and your personal preferences.

Here is an example of a set of foods I eat almost every day which gives you a very strong macro/micro base: 80g (1 cup) rolled oats, 1 cup unsweetened soy milk, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 container Oikos Triple Zero yogurt, 0.5 oz pumpkin seeds, 0.5 oz sunflower seeds, 2 mandarin oranges. Try entering that to Cronometer, you'll see it's about 800kcal and makes good progress in a lot of vitamins and minerals - relevant to the article, it already has 84% of the RDA of magnesium. You can easily max all other micros by eating a dinner consisting of fish, rice and beans, 1 carrot, and some broccoli - and still have room left over for additional macros (which will of course themselves contain extra micros) if you exercise.

Of course, this is much more cognitive work than the majority of people want to put in, and because it only works when you buy most of your food in the form of single-ingredients that you then prepare yourself, it's not compatible with a lifestyle of eating lots of prepared foods or dining out. However once you invest the up front time in learning how to do all this, it's not very hard to do, especially if you eat a consistent diet or combine things into set meals you can mix and match [2].

[0] The major exception is I usually don't hit 100% of the RDA for dietary Vitamin D. Dietary vitamin D in non-supplemental form (as found in milk and milk substitutes) is only present in very few foods - oily fish and sun-exposed mushrooms. I do eat these somewhat regularly but not enough to hit 100%. But I think as long as you get adequate sun exposure it's not a big deal.

[1] cronometer.com

[2] For example, in the example set of foods I provided, the rolled oats + soy milk + chia seeds are eaten together in the form of overnight oats almost every morning.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#164

When we moved to the Bay Area, I started going to the farmers markets and was blown away by the quality of the vegetables. Peas grown at Iacopi Farms in Half Moon Bay were crisp and sweet. Zuckerman's Farm grew a special kind of squash bred specifically for flavor (honeynut squash). Fresh plums pulled off of trees in San Francisco were just bursting with juice. Mashed potatoes made from La Ratte potatoes. And Delta a…

A good example of this is "good" Tomatoes versus the slimy, gooey, tasteless thing you find in supermarkets. It's like a completely different vegetable.

Personally, i feel like something is "unbalanced" or missing in me as i get these flashes of "waking up" not to some euphoria or bliss but just clarity that feels "normal" that sometimes lasts for hours.

I'm pretty sure most people are deficient in various "hard to measure" nutrients - i myself for example have felt completely changed after megadosing B12, but as with most supplements the effects rarely lasts. The culprit i suspect is mostly soil depletion and diet that despite being more varied often is grown from "diluted" soil, and with most calories from incredibly refined and therefore nutrientlesss fats and carbohydrates.

Gut biome is probably another important mirror aspect in this system.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#165
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1-year vegan here, no new health issues to report. I supplement vitamins D and B12 and omega-3 fats.

There are people for whom a vegan diet works. You seem to be one of them. I tried it a few times, and no matter what I supplemented, I would lose weight rapidly. I understand that it can turn into a moral argument as well, except that I kill fewer animals than you to eat. Responsibly-grown meat is less detrimental to local ecosystems than vegetables.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#166

I wonder what the source of the nutrition information on FDA labels is. They're not assessing every batch of produce. Is the information we're told about the vitamins and minerals in our broccoli based on crops from last year? A decade ago? A century ago? Is it possible we think we're eating twice as many nutrients as we actually are?

This is a very important question, in my opinion. I am going to check how the amounts are calculated.

Please report back!!

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#167
post #50
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see a flag… people flag my comments because they are offended by eating meat. It’s fucking unbelievable. Especially if I’m right and it’s an important medical advancement. Yes, grass fed is necessary because of the omega 3 to 6 ratio. This is even more important if you are targeting autoimmune. And don’t sleep on the organs, I have found that those are important to immune-tangential things as well. Another no…

The advice you are giving is interesting but irresponsible considering how different peoples' digestive systems are. I would downvote your original comment for that and for being off topic, but I view the downvote as a way of organizing comments. Again, this is interesting, but you are pitching a foot-gun to people.

> The advice you are giving is interesting but irresponsible considering how different peoples' digestive systems are

This is fair, but you have to admit the same statement applies to evangelical vegans.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#168
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never fallen for a scam in my entire life Your username...

I’ve never subscribed to any religion of any kind. I was watching a documentary about Scientology right before I made this account. Im surprised anyone at all has even noticed the connection.

I noticed, and enjoyed the irony of the username-statement combination.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#169
post #119

When we moved to the Bay Area, I started going to the farmers markets and was blown away by the quality of the vegetables. Peas grown at Iacopi Farms in Half Moon Bay were crisp and sweet. Zuckerman's Farm grew a special kind of squash bred specifically for flavor (honeynut squash). Fresh plums pulled off of trees in San Francisco were just bursting with juice. Mashed potatoes made from La Ratte potatoes. And Delta a…

Check if a farmer market is held near where you live. It may be seasonal, but it's still better than dull vegs around the year.

Around here its the same brands and same cardboard boxes at the farmers market, the upscale supermarket, and the organic supermarket, although they mark the price up at the farmers market because of the extra labor and substantial fees the market charges, also its sort of a hipster tax. In addition to paying to park at the farmers market.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#170

A good article I read on a similar angle: https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...

I was wondering when someone was going to bring up climate change. And this article is the only thing that’s brought it up in this thread so far, meanwhile everyone else seems to be talking about taking magnesium pills.

This is just another sign that climate change is making this planet uninhabitable for us.

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