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Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

251–260 of 412 posts

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#251

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I suspect it can be solved in many different ways, but when you sell food by the pound, it's much more advantageous to distribute your limited quantity of nutrients in as much produce as possible. This seems really, really hard to regulate.

Why regulate when you can market? If I knew that a brand of zucchini had high mineral content and flavor, I'd buy it at a premium

Sounds like a good way to have every milk container say "rBST free, from cows raised without hormones!" Which could also be stated "farmed in accordance with California law."

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#252

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…

It’s not just vegetables either - chickens are a lot less nutritious than they used to be. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2005/may/15/foodand...

If you live in the country you can fix that. Raising chooks is easy.

I raise my own sheep for food, heavily under-stocked so they can pick and choose what they want to eat (makes the meat taste much better than when they are forced to eat bitter stuff they don't want). I don't eat lamb, I let them mature to 2-3 years old first to develop a stronger taste which I prefer, but not so old that they get tough. Beef tastes bland to me now (unless it is charred and/or served with horseradish).

Soil tests show my soil is high in magnesium, low in phosphorus/sulfur, and normal for calcium/potassium, pH is low and I probably need to apply ag lime (nothing has been applied for at least 9 years).

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my grandparents told me that chicken tastes less good nowadays I thought they were just old and had lost their sense of taste. Actually they were right though.

Everything tastes less good nowadays. When I was a kid, we used to eat tomatoes like apples, just biting into them, maybe with some salt. Nowadays supermarket tomatoes taste like water.

Yes, I used to love tomatoes from the local greenhouse. The sorts we get now just taste and smell fresh cut grass. For the farmers it's about what species of tomatoes grows the fastest and largest, with least work. However this is usually the least interestingly tastewise.

The tasty plants still exist, you just have to find the right sorts. They won't be found in your local grocery though.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#254

I understand this seems mostly to be about soil depletion. I'm curious more generally if vegetables are also less nutritious because they are selectively bread for high water content and size. For example, its appeared to me for years that you vegetables you get on a Subway sandwich must have almost no nutritional content. They are all way paler than you'd normally see, and super watery. Thinking about it, I suppose…

I’ve been learning about regenerative organic farming and those folks would make the claim that conventional fertilizer and biocide intensive farming is responsible for those bad veggies. Conventional agriculture destroys soil health and this leads to depleted crops. There’s just no nutrition left in soil that has been doused with chemicals. Places like subway buy that produce because it’s cheap.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#255
post #208
post #106

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I use this[0] not every day because I’ll get muscle spasms unless I eat a lot of calcium, but a few times a week seems to make a big difference. [0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZD7R4RF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...

Weird I take magnesium to prevent muscle cramps. I don’t supplement calcium at all.

I was under the impression that cramps are from an imbalance of potassium, calcium and magnesium. Supplementing the one you are lacking generally resolves the problem, but its hard to know for an individual without trial and error unless you are 100% sure of your diet.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#256
post #26

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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…

Interesting, I am specifically taking magnesium to stop muscle twitches. In your case it is the opposite.

It is commonplace for people to eat magnesium supplements before taking certain central stimulants to decrease yaw clenching and gurning, not sure if it helps or not, but it is a thing.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#257
post #234

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It appears the FDA breaks the label down into “mandatory” and “voluntary” categories based on the association of certain nutrients with specific diseases. From your list, vitamin K and magnesium are both voluntary and zinc isn’t included on the standardized label. I assume it’s a business decision by the manufacturer to not include them. https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2012-N-1210-0875

Thanks for linking that, there is a lot of interesting information in that document. They provide a rationale for why each nutrient is mandatory or voluntary as well as public comments and rebuttals. >One comment suggested vitamin D fortification should be viewed as hormone replacement therapy Found that particularly humorous

If I remember from a Dr. Rhonda Patrick podcast, vitamin D is unique because your body converts it to calcitriol which is a steroid hormone used to treat hyperthyroidism among other diseases.

From that angle, I can understand how they arrive to that conclusion, while perhaps still disagreeing. The interplay within the human body is almost mind-blowingly complex to me

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#258
post #22

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Can it be solved by simply adding more magnesium to the fertilizer?

Fertilizer is actually the problem. The soil is losing magnesium because we don't practice crop rotation anymore, so we load up the soil with fertilizer, 90% of which runs off into our watersheds, wreaking havoc. It can be solved by using less efficient / more complex farming practices which aren't amenable to mass production of monocultures. But that makes a lot less money, so it will never happen. A different solut…

A couple of years ago where was a very long draught in northern europe. The only fields that weren't burned brown was the new ecological farms that reinvented farming the old way. Their soil is kept alive deeper into the ground and can hold water much longer. So while their neighbours had to buy feed for their cows, the eco farmers could keep using their grass for feeding.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#259

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Just a warning to anyone on anti-seizure or mood stabilizing meds. Theanine can seriously fuck you up because it alters glutamate channels that your medication may also be altering.

I think the warning should be "If you're not a doctor, don't play at one".

Not everyone can afford a good doctor, so experimenting on their own might be the only way to fix something. People have been hacking their CPAP machines for awhile even though it could kill them.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#260
I wonder how nutritious edible weeds are? I assume a lot of the loss of nutrients comes from rigorously farming the same monoculture land for things like shitty iceberg lettuce. Maybe a little unfair to single that out when corn and tomatoes are especially greedy plants.

As I watch the edges of the woods get overtaken with garlic mustard and tearthumb, I'm thinking why not eat them? I realize this isn't going to work for those in a city but I do wonder about the nutrition of things growing wild on land that isn't typically farmed.

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