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Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

271–280 of 412 posts

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#271

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Or…you know…vegetables have fiber and meat doesn’t?

Fiber is certainly important, but try eating a diet of only broccoli one day vs a diet of only chicken the next. You’ll likely feel normal on the chicken day. On the broccoli day you’ll feel like you’re fasting (because on a calorie basis, you literally will be unless you eat 5-7X as much broccoli as you do chicken).

You’re being disingenuous.

The conversation started about nutrient depleted junk food vs whole foods.

And now you’re comparing two different types of whole foods.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#272
post #101

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Did the glycinate formulation have a markedly better effect than more common alternatives?

Not really sure, I heard that magnesium citrate can have laxative effects. I used to use cal-mag which helped anxiety but it never really “clicked” in my head that it was helping, I used it for muscle cramps.

Haven’t had any issues with citrate. I use natural calm (brand) and tend to take the minimum dose only as needed.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#273

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…

I wonder if there's a relationship to the obesity epidemic, especially since it's not just humans that are getting larger but also lab animals, pets, and wild animals living close to humans [1]. What if we're compelled to eat more calories when we're not getting enough nutrients in our diets? This would impact any animals consuming lower quality fruits and vegetables. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.628

It seems highly plausible to me that that's part of the story.

Another part of the story is that modern food is designed to be super-tasty: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally (though studies like [1] seem to confirm this), I've found that tomatoes are quite sensitive to transportation and storage. To me, garden tomatoes taste fantastic; the ones at the local farmers' market taste pretty good too; supermarket tomatoes are only good for making tomato sauce. I wonder whether the tomatoes you ate as a kid had been transported over long distances. Also anecdotally, I haven't found…

The varieties you see in a supermarket are optimized for industrial farming and yes, transportation is one of the things they optimize for. The tomato specifically, though, lost most of it's flavor purely for aesthetic reasons [1]. Consumers have an image of the perfectly round red tomato so all the farmers optimized for it, losing at least one critical gene that contributed significantly to flavor and sugar producti…

Depends where you live, but heirloom tomatoes and such are very popular at farmers markets up here, and available at the better stores. (example image from a quick google: https://i1.wp.com/www.seedtopantry.com/wp-content/uploads/20... ) Berry season up here is awesome too even in the major markets, because there's such a glut of berries that won't transport out of the region.

I suspect this will be more of a trend across the US. Every time I visit back home in KS I see more people at the farmer's market there, more stuff in the supermarkets that's trying to regain some farm to table authenticity.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although this can mostly be attributed to ripeness. Ripe tomatoes degrade extremely quickly so store bought ones are almost exclusive picked unripe and then artificially ripened at locations closer to where they are intended to be sold. This is also why canned tomatoes are generally considered superior for making tomato soups and sauces. Tomatoes harvested with the intention to be conserved are picked much riper sinc…

That's a good point. I was thinking about similarity between tomatoes and eggs, where a free range egg, especially where the farmer let's the chickens have the run of the farm, have much brighter and deeper colored yolks. I had understood this to relate to the chickens diet and the nutrition of the egg. So I imagined deeper brighter red tomatoes to be similarly more nutritious. It could be different mechanisms though…

I actually don't make that much difference in taste between free range eggs, even home grown, and the industrial kind. The yolk is usually brighter, but not always. The real difference is usually the shell, which is much thicker and harder for free range eggs.

Home grown tomatoes on the other hand are way better tasting.

I don't know about nutrition value.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#276
post #175

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I agree but think its also the variety. I once bought semigreen tomatoes in a supermarket in December in Italy and those turned out great after some ripening at home. But they were not the standard red tomatoes you would get everywhere else but real italian flesh tomatoes. Last year my grandma had only standard red ping-pong ball tomatoes and those were almost like store bought, although grown like you described. The…

Can that happen, or is color change the same as ripening? I thought ripening requires the fruit to be attached to the plant and exchanging nutrients/waste with the roots?

Not at all. Given my climate and growing season here for some reason I can almost never get tomatoes to properly ripe on the vine. However, if I just harvest them when they are the right size but still green or half green and let them ripen on the kitchen counter in complete darkness they will soften up, redden up and taste amazing (just add salt and pepper).

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#277

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 m…

Growing up, money was tight so we shopped at Aldi. American and European Aldi are a bit different, US is more budget conscious and it’s reflected in product quality. So I always thought I just didn’t like vegetables. In my early 20’s I realized vegetables vary in quality, and that I in fact did like a lot of vegetables! Tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, love it if it’s the good quality stuff

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve recently switched to magnesium L-Threonate which has shown to be far more effective at being absorbed by the brain and I’ve found myself far less anxious in social situations. The L-Threonate compound was developed at MIT specifically for better brain absorption. Source: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/96066/Slutsky...

I found that mag l-threonate helps me fall asleep after an anxious afternoon/night but I'm groggy in the morning. Also, I've read anecdotal reports that after a couple of weeks of regular use, the effect flattens out (sorry, too lazy to search for those reports) and one has to take a break for the effect to return. Have you noticed anything along those lines?

For me, the effect is less (or possibly just less noticable) after a few weeks. But some coffee or tea gets me going pretty quickly and the effects wear off.

I've always been a slow morning person, so 30-60 minutes to start feeling normal is on par for me, so it doesn't really affect my timetable, but you may have a different schedule in mind.

My morning bowel movements when I take magnesium l-threonate are amazing, however, which used to slow me down even more on a typical morning.

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, this has been my personal experience. I have gone through phases of my life where I ate a lot of junk food. I would feel constantly hungry during those phases, until I ate something nutritious, green and easily-digestible, like steamed broccoli or green peas.

This doesn’t make any scientific sense. Study after study has shown that protein and complex carbs are what reduces feelings of hunger, not vegetables. This makes sense when you consider most green vegetables like broccoli are 90% water. A meat like chicken, after cooking is only about 60% water. So if you eat 400g of broccoli vs 400g of chicken, the one that will make you feel more full is obviously the protein. Wha…

> most green vegetables like broccoli are 90% water.

That's super misleading. The nutrition facts for broccoli here [1] gives 89% water but actually over 1/3rd of broccoli by mass is carbs, fats, proteins or fibers. And comparing raw broccoli to cooked chicken is deceptive - cooking broccoli obviously gets rid of a lot of it's water depending on how you cook. Moreover, comparing gram-to-gram, I'm sure broccoli is less filling, but a lot of people care more about calorie-to-calorie.

[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/broccoli#nutrient...

Re: Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status

#280

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.

Such obvious truths are unfortunately incompatible with individual instincts to procreate.
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