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.
Magnesium and major depression (2011)
81–90 of 235 posts
Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)
#82I'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.
Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)
#83Earlier 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?
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)
#84Magnesium supplementation changed my life. Better sleep, faster recovery from work outs, better more stable moods
Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)
#85Anyway, 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)
#86For anyone here that takes magnesium for sleep, why do you think it works for you? It works wonders for my sleep but I’ve never met anyone that shares that view.
Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)
#87Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)
#88FWIW Gwern has done some careful self-experiments on magnesium supplementation, finding it wasn't all rosy: https://www.gwern.net/nootropics/Magnesium
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)
#89Earlier 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.
Re: Magnesium and major depression (2011)
#90Earlier 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.