HealthBeat News

Category: Heart and Circulation

  • 9 Things You Can Do For Your Heart

    By Nurse Mark

     

    It’s Heart Health month again, and we’ll be featuring a series of Heart-Health articles this month. Let’s start with some simple things you can do to improve and ensure your best possible heart-health.

    Remember when you were younger and had absolutely no worries about your heart? After all, it’s not often a person in their 20′s or 30′s has heart disease, and you probably knew that. Your life wasn’t focused around living close to a hospital, avoiding physical activity out of fear of chest pain or worse, or even thinking at all about your heart, which just ticked along perfectly from day to day, week to week, and year to year.

    Would you like to return to that liberated, confident feeling, knowing that your heart is healthy and immune to problems, and enjoying the physical and emotional freedom that dependable, healthy heart function brings?

    Why not give yourself the gift of healthy heart confidence by following these simple, proven, protective measures that can lower your risk of heart disease to that of a 20-year-old? Your heart is a very forgiving muscle and can be rejuvenated. Here’s how:

    1. Stop smoking. Smoking is one of the single biggest causes of heart disease. If you need a good reason to quit, dramatically lowering your risk of heart disease might be that reason!
    2. Eat a heart-healthy diet. High carbohydrate diets lead to overweight and high blood sugar levels, and diabetes. As you continue to read this list, you’ll see that these factors are each independent risk factors for heart disease. A VLC diet (Very Low Carbohydrate diet), high in Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids, is the fastest, surest way to lower insulin and blood sugar levels, lose weight, decrease dangerous inflammation and slash heart disease risk at least four-fold. Diets higher in “good fats” (NOT low-fat diets!) and low in carbs have proven to be the heart-healthiest.
    3. Get optimal doses of heart-healthy nutrients. Many nutrients essential to healthy heart function are often missing in the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.). They include:
      • B complex vitamins, needed for normal nerve function and homocysteine levels.
      • magnesium, the relaxing, anti-arrhythmic mineral that is absolutely necessary for normal heart function. Unfortunately, magnesium is one of the most common nutrient deficiencies in the SAD diet.
      • antioxidant nutrients (especially vitamins C, E, and beta-carotene). Studies have shown that people with higher blood levels of antioxidants have a lower incidence of heart disease. Among people who have a heart attack, higher levels of antioxidants decrease free radical formation and reduce heart damage.
      • chromium helps stabilize and lower blood sugar levels, thereby lowering sugar-associated heart disease risk.
      • Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oils) are so well-known to decrease inflammation and heart arrhythmias that the FDA now allows Heart Health label claims for fish oil. We now also have an over-the-top expensive prescription fish oil for heart patients (many of whom would have less stress on their hearts if they bought fish oil for $20 instead of $200!).
      • soluble fiber helps keep blood fats, including cholesterol, at a happy level, although high cholesterol is not the big heart disease risk factor it has been portrayed as.
      • Maxi Multi is the best Optimal Dose Daily Multiple Vitamin available and will provide proper amounts of vitamins minerals, and trace minerals to keep you and your heart healthy.
      • Berberine is emerging as a highly valuable herb for heart health – we have patients who tell us it has quelled long-standing heart arrhythmias (palpitations) that have resisted every other drug tried by their conventional doctors. Learn more about this amazing herb here: Berberine: The “Swiss Army Knife” Of Supplements
    4. Increase physical activity. If you don’t use it, you lose it. Make your heart work harder than just getting up from your easy chair and going to the refrigerator once in a while. This doesn’t mean you need to train for a marathon. As little as ten minutes of brisk walking per day, especially if this is more than you currently do, will improve heart function.
    5. Lower body-wide inflammation. Subtle inflammation, as measured by a hs-CRP test (“highly sensitive C-Reactive Protein”, a simple blood test), is a more sensitive measure of heart disease risk than cholesterol or other elevated blood fats. This type of inflammation, which is often so minor that you may not feel it but which irritates the blood vessel lining and sets the atherosclerotic process in motion, can be corrected by simple diet changes, nutritional supplements and anti-inflammatory herbs. Decreasing inflammation also lowers your risk of cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s and other “age related” diseases.
    6. Lower your blood pressure naturally. There’s a lot of evidence that higher blood pressures (especially systolic B.P.’s consistently over 140) are associated with higher risk of heart disease. Interestingly (at least to this physician!), there are a number of big, long-range studies which show NO BENEFIT to lowering B.P. with drugs. People with “normal” blood pressures who were only “normal” because of medications are still at significantly higher risk of heart disease. As naturopathic as this conclusion sounds, these studies point to the fact that lowering blood pressure naturally, by correcting the cause of the elevation, is life-saving where chemical control is not.
    7. Curb depression, anxiety and stress. The emotional factor doesn’t get much “press” or discussion in the cardiologists office, but there are numerous studies showing that negative emotional states increase subtle inflammation. Possibly because depression and stress (or more accurately described as our reaction to stress) increase inflammation, these emotional states are associated with higher risk of heart disease and poorer prognosis in people with already-existing heart disease or who are recovering from heart surgery. If you suffer from depression, be sure to get help. And remember that depression isn’t caused by a Prozac deficiency!
    8. Lower high blood sugar levels. High blood sugar levels, high insulin levels or outright type II diabetes are major risk factors for heart disease. The pitiful part of this connection is that type II diabetes is completely curable through diet alone, usually in under three months. Sadly, I find that many diabetics would rather live with the risk (and worry about their risks), rather than make a few healthy diet changes that would erase this major danger. Go figure.
    9. Achieve and maintain a normal weight. Overweight increases subtle inflammation, which as you should know by now (if you’ve been paying attention!) is an important risk factor for not only heart disease but also cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s and more. When an overweight person loses weight, their hs-CRP (inflammatory marker) also comes down, corresponding to a lower heart disease risk. Of course, the low-carb, high Omega-3 fat diet that lowers blood sugar and corrects diabetes also leads to weight loss, making it easy to correct several problems at once through diet changes alone.

    These same measures that dramatically lower your risk of heart disease also increase natural immunity, slash your risk of cancer, diabetes, arthritis, depression, Alzheimer’s and senile dementia and a host of other diseases that we fall prey to with age. Even at advanced age or stages of disease, much improvement and protection is possible (in other words, you can reclaim a lot of healthy ground), by turning a few habits around in a healthier direction.

  • Statins Proven To Cause… Umm, I Can’t Remember!

    Part VIII of a multi-installment series on cholesterol and the dangers of statin drugs.

    Part ViI can be found here: Statin Drugs Proven To Increase Risk Of Cataracts
    Part VI can be found here: Statins Proven To Cause Increased Injuries
    Part V can be found here: Saturated Fats Are NOT Bad For You – Here’s PROOF
    Part IV can be found here: Cholesterol: Life-Giving Or Life-Threatening?
    Part III can be found here: New Research Into Statin Drug Memory Loss
    Part II can be found here: Trade Your High Cholesterol For Diabetes!
    Part I can be found here: Lower Your Cholesterol – Lose Your Marbles?

     

    By Nurse Mark

     

    StatinWarningJust in case you needed more reason to avoid statin drugs, there is a most recent research article showing that pravastatin (brand name Pravacol) causes measurable impairment of memory in rats.

    If this is a surprise to anyone it shouldn’t be – users of the drugs have been reporting problems like this for years, and Big Pharma has been poo-poo’ing and dismissing their complaints for just as long.

    One of the more notable people to report this problem is Duane Graveline MD – a former USAF Flight Surgeon and former NASA Astronaut. Dr. Graveline, a retired family doctor was prescribed statins by his doctors at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. He then experienced not one, but two episodes of profound transient global amnesia, recovering from the episodes each time when he stopped taking the statins.

    Graveline has been attacked and villified by Big Pharma and conventional medicine. He has been labeled a “quack” but it looks like there is now even solid research to support his claims.

    Researchers from the School of Physiology and Pharmacology at University of Bristol, in Bristol, England recently completed a study where rats were given two kinds of statin drug – pravastatin and atorvastatin and then tested for their ability to remember and perform tasks. Those rats given the pravastatin were found to be significantly impaired.

    The good news is that the effects were reversible – the rats recovered their memory when the drug was no longer given.

    In the words of the authors of the study:

    In conclusion, we have demonstrated that chronic treatment with pravastatin impairs recognition memory in normal rats. We also found impairments in working memory towards the end of treatment although this effect was less clear and was limited by the duration of treatment used in this study. Both effects observed were fully reversed following cessation of treatment. Overall, these findings support clinical observations that statins have adverse cognitive effects in certain patients undergoing long-term treatment. This study provides some of the first data obtained from animal studies suggesting statin treatment can impair cognitive function in a reversible manner in normal animals. The deficits observed with pravastatin were present in both models suggesting impaired working memory and/or attention, impaired cognitive flexibility and impaired recognition memory.

     

    So… Your memory “ain’t what it used to be”? Maybe it’s not “just ’cause you’re getting older”!

    Have a look at the medicines you are taking.

    Maybe that drug that is supposed to be “saving your heart” from “high cholesterol” is really just stealing your memories.

     

    References:

    Dr. Duane Graveline website: http://www.spacedoc.com/statin_amnesia_true_cost.html

    Study finds link between commonly prescribed statin and memory impairment: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/uob-sfl092513.php

    Chronic Pravastatin but Not Atorvastatin Treatment Impairs Cognitive Function in Two Rodent Models of Learning and Memory: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0075467

  • How To Reduce Your Risk Of Death By Over 22%

    By Nurse Mark

     

    Imagine a drug that could reduce overall risk of death by 22 percent – and even better, reduce the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, and respiratory diseases by 24% to 56% in men and by 34% to 59% in women.

    A drug that could do that amount of good would be considered by conventional medicine to be the greatest advance in health science since antibiotics and it would be a dream-come-true for Big Pharma. Doctors would be prescribing it to every patient that they see.

    Well, sorry – there isn’t a drug that can do all that.

    But there is something that can – and does.

    It’s not high-tech, it’s not cutting-edge, it’s not sexy or miraculous, and it gets little respect or attention from most doctors. In fact, when you visit your doctor you’ll be lucky to hear it mentioned at all beyond a recommendation to “try to get more” – mumbled while the doctor is scribbling out yet another prescription for statin drugs…

    What is this “miracle” substance?

    Fiber. Dietary fiber.

    Hard to believe? Well, believe it – increased dietary fiber intake will help you stay healthier and live longer.

    Fiber can help:

    • lower cholesterol
    • stabilize blood sugar
    • prevent Type II diabetes
    • reduce inflammation
    • fight obesity
    • reduce blood pressure
    • prevent respiratory infections
    • prevent cancer
    • and much more

     

    Researchers at the National Cancer Institute analyzed data from the National Institutes of Health / AARP Diet and Health Study and reported:

    Dietary fiber intake was associated with a significantly lowered risk of total death in both men and women. […] Dietary fiber intake also lowered the risk of death from cardiovascular, infectious, and respiratory diseases by 24% to 56% in men and by 34% to 59% in women.

     

    Another article, titled Study Strengthens Link Between Low Dietary Fiber Intake and Increased Cardiovascular Risk reported on October 18, 2013:

    A new study published in the December issue of The American Journal of Medicine shows a significant association between low dietary fiber intake and cardiometabolic risks including metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular inflammation, and obesity.

    “Overall, the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, inflammation, and obesity each decreased with increasing quintiles of dietary fiber intake,” comments  Clark. “Compared with participants in the lowest quintile of dietary fiber intake, participants in the highest quintile of dietary fiber intake had a statistically significant lower risk of having the metabolic syndrome, inflammation, and obesity.”

    [Senior investigator Cheryl R. Clark, MD, ScD, Center for Community Health and Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston]

     

    So, all a person needs to do is eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, right?

    Maybe. But it takes an awful lot of all those things to get the recommended daily fiber intake.

    The Institute of Medicine recommends fiber intake levels according to age and sex: 38g per day for men aged 19-50 years, 30g per day for men 50 and over, 25g for women aged 19-50 years, and 21g per day for women over 50.

    So you are going to try to eat more fiber – how about a nice salad? A half-cup of lettuce, a half-cup of tomato, maybe a bell pepper, and a half-cup of broccoli for good measure – that’s a lot of veggies, right? But all told you’ll only be getting about 4 grams of fiber from all that…

    OK, so let’s add a slice of whole wheat bread – why, that’ll add a whopping 1.9 grams of fiber right there!

    And after all, you started your day with some oatmeal – that half-cup (uncooked) gave you two whole grams of fiber.

    And your half grapefruit gave another 2 grams…

    All that and you are just up to 10 grams of fiber – do you see a problem beginning to develop?

    You are going to be eating rabbit food all day long if you want to get your recommended fiber from your meals!

    Want to check it out for yourself? To see how much fiber you are really getting? Have some fun with our Rate Your Plate fiber counter page. You’ll be surprised… and maybe disappointed at just how low your fiber intake is!

    What to do?

    The obvious answer is to supplement your fiber intake.

    But with what? Pills? It takes a lot of capsules to get in any amount of fiber. Better to save that for when you are traveling.

    Most powdered fiber supplements either turn into wallpaper paste if you don’t choke them down fast enough or they taste like ground-up recycled cardboard – or both. Ugh!

    Dr. Myatt had a great-tasting fiber product called Maxi Fiber that was so good that another company bought the rights to it and produced it for a while. Then they stopped making it, claiming that it was too expensive to make and they couldn’t sell it for enough of a profit.

    They were right – a really great-tasting fiber formula that contains both soluble and insoluble fiber and that doesn’t turn to glue if it sits for a few minutes IS an expensive proposition to make. It took Dr. Myatt over 2 years to develop her Maxi Fiber formula, and no-one was more disappointed when the company that she licensed it to stopped making it.

    Dr. Myatt immediately set about finding another company to manufacture Maxi Fiber – but it has been an arduous task as the ingredients are not cheap and Dr. Myatt’s quality standards are very, very high.

    It has taken over a year to bring back Maxi Fiber – but we are pleased and proud to announce that IT’S BACK – and as good as ever, and at the same price as before!

    Maxi Fiber is perfect to add to your daily Super Shake or smoothie.

    Maxi Fiber is an important part of our delicious, easy-to-make, low-carb, guilt-free Myatt Muffins.

    Maxi Fiber even tastes good enough that you can actually mix it with water and drink it all by itself – try that with any other fiber formula! (Any formula that doesn’t contain fake artificial flavoring chemicals that is!)

    And here’s an amusing story about Maxi Fiber that we didn’t learn until recently. When the company making Maxi Fiber decided to stop making it we tried to secure the remaining supplies so that we could keep our loyal customers supplied while we found a new manufacturer. But there were no “remaining supplies” to be had. None. Not at any price. We were baffled, and disappointed.

    It turns out that one of the top executives of that company also used our Maxi Fiber and liked it so much that she quietly bought up all the remaining stock for her own personal use! Now there’s a testimonial…

    We didn’t learn of this until she was running out of her stash and contacted us to find out when we would be able to sell her some more!

    Well Folks, Maxi Fiber is back and we are not going to let anyone run out of this great product ever again!

    –> Get your Maxi Fiber here! <–

     

    References:

    Park Y, Subar AF, Hollenbeck A, et al.  Dietary fiber intake and mortality in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Arch Intern Med 2011; DOI:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.18.

    de Koning L and Hu FB. Do the health benefits of dietary fiber extend beyond CV disease? Arch Intern Med 2011; DOI:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.18.

    Dietary Fiber Intake and Cardiometabolic Risks among US Adults, NHANES 1999-2010.  http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00631-1/fulltext#sec3  

    More Support for Dietary Fiber Reducing CV, All-Cause Death. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/737400

    An Update on Statin Alternatives and Adjuncts. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776919_6

    Study Strengthens Link Between Low Dietary Fiber Intake and Increased Cardiovascular Risk. http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/study-strengthens-link-between-low-dietary-fiber-intake-and-increased-cardiovascular-risk

  • This Simple Activity Cuts Diabetes Risk 40%

    By Nurse Mark

     

    I remember my grandfathers – both of them. My maternal grandfather was a watchmaker. The old-fashioned kind of watchmaker, who could actually make a functioning watch out of brass and steel – not just a fumble-fingered clerk who might not be able to replace the battery in your new electronic watch without destroying it. In fact, Grandpa Pass wouldn’t have those newfangled quartz watches in his shop.

    Grandpa Pass didn’t own an automobile either. He really didn’t need to. His home was about a mile and a half from his watch and clock repair shop and he walked to work in the morning and back home again in the evening  – rain or shine, every day of his working life.

    And that working life spanned many decades. Grandpa Pass died in his 85th year having enjoyed good health right up to his final days.

    Did Grandpa Pass plan it that way? Was he some sort of a health nut or fitness buff? Hardly.

    Grandpa Pass worked at a very sedentary job – hunched over a workbench manipulating the tiny pieces of clocks and watches. He would occasionally stand to serve a customer at the counter, but there was no great physical labor to his work.

    So how did he do it? What was the secret to his remaining healthy and free from doctors and drugs right up to the end?

    Perhaps it was that mile-and-a-half of walking – about 30 minutes – twice a day, every day, for decades.

    According to a study just released by researchers at Imperial College London and University College London using data from a survey of some 20,000 people across the U.K., people who walk to work are 40 per cent less likely to have diabetes than those who drive.

    And it’s not just diabetes – they also found that people who walk to work were 17% less likely to have high blood pressure than people who drive. And of course, the walkers are far less likely to be overweight too.

    Wow – the drug companies would love to be able to sell a pill that would do all that!

    Moderation: the secret to longevity and health?

     

    Grandpa Pass was not an exercise fanatic – in fact, he really didn’t “exercise.” He just walked a half-hour or so each way to work and back. That might be called “moderate” exercise.

    He enjoyed the healthy, fresh foods that Grandma Pass prepared for him – in moderation.

    Perhaps there are lessons in this for us in our more modern world.

    Not everyone lives within a mile or two of their work so as to be able to walk, or even 5 miles which would be bicycling distance.

    But we can all find a half-hour or so each day for some moderate exercise.

    Not everyone has access to all those farm-fresh, wholesome, and natural foods that Grandma would prepare from scratch preserving their nutrition and freshness, either.

    But we can all eat in moderation, and we can all make sure that we make up for the nutritional depletion that has come from or modern industrial farming methods – even the USDA is acknowledging that two-thirds or more of Americans are mineral and vitamin deficient.

    Making sure that we get all our vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients is the easy part – with a basic daily regimen of:

    • An optimal dose multiple vitamin, mineral, antioxidant and bioflavonoid formula.
    • A green food formula that provides flavonoids and phytonutrients.
    • High-potency Omega-3 essential fatty acids.

     

    Dr. Myatt has put together a time and money-saving package of essential daily supplements – her Maxi Health Foundation Bundle – that saves you from having to shop around and drive all over town in order to find the best-priced , highest quality, optimal dose supplements. Each Maxi Health Foundation Bundle is a one-month supply of these essential health-saving nutrients for one person – at a substantial savings compared to locating and buying these items separately.

    We’ll help with the vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients – the exercise is up to you!

     

    References:

    Anthony A. Laverty, MSc, Jennifer S. Mindell, PhD, Elizabeth A. Webb, PhD, Christopher Millett, PhD.: Active Travel to Work and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in the United Kingdom. http://www.ajpmonline.org/webfiles/images/journals/amepre/AMEPRE_3837-stamped-080613.pdf

  • Are You Missing This Important Mineral?

    By Nurse Mark

     

    Magnesium.

     

    You know the stuff; that really lightweight metal that you had fun with in high school chemistry class. There was always the class clown who would put a match to a piece of it, and it would burn with an incredibly bright, white light. Invariably, someone would panic and try to douse the flame with water – which would only make it burn more ferociously…

    Magnesium is one of the most common minerals on our planet Earth – the fourth most common element in fact after iron, oxygen and silicon.

    Yet many people are deficient in this important, precious (for health) mineral.

    How can this be?

     

    Our ancestors rarely suffered from magnesium deficiencies – they got plenty in their diets. That is unfortunately not the case today.

    Can you say “monoculture“?

     

    Modern, “industrial” agriculture methods have depleted our topsoil of this and many other minerals, leaving our crops and thus our diets deficient. Even the USDA admits that less than a third of Americans don’t get even the minimal USDA recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of 240 to 420 millgrams per day.

    Why is magnesium so important to our health?

     

    Magnesium is involved in energy processes, nerve function, enzyme activation, and protein formation.

    Magnesium is essential to the basic chemistry of life – nucleic acid. Over 300 enzymes require magnesium to function, including all enzymes that utilize or synthesizing ATP (adenosine triphosphate – the most basic energy source for our cells), and enzymes used to synthesize DNA and RNA. ATP is found in cells in the form of ATP and a magnesium ion bound together in a chelate.

    So what – if I’m a little low?

     

    Since magnesium is important to so many vital physical processes in our bodies it’s easy to see how a deficiency can have so many, wide ranging, and serious effects.

    Magnesium deficiency is associated with:

    fatigue glaucoma depression
    high blood pressure diabetes hearing loss
    fibromyalgia kidney stones osteoporosis
    asthma gallbladder stones cancer
    stroke migraine insomnia
    heart disease (arrhythmia, CHF, angina, acute MI) pregnancy complications (toxemia, premature delivery) premenstrual syndrome
     

    And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

     

    Without magnesium our bones cannot utilize calcium properly, leading to osteoporosis. This also why a magnesium deficiency can lead to kidney and gall stone formation and can result in vascular calcification (AKA “hardening of the arteries”).

    Magnesium is Mother Nature’s “calcium channel blocker.” Calcium Channel Blockers are drugs used to control high blood pressure. The drugs have a multitude of nasty side effects. Magnesium doesn’t, and it lowers high blood pressure very nicely.

    Magnesium is a “calming” mineral. It reduces muscle cramps and spasms and is used in emergency medicine to treat life-threatening heart arrhythmias.

    Magnesium deficiencies are associated with metabolic syndrome and Type II Diabetes.

    Small doses of magnesium were found to be as effective as drugs in treating depressed elderly Type II Diabetics, and has been speculated to be useful in the treatment of other depression as well.

    But what if I take too much?

     

    Like anything, it is possible to get too much magnesium. Difficult, but possible. Excess magnesium in the blood is quickly and effectively filtered out by the kidneys, so it’s hard to overdose on magnesium from dietary sources alone.

    Overdose is possible with misuse of supplements, particularly in people with poor renal function and occasionally people using high doses of magnesium salts as a cathartic can get themselves into trouble, causing hypermagnesemia even if they don’t have renal dysfunction – they just overwhelm their kidneys ability to cope with the overload.

    For most people however, excess magnesium in the system is going to be quickly eliminated in the urine.

    Where can I get some?

     

    Diet is the best way to get your magnesium. Unfortunately, as we discussed earlier, our soils are depleted and our crops are lacking. Green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, are good sources of magnesium.

    Like almonds? They provide up to 20% of the RDA of magnesium (80mg) per one ounce serving. Spinach runs a close second, providing 78mg per half cup. Cashews are number 3 with 74mg per one ounce serving – who knew that eating healthy could be so great!

    But remember, the RDA is 240 to 420 millgrams per day – and you really should be getting twice that much for optimal health!

    Supplementation provides a more certain source for magnesium.

     

    Multiple vitamin / mineral formulas should ideally contain goodly amounts of magnesium. For example, Dr. Myatt’s Maxi Multi provides 500mg per day. For those who need more, Magnesium Glycinate is available in 100mg capsules to allow optimal fine-tuning of daily intake. And for those who are concerned with osteoporosis and bone health, CalMag Amino contains 200mg of magnesium in the optimal ratio with calcium along with several other essential bone health nutrients including Vitamin D, boron, and Vitamin K.

    Ever get a charley-horse or other muscle cramps?

     

    Magnesium absorbs quickly through the skin and relieves muscle cramps fast. Try massaging in a few sprays of Magnesium Oil – Dr. Myatt uses this herself for muscle cramps after exercise and she swears by it. It’s not really oil – it is a very thick brine (like a salt solution) that feels oily going on but absorbs in to the skin quickly. It doesn’t stain like oil, but it does sometimes leave a light powdery residue on the skin that is easily wiped or washed away. This stuff is like a “miracle cure” for kids who are prone to night-time muscle cramps, “growing pains,” and charley-horses!

     

    Magnesium – who knew that “science class” stuff would turn out to be so important!

     

    References:

    National Institutes for Health Office of Dietary Supplements Fact Sheet on Magnesium: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-HealthProfessional/ – includes numerous additional references.

    Eby Ga, 3rd; Eby, KL (2010). “Magnesium for treatment-resistant depression: a review and hypothesis”. Medical hypotheses 74 (4): 649–660.

    Barragán-Rodríguez, L; Rodríguez-Morán, M; Guerrero-Romero, F (2008). “Efficacy and safety of oral magnesium supplementation in the treatment of depression in the elderly with type 2 diabetes: a randomized, equivalent trial”. Magnesium research : official organ of the International Society for the Development of Research on Magnesium 21 (4): 218–23.

    Jee SH, Miller ER III, Guallar E et al. (2002). “The effect of magnesium supplementation on blood pressure: a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials”. Am J Hypertens 15 (8): 691–696.

    Guerrero-Romero F, Rodriguez-Moran M (2002). “Low serum magnesium levels and metabolic syndrome”. Acta Diabetol 39 (4): 209–213.

    Zipes DP, Camm AJ, Borggrefe M et al. (2012). “ACC/AHA/ESC 2006 Guidelines for Management of Patients With Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force and the European Society of Cardiology Committee for Practice Guidelines (writing committee to develop Guidelines for Management of Patients With Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death): developed in collaboration with the European Heart Rhythm Association and the Heart Rhythm Society”. Circulation 114 (10): e385–e484.

    James MF (2010). “Magnesium in obstetrics”. Best Pract Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol 24 (3): 327–337.

    Hashimoto T, Hara A, Ohkubo T et al. (2010). “Serum magnesium, ambulatory blood pressure, and carotid artery alteration: the Ohasama study”. Am J Hypertens 23 (12): 1292–1298.

    Massy ZA, Drüeke TB (2012). “Magnesium and outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease: focus on vascular calcification, atherosclerosis, and survival”. Clin Kidney J 5 (Suppl 1): i52–i61.

    Turgut F, Kanbay M, Metin MR et al. (2008). “Magnesium supplementation helps to improve carotid intima media thickness in patients on hemodialysis”. Int Urol Nephrol 40 (4): 1075–1082.

    “Lack Energy? Maybe It’s Your Magnesium Level”. United States Department of Agriculture.

    Euser, A. G.; Cipolla, M. J. (2009). “Magnesium Sulfate for the Treatment of Eclampsia: A Brief Review”. Stroke 40 (4): 1169–1175.