Magnesium, Key to Health E-Book

Ana Maria Lajusticia Bergasa

• Herausgeber: Ennsthaler
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 138

Beschreibung

Our modern diet is deficient in magnesium, an element that is crucial for health. This deficiency causes problems related to the nervous system, such as anxiety and restlessness. As magnesium is involved in muscle relaxation, this deficiency is also manifested as muscle spasms, arrhythmias, tachycardia, breathing difficulties and sometimes hypertension. Magnesium is essential in the synthesis of our body’s proteins, and is therefore a key factor in the manufacture and repair of wear in our cartilages, bones, tendons, stomach walls and blood vessels. Furthermore, when there are lower levels of it in the blood, less of it is eliminated by the urine, which leads to the formation of kidney stones. This book, which was published by Ana Maria Lajusticia Bergasa to great acclaim, includes the latest studies carried out which confirm the enormous importance of magnesium for our health.

Leseprobe

Ana María Lajusticia Bergasa

Magnesium, Key to Health

The Importance of This Mineral and the Problems Caused by Its Deficiency

PUBLISHING HOUSE ENNSTHALER, STEYR

Disclaimer

The ideas, suggestions, and therapeutic methods presented in this book are not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. Any application of the information contained in this book is done so at the sole discretion of the reader. The authors, publishers, distributors, dealers, consultants, and all other associated persons assume no liability, directly or indirectly, for any consequences resulting from the application of the information contained in this book.

Original title: El magnesio, clave para la salud. La importancia de este elemento y los problemas que causa su deficiencia. 4th edition 2013, www.edaf.net

Translated from Spanish by Tys – Traducciones y Tratamiento de la Documentación, S.L., Barcelona

www.ennsthaler.at

ISBN 78-3-7095-0149-8

Ana María Lajusticia Bergasa · Magnesium, Key to Health

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2021 by Ennsthaler Verlag, Steyr

Ennsthaler Gesellschaft m.b.H. & Co KG, 4400 Steyr, Österreich

Cover design: Thomas Traxl

E-Book: Zeilenwert GmbH

Cover photo: © iStockphoto.com/JulijaDmitrijeva

Contents

Introduction

Magnesium in the Human Body

Magnesium and Osteoarthritis

Magnesium in Rocks and Arable Soil

The Earth’s Crust: Types of Rock

Classification of Rocks According to their Origin

Sedimentary Rocks

Metamorphic Rocks

Magnesium-Rich Arable Soil

Other Causes of Reduced Magnesium in the Modern Diet

The Balance Between Magnesium in the Soil and Magnesium in Living Things – The Imbalance Humans have Created this Century

The Role of Magnesium in Living Beings

Protein Synthesis

Quantities of Magnesium in the Human Body and How it is Distributed

Physiological Activity of the Magnesium Ion

Magnesium and Calcium

Magnesium and Potassium

Pregnancy

Manifestations of Magnesium Deficiency in Children

Magnesium and the Kidneys – Excess Magnesium

Magnesium-Rich Foods

Oral Magnesium Treatment

Sea Salt Baths

Once Again: Magnesium and Osteoarthritis

Magnesium and Arteriosclerosis

Magnesium and the Cardiovascular System

Magnesium and Hypertension

Magnesium and Thrombosis

Magnesium and Coronary and Cerebral Spasms – Heart Attacks and Strokes

Magnesium and Diabetes

Magnesium and Renal Lithiasis

Magnesium and Diuretics

The Digestive System and Magnesium Deficiency

Magnesium Deficiency and Vulnerability to Infection

Magnesium and Women

Magnesium and Allergies

Magnesium and Cancer

Factors that can Trigger DNA Mutations

Factors Influencing the Stability of DNA

Formation of Mutant Cells

Magnesium, Tumours and Warts

Magnesium and the Prostate

Magnesium and Cystitis

Magnesium and Farm Animals

Commonly Accepted Errors Related to Magnesium

Summary of the Symptoms of Magnesium Deficiency

Secondary Magnesium Deficit

The Chemistry of Magnesium

About the Author

Introduction

Some of the passages in this book are repetitive; it is not a question of it “turning out” like this, but instead, I have taken a conscious decision to stress the areas that I have seen as unclear or giving rise to more doubt during my work. I apologise to those people who only need to read a piece of writing once to obtain a clear idea of it, as I have made these repetitions for the benefit of people like me, who need emphasis and for what we are trying to learn to be hammered home to us. The literary style – which is not my strongest suit – undoubtedly suffers from the repetition of some concepts, but given how new the subject matter is to many people, I present it as if I were a teacher, attempting to clear up doubts instead of dealing with the issue as a writer.

Consequently, I apologise to anyone who, because of their knowledge or ease of understanding, finds that I have repeated myself in some places.

Thank you.

Magnesium in the Human Body

As our understanding of biochemistry and molecular biology improves, we have discovered the role that this element plays in our body, which I am going to explain below.

Magnesium is involved in the functioning of the nervous system

- In the formation of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators.

- In the restoration of membrane potential when it has been electrically depolarised after synapses or connections between the neurons.

- In maintaining the action potential.

Since our mental balance depends on the right brain chemistry, and we cannot manufacture the neurotransmitters we need for it to work properly without the right amount of magnesium, a deficiency is one of the causes of a great deal of uncompensated stress, which leads to restlessness, discomfort, poorly controlled nerves, and even almost constant anxiety; as well as irritability, unfounded fears, phobias, such as the fear of being in confined spaces, or the opposite, agoraphobia, which is anxiety caused by meeting people or being in open spaces.

A shortage of magnesium can cause tremors around the eyes, giving the sensation of a twitching eyelid, or tingling around the mouth. Nervous tics become aggravated, or new ones appear. Sufferers sleep badly, waking up in the early hours of the morning almost every day. They dream a great deal, and the person sometimes wakes up with the feeling that they are falling, with the consequent shock; they may also kick out, or stretch out their arms.

They may have a feeling of tightness in their chest or a “lump in the throat”, as well as arrhythmias and tachycardias which make them more anxious and inconsolably sad, because when the person who is suffering from these heart disorders goes to have an electrocardiogram, it cannot find the reason for their problems, and they are told that they are “nervous” tachycardias.

Because spasms can also affect the muscular tunics of the arteries, often leading to arrhythmias, the person experiences chest pains as if they were suffering from angina pectoris, in addition to the other problems. The patient goes to the doctor seeking a diagnosis for the illness that is making their life a misery, and they return home sad and disappointed because the doctors can find nothing to account for their discomfort – only their “nerves”.

Meanwhile, family and friends begin to suggest they are hypochondriacs, and to some extent, suggest that they are to blame for their own discomfort because “they listen to themselves too much”, and they tell them: “You have to help yourself, because you can see how the doctor can’t find anything wrong with you.”

As a result, the life of a person with spasmophilia, which is the scientific name for these processes, experiences difficulties both at work and in their family relationships, as they begin to be marginalised because “they have become impossible to deal with”, and partly also because they themselves do not feel like socialising, because they do not know when they will begin to feel ill.

Other symptoms are closely related to these processes, as:

Magnesium is involved in muscle relaxation

As a result, a deficiency of magnesium causes cramps in the legs, feet and thighs, and all kinds of spasms in the neck, back and respiratory muscles, leading to pain and stiffness. It also creates a feeling of tightness in the chest and difficulty in getting air into the lungs, which the sufferer attempts to overcome with deep breaths, which sound like sighs in women.

If the spasms affect the diaphragm, this causes hiccups; at other times, the individual might yawn a great deal, and when it mainly affects the intestine, it leads to an irritable bowel, and the person’s daily bowel movement can range from constipation involving passing hard stools like those of a goat, to spending days with loose stools resembling diarrhoea.

Sometimes the spasms affect the common bile duct and the gall bladder or the vocal cords, giving the person the feeling that they have lost their voice or as mentioned above, of having a “lump in the throat”, or they see moving images when they are reading, with the letters appearing to move up and down on the page, or buildings appearing to wobble slightly, as a result of spasms in the muscles that control the lens in their eye. This is what French doctors call “flou visuel”.

Sometimes the spasms affect virtually the entire body, and the characteristics are similar to epilepsy, with a loss of consciousness but no biting of the tongue; however, there is no leakage of urine as experienced by sufferers of that disorder. These people also sometimes get dizzy in church or collapse in certain situations.

Magnesium deficiency, which is also related to spasmophilia, can cause ringing in the ears, trembling in the hands and elsewhere in the body, dizziness or a feeling of instability when walking, spinal pain, pale fingers and above all, fatigue – a fatigue that the sufferer is unable to find any reason for; it’s very common to wake up in this condition, and I’ve heard the following phrase many times: “I’m more tired when I wake up than when I go to bed”. At other times, while they are living a normal life, they suddenly experience physical and mental exhaustion, which is like the individual becoming overwhelmed. They to lose control of their life, and when they emerge from what seems to be the bottom of a well, they experience tachycardias or extrasystoles, or lights appear when they close their eyes.

Since the function of magnesium in relation to the nervous and muscular systems is so important, as I have explained above, there are other symptoms, since:

Magnesium is involved in the formation of all proteins in the human body

What are proteins?

Chains of amino acids.

And what are the proteins in our body?

- All the enzymes, like those which used to be called “digestive ferments”. In other words, pepsin, trypsin, erepsin, lipase, amylase, lactase, sucrase and maltase, which are the molecules we use to help us digest food. Enzymes are molecules which can considerably increase the speed of specific chemical reactions. Each enzyme only catalyses a certain reaction, and there are currently more than a thousand known enzymes.

- Antibodies, i.e. molecules that neutralise the toxins of viruses or bacteria that cause disease, are also proteins. So are white blood cells, which are our defence against those viruses and bacteria, and red blood cells, platelets and many proteins carried in the blood, some of which regulate blood pressure with sodium.

- Proteins are specific neurotransmitters that act as neuroregulators. They are also called neuropeptides, since in chemistry a short-chain protein (usually those with 12 to 60 amino acids) is called a peptide.

- And all the tissues in the human body, such as muscles, blood vessels, cartilage, tendons, and organic matter in bones, are proteins.

Today we know the amino acid composition of many proteins, and interestingly, the most abundant in our body is collagen, which accounts for about 40 % of all the proteins in it, and basically forms connective tissues such as cartilage and tendons, as well as the organic matrix of our support tissue which is our bones.

It is important to have as clear a picture as possible of the make-up and workings of the human body, because of course, the better our body’s chemistry functions, the better our mental and physical health.

Taking into account that magnesium is involved in the formation of all proteins, it is obvious why people with magnesium deficiency:

- have difficulty with digestion, with a tendency to build up gas in both the stomach and in the intestines.

- are prone to infections, including colds, cystitis, bronchitis, etc.

- have problems with their nervous system: they suffer from anxiety, sometimes fears, poor reflexes ... Re-read what I have written about magnesium and these problems in the first part of this chapter.

- When there is a shortage of magnesium, our tissues do not regenerate as much as they should. This leads to our cartilage becoming worn out, our tendons weakening and a shortage of organic matrix in our bones. This in turn leads to osteoporosis, because if our bones have a problem with collagen neoformation, because collagen is the medium for calcium salts, the amount of minerals in our bones declines. But above all, the most important point is: the bones lose the flexibility that collagen provides (which is the gelatine in cooked bones) and consequently, in bones which cannot be deformed because they lack gelatine, which is what made them flexible, our femur or neck fractures when we stand up, or any of our bones – the arm, leg or wrist – break when they receive a blow.

The human body is undergoing constant destruction and neoformation, except for the neurons in the nervous tissue.

Four hundred grams of proteins are destroyed every day in resorption, and of course part of the amino acids that are obtained are used again, either to meet the needs of the nervous system, in processes such as the formation of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, or in repairing worn tissues.

However, some of these molecules are always lost. This has been proven by feeding volunteers a protein-free diet for a few days, and their urine nevertheless always contained urea, which is the end result of the catabolism of amino acids. This means that in order to remain mentally and physically fit, we must consume proteins on a daily basis.

But there is something else: we have to include them in our breakfast, lunch and dinner. And here is the explanation: when amino acids are marked with radioactive atoms, it has been proven that after proteins have been digested, the amino acids pass into the blood, and those that have not been added to or used in the body’s various tissues and organs are converted into urea by the liver after about five hours, and the kidney eliminates them in our urine.

This discovery, which was made in the 1980s, (although we knew that the human body does not have a reserve of amino acids or proteins long before that), means that in order to stay fit, we must consume proteins in our three main meals. Those we consume at breakfast are very important, since this food intake follows the longest fast in our daily routine, which takes place when we rest at night.

All compounds in living beings that are formed from amino acids need magnesium for their metabolism. And what does this word mean?

There is a definition that is very easy to remember which is: “metabolism is the chemistry of the organism.” When it is constructive, such as in tissue formation, it is called anabolism, and if it is destructive, as when urea is formed or energy from food is burned up, it is known as catabolism.

The concentration of Mg++ ions in the blood should be 2.4 mg/ 100 cc, and the limits are very close to the ideal amount, ranging between 2.2 and 2.6 mg/100 cc, despite what is often erroneously reported. This is interesting, because:

Magnesium deficiency leads to the formation of calcium oxalate crystals in the kidneys

Both in vitro, i.e. in the laboratory, and in vivo, the presence of a certain level of magnesium concentration has been found to inhibit the precipitation of oxalates. Furthermore, in some cases administering magnesium salts makes stones that have already formed dissolve; when the stones are coralliform, branches of the initial stone sometimes break off leading to “kidney stone attack”, precisely because the renal accumulation has begun to dissolve. These studies were initially carried out in the urological clinic at the Hôpital Cochin in Paris by J. Thomas, E. Thomas, P. Desquez and A. Monsaingeon.

Later, at both the III International Symposium on Magnesium, which took place in Baden-Baden in 1981, and in supplementum 661 of Acta Medica Scandinavica, published in the same year, several studies were presented which recommended giving an Mg ion++ supplement of between 300 and 360 mg/day. This amount is the same as the amount recommended by French doctors in cases of renal lithiasis due to calcium oxalate stones.

We chemists did not have the slightest idea about any of the above until the 1970s, and sadly, even today, well into the twenty-first century, these details have still not been clearly explained to many doctors. Please read the chapter again and learn it, because this science is easy to understand, and can help you to stay fit both mentally and physically.

Magnesium and Osteoarthritis

Magnesium in the synthesis of collagen and other proteins

I was thirty-one years old, I’d had my fourth child and we were spending the summer by the sea. The feeling of heaviness I had always suffered from in my lower back had become unbearable; I couldn’t stand sitting on the beach, and I couldn’t stand lying face down in the sand. My right leg hurt, and I thought there must be something wrong with my kidneys.

I went to Barcelona to the doctor who was considered the best internist in the city, Pedro Pons. When he saw me, he recommended that I wear a full girdle with stays for the rest of my life to help support my body, told me not to take it off to sleep, and not even to swim in the sea.