Medical Contributors
4 Health Benefits Of Magnesium Supplements
Magnesium is a mineral that’s essential to the normal functioning of your body. What’s surprising about magnesium is the number of tasks it plays in our bodies. Your body needs magnesium for more than 300 enzymatic reactions. However, having an insufficient amount of this mineral can have a severe impact on your health.
Adults who don’t get the recommended amount of magnesium are more likely to have high inflammation markers. Inflammation has been linked with significant health issues like diabetes, heart diseases, and certain types of cancers. Likewise, low magnesium has also been a risk factor for osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and even sleep issues.
You can obtain magnesium from various kinds of foods—particularly legumes, nuts, and whole grains. Although many people take more than enough magnesium, supplements can be beneficial, mainly for individuals with low amounts of it.
It’s ideal for people who seriously lack the right amount of magnesium because of specific health issues such as kidney or Crohn’s disease. It can also be suitable for those in their old age and those who abuse alcohol. Likewise, it can also be ideal for those people with low magnesium but are lifting weights.
Overall, here are the health benefits of magnesium supplements that you have to know.
1. It Reduces Muscle Pain
Magnesium has some purpose regarding muscle contractions and neuromuscular signals. When the body is dealing with a lack of magnesium, it can result in muscular problems like spasms and aches. However, when you have the right amount of magnesium in your body, the outcome is muscle relaxation and contraction. As such, it gives you the ability to move freely.
Let’s say an individual lifts weights at the gym. It leads to muscle aches. Aches happen whenever your brain signals your muscles to fire by releasing calcium from a structure within your muscles. That calcium leads to the shortening and contracting of muscle fibers. Therefore, the outcome is muscle cramping and soreness.
Yet, taking magnesium supplements can counterbalance calcium. It leads to muscle relaxation needed for the next contraction. Therefore, the more magnesium there is to counteract calcium buildup. The more minor cramps that you can experience.
While simply adhering to a vigorous workout plan can add to body soreness, muscle spasms such as those coming from the uterus during a period can be addressed with magnesium, too—magnesium assists in relaxing the contracting muscles or the uterus by counteracting the calcium.
As magnesium supplements help with your muscles, you can consider having BioCeuticals magnesium for healthy muscles and others online.
2. It Promotes Healthy Sleep
Magnesium supplements have a significant role in sleep. Individuals with a low amount of magnesium have more chances of undergoing sleep problems, such as Insomnia. Magnesium balances the hormone called melatonin. Melatonin is crucial for a person’s sleep-wake cycle or circadian rhythm. Likewise, it also plays a role in the physical relaxation of your muscles by resisting the effects of calcium that can contract and tighten them.
Another reason magnesium is essential in sleep is that stress and sleepless nights are more likely to reduce the amount of magnesium in your body at a faster rate. And so, it’s vital to recharge your body again with such a mineral to stop a vicious cycle. Ensuring you obtain the RDA of magnesium can allow for the needed adjustments, mainly if you’re sleepy or stressed.
Note that magnesium supplements are usually treated as low-risk. It’s suitable for minimizing insomnia symptoms and assists in waking up early in the morning without any signs of fatigue or weakness.
3. It Reduces Inflammation
It’s often thought that inflammation is just the acute swelling after a bad bruise or ankle sprain. Yet, chronic low-grade inflammation is one of the major causes of medical issues such as premature aging, chronic medical problems, obesity, and autoimmune diseases. Inflammation can also lead to gut barrier damage, stress, and poor diet, among other things.
Likewise, low levels of magnesium have also been tied to a high amount of inflammation. As such, taking magnesium supplements is ideal for lowering inflammation and reducing the chance of having chronic diseases and the health issues stated above.
With magnesium actively needed by 600-700 enzyme systems in the human body, internal functions that lower inflammation with the help of magnesium are discovered yearly. For instance, magnesium has been reported to counteract calcium. This role of magnesium is vital as excess calcium is a substance that results in bodily inflammation. That’s why it’s advisable to have a balanced ratio of calcium and magnesium while considering the calcium levels obtained in one’s regular diet.
4. It Promotes Healthy Heart Function
Besides your bones, you can also treat magnesium as an essential mineral for maintaining heart health. The heart has the highest magnesium levels in the body, specifically in the left ventricle.
Magnesium’s role in maintaining heart health is to work together with calcium minerals to assist in proper blood pressure levels. It results in having a lower risk of hypertension. Yet, not having the right balance between magnesium and other minerals such as calcium can lead to a heart attack. This health problem mainly occurs when there’s a severe muscle spasm.
Likewise, compared to the size of your heart to the rest of your body, for which it pumps blood, you’ll recognize how challenging your heart’s role is in maintaining your existence. Achieving this goal requires lots of energy.
As such, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the energy used by your heart. It’s formed from the foods you eat, especially glucose from carbs. Yet, you can’t produce enough ATP without taking enough magnesium. This mineral is required for all three stages to convert glucose into ATP. Likewise, once ATP is formed, it must join itself to a magnesium ion for your body to utilize it.
Conclusion
Your body needs magnesium for more than 300 enzymatic reactions. And so, having an insufficient amount of it leads to adverse consequences to individual health. People who don’t get enough magnesium have a higher chance of inflammation, which is connected to significant health issues.
As magnesium is vital for your health, some may need to take it as a supplement. Examples of people who need them are those who exercise but have low magnesium levels, older people, and those with specific health issues.
Overall, consider the health benefits of magnesium supplements like those above if you ever think you need more of such a mineral.