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The Dr. Hyman Show
The Brain-Body Fix: How Magnesium, Omega-3s, & Vitamin D Transform Your Health
00:51:47
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Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of the.
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Dr. Hyman show, about 20% of the population is living with overt magnesium deficiency. This is full blown magnesium deficiency. And that's like one in five people. That's a lot of people. Subclinical or insufficiency. Not true deficiency which you'd see in a lab test. But insufficiency can affect up to 80% of the population.
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If you are suffering from stress, poor sleep, low energy, these are all signs you might be low in magnesium. And not just one kind. Your body needs seven different forms to truly feel calm and at ease. That's why I recommend Magnesium Breakthrough from Bioptimizers, a complete formula with all seven types in one capsule. Head to bioptimizers.com hyman and use code HYMAN10 to save 10% and try it risk free with their 365 day guarantee. Again, that's bioptimizers.com hyman with code HYMAN10 at checkout.
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Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand. Well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, the Hyman Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website@doctorhyman.com for my website store for a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products.
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Probably 80% of Americans are in deficient or have insufficient levels of vitamin D levels that don't protect them optimally from things that you want to have vitamin D protect you from, whether it's osteoporosis or depression or cancer or to boost your immune system so you don't get things like the flu or Covid. I mean, if you have a high vitamin D levels, your reduction in flu is 75%. That's more than the flu vaccine. So it really is a powerful nutrient. It's very safe at the recommended doses, it's easy to take, there's no side effects, it's very cheap and it's, it's such an incredibly important vitamin for optimizing your health in every way, including longevity. So let's talk about vitamin D a little bit now. People think they should be Avoiding the sun to get, not get skin cancer. But vitamin D actually protects you against skin cancer, believe it or not, and reduce the risk of melanoma dramatically and many other cancers, not just, not just skin cancer actually reduces overall mortality by 7%. So just having good vitamin D levels reduces the risk of death by 7%. And vitamin D, you know, we used to get from sun, running around naked, hunting, gathering, and also if we were living in colder climates, we would eat fish, wild fish like herring and sardines and mackerel and these, these fatty small fish have pretty high levels of vitamin D. Also mushrooms. So if you're foraging and going for mushrooms, there's a lot of, like porcini mushrooms have the highest levels of vitamin D, but it's still hard to get. We're not getting these foods anymore. So, you know, we saw such a, with the Industrial revolution, this incredible advent of rickets and vitamin D deficiency. And it's one of the, you know, major areas where we've seen a public health improvement by getting awareness of vitamin D. Then it's been fortified in milk. Milk doesn't necessarily have vitamin D. It does actually doesn't have vitamin D. It only has vitamin D because it's added in to the milk. So if you think you need vitamin D to get your, I mean, milk to get your vitamin D, that's not actually true. You don't, you don't get a vitamin D for milk only because it's added. Now most of the problem with vitamin D is that doctors don't understand how to diagnose it. They might even order the wrong test. They don't know the right treatment, they don't know the doses. They don't understand its importance. And they see the reference levels on lab tests, which are typically like 20 nanograms per deciliter. Now that is ridiculously low. And I think if you look at what's optimal, it should be over 45 or 50. And so many, many people are in this sort of borderline area of less than 20 or 20 to 50 where they do, they do need more vitamin D. Now most doctors think, oh, you don't have rickets, you, you don't have vitamin deficiency or your, your numbers, like, you know, 20 or 30, you're fine. And they're actually wrong. And the question is, what's the dose you need to not get? Rick is, it's probably like 30 units a day. It's not what we need for optimal health. What we need for optimal health might be more like 5,000 units a day. I Mean, even the government's upper limit is, you know, four or five thousand a day is a safe dose. You're not going to get into trouble with that. Some, you know, very good at absorbing it, others aren't. Some people need actually up to 10,000 units a day. It was one study where they gave healthy young adults 10,000 units of vitamin A day for three months, and there was no toxicity from that. Now, you can't get toxicity if you take a lot more. I mean, and it can cause a problem, but it's far lower than that. You know, we, we think, in fact your level has to be over 250, even though the reference range on the labs is up to 100. You know, it doesn't really become toxic until about 250. So the real question is, you know, how much should we be taking on a daily basis? And I think they're depending on you and your vitamin D level, your sun exposure. I mean, I have a friend who lives on the beach and, you know, goes out surfing every day, and his vitamin D level is about 45, which is pretty good with no vitamin D supplementation. But I rarely see that unless he's living in Mexico on the beach all the time. But if you, if you, if you are, you probably need between 2 to 5,000 units a day of vitamin D. You know, what's really concerning is when you look at the data, you know, it's, it's 80% of us who are insufficient or deficient. This is either frankly, deficient, let's say less than 30, which is now the reference range on most labs, although some still say 20, and, and those who are between 20 and 50.
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So I think that that's important because.
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Vitamin D deficiency is linked to many cancers, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, depression. We call it seasonal affective disorder or sad, fibromyalgia. I mean, you know, people have muscle aches and pains. These are often from, from low vitamin D levels, bone loss, obviously, osteoporosis, even autoimmune diseases. Multiple sclerosis is found in much higher levels in northern latitudes and where there's low vitamin D. And so vitamin D is really important for, for everything, including autoimmune disease. And it's really not hard to do. I mean, you really, you know, could, could make a dramatic difference by just getting people's levels of vitamin d up to 45 nanograms per milliliter. And that would literally lead to 400,000 few premature deaths a year. That is no joke. There was one study that Showed that if your vitamin D levels were low, you were 75% more likely to end up in the hospital or in the icu. From COVID if you're, if your vitamin D levels were over 50 from one big Israeli study, there was no death, like zero. Now, that may be not true. If you keep doing the study and maybe a little bit bigger, there may be occasional deaths. But the point is here that vitamin D is highly protective. So, you know, I think, you know, we probably should have a vitamin D mandate in this country. Now, when my patients get their levels up, they feel better, they have more mood improvements, their muscles recover better, their thyroid works better, their energy is better, their whole system works better. And so it's a really important thing to make sure you get. So how does your body make vitamin D? Now, we obviously never had to take supplements when we were hunting and gathering and evolving because we're outside most of the time. And in fact, 80 to 90, 100% of the vitamin D that we need is created because of exposure to the sun. And when you get a little bit of a sunburn, you know, we call a minimal erythromal dose, which means basically the dose that makes your skin a bit red. You know, when you get a sunburn, that might produce between 10 to 25,000 units of vitamin D in our bodies, which is great. The problem is most of us don't get that kind of sun exposure. And a lot of times we use a lot of sunscreen, which is not necessarily bad. Well, depends on which sunscreen you're using. But they block a lot of the benefits of vitamin getting vitamin D. So you might be out in the sun, but using sunblock and then not getting vitamin D. Now, if you live in a northern climate, you're for sure not getting enough sun and vitamin D, especially in the winter. And you're probably not eating a lot of the, you know, porcini mushrooms and mackerel, herring and cod liver oil. Also, the other problem is, as we get older, our skin does not convert the sun into vitamin D in the way that we did when we were younger. So the average 70 year old creates only 25% of the vitamin D that a 20 year old does. Also, depending on your skin color, if you have dark skin, if you're African American, you basically will produce far less vitamin D and you need a lot more sun exposure. So most African Americans are very deficient in vitamin D. I also recommend that, that everybody supplement now. Yeah, I think it's one of those basic supplements that everybody should get it makes such a difference and you should have a level between 45 to 75, let's say. And the only way to know what that is is to test. You need to test and find out what's going on. And you can guess, but you often will be off. Some people need 2,000 units, I only need 5,000, 10,000 units to get their vitamin levels up to the ideal level. And you can do that through your doctor or you know, I co founded a company called Function Health. You go to functionhealth.com you can join the wait list and get testing that actually helps you to get your actual levels, to know what you're doing, to check it over time. I think if you use the code young forever, you can get in and actually get off the wait list. So try that and see how your vitamin D levels are. But it's important to know and often doctors say, oh, don't worry, just take the vitamin D. But you really want to know what your levels are. Also if you want to get, you know, sun exposure, the best is 10 to 2 in obviously the summertime, 10 to 10am to 2pm Full body sun exposure for 20 minutes. That, that will, I mean you can cover your face or put some luck on your face, but you really want to have full body exposure. I mean it only works in the summer and only works if you live, you know, below Atlanta. So I recommend taking vitamin D and probably 2 to 5,000 of vitamin D3. It's important to take vitamin D3, not vitamin D2. Most doctors will prescribe vitamin D, which is unfortunate, but make sure you get the right vitamin D. And again, it depends on your age, your genetics, where you live, how much time you're in the sun time of year. But in the summer I don't need it.
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But it's actually not true you need.
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It during the summer unless you're out there all the time. So check your vitamin D levels and find out what's going on. Now what about protecting yourself from skin cancer? That's important, right? You want to make sure you don't get skin cancer, particularly on your face. So I think, you know, if you want to go out in the sun, great. Use sunscreen on your face if you want to. You're worried about getting a sunburn. If you're really out there a lot, you can use high SPF sunscreen. But you know you're going to get vitamin D from your supplements, you should be okay. The high spf, you know, it kind of gives people a sense of security that you can go out there and just burn up. But you want to be careful. You don't, you don't want to do that. You want to make sure you just, you know, moderate your sun exposure, avoiding the high, high ultraviolet radiation exposures that you can get from prolonged sun exposure. So basically use sunscreen. And also, by the way, you want to use sunscreen that doesn't have crap in it. And we'll talk about that in a minute. So over the counter sunscreens are fine, but, but they're often full of crappy harmful ingredients. EWG found 80% of the 1700 products they looked at that were sunscreen had inferior sun protection or had like really weird ingredients like oxybenzone or other parabens. I had a woman once who was in my practice and she had super high levels of toxins in her urine from parabens. And she's like a super health nut. And I'm like, what are you, what are you doing? What are you exposed to with plastics or chemicals?
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She said, oh, well, you know, I.
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Use a ton of sunscreen all the time, every day. And so she had high levels of these toxic petrochemical plastics in her urine that were coming from the sunscreen. Now a lot of it wasn't getting out of her body, so it wasn't great. Also, you should be worried about sunscreen with vitamin A. If you use vitamin A, it actually can make, make the skin cancer more likely. So I would be particularly careful of that. But the bottom line is choose, you know, good average, low SPF sunscreen. Don't rely on it for total protection. Cover your face mostly and you'll be able to go out and enjoy the sun. So what are the seven strategies I use to get safe sun exposure? Well, don't be afraid of the sun on your vacation. Don't obviously get overex, right? Because you know, getting overexposed doesn't just ruin your vacation and give you a sunburn. It can lead to long term issues with skin damage and skin cancers and more wrinkles which nobody wants.
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So try to get at least 20.
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Minutes of sun exposure every day, first thing in the morning, ideally, which is the morning sunlight helps trigger your brain to release chemicals and hormones like melatonin. It kind of resets your circadian rhythms. It helps mood healthy aging. Use sunscreen, but only when you need it. And particularly use the safe sunscreens. You can check out out Skin Deep, which is a database from database from ewg. And it's great. Be proactive about protection. So don't you know, overdo it, right? Try to get shade umbrella, tree, hat, I mean protective clothing. That's fine if you want to. Don't get skin cancer, which I don't want to get. Make sure you cover up.
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Sunglasses are important.
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You don't actually get obviously sunburned in your eyes, but you get cataracts from prolonged sun exposure without UV blocking sunglasses, so that's important. Don't get burned. Burning is bad because that leads to more risk of skin cancer. Choose a skin cancer that has optimal UVA protection. Don't do tanning beds. Get vitamin D, which will help reduce your risk of skin cancer. And you know, there's good evidence that sunblock prevents squamous cells, but not necessarily basal cells. So make sure you get skin checks. Get your skin checked for cancer on a regular basis every year. Make sure you get a good dermatologist. Look at it and they can get things when they're early and they're really not a problem. You don't die from skin cancer except melanom, which is not necessarily sun related.
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As a doctor, I've seen how chronic stress impacts nearly every system in the body, from sleep to mood, energy and even inflammation. But what many people don't realize is that stress often depletes a critical mineral your body needs to feel calm and at ease. And that is magnesium. And not just one kind. Your body actually requires seven different forms of magnesium to function optimally. That's why I recommend Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers. It's the most complete magnesium supplement I've found, combining all seven forms your body uses to regulate stress, stress, improve sleep quality and support a healthy nervous system. Personally, I noticed the difference within days, falling asleep faster, waking up more refreshed and feeling more grounded throughout the day. Over 15005 star reviews back it up and it comes with a full 365 day guarantee. Head to bioptimizers.com hyman and use code HYMAN10 to save 10%.
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Basically, anything that twitches, spasms, cramps or is irritable in your body is likely in full or in part related to inadequate magnesium levels. Things like heart palpitations, anxiety, depression, insomnia, blood sugar issues, hormone imbalances, irritability, aggressiveness, pms, menstrual cramps, preterm labor, muscle spasms, tremors, vertigo, ringing your ears, tinnitus, chronic pain, muscle weakness, kidney stones, angina, high blood pressure, constipation, acid reflux, headaches, hearing loss, being sensitive to loud noises, immune dysfunction, seizures, right, which is irritability of your brain Cognitive decline. And all these muscle cramps are related to potentially low magnesium levels. So if you have any of these symptoms, you got to be thinking about magnesium. So why is it a problem? Well, about 20% of the population is living with overt magnesium deficiency. This is full blown magnesium deficiency. And that's like one in five people. That's a lot of people. Subclinical or insufficiency, not true deficiency, which you see on a lab test, but insufficiency can affect up to 80% of the population. Now, why is this important? Well, unlike drugs, which work with one pathway and one particular reaction in the body, magnesium and most vitamins and minerals, by the way, work on hundreds and hundreds of different pathways. And magnesium is involved in. Involved in over 600 enzymatic reactions in your body. Now, enzymes help convert one molecule to another. Critical for everything. And it basically influences every single one of our biological systems, which is why it can cause symptoms all over the place, from your brain to your heart to your gut and constipation to menstrual issues and cramps to muscles. I mean, it's literally everything. And in low levels or suboptimal levels impact every area of our health, increase our risk for chronic disease. So it's not just kind of these annoying symptoms like muscle cramps. It's. It puts you at big risk for serious illnesses. Now, it really probably should be considered a public health crisis, but most physicians don't test for it. It's not on your regular blood panel you get every year. If they do agree to test for it, they'll likely run it. We'll call a serum magnesium test. That's what I learned in medical school. But it's not really the indicator of what's happening in your body. It's like this joke I often tell when I'm giving a lecture. I say, this guy dropped his keys on the street, and his friend comes over and sees him looking under this lamppost. And he goes, well, why? What are you looking for? What are you doing? He says, well, I'm looking for my keys. He said, where'd you drop them? He said, well, I dropped them down the street. But he said, why are you looking over here? He says, well, the light's better here under the lamppost. So that's how medicine is. It's easy to test your magnesium, but it's not the right way to find out if you're low or not. I mean, if it's low on serum magnesium, you're really, really low by the time it gets Low, you're in trouble now. In a perfect world, I'd have the chance to see millions of patients. But the truth is, I'm just one doctor. Over 30 years of seeing millions of biomarkers in tens of thousands of patients, I've come to understand that much is being missed by conventional care. We often wait until we have symptoms of diseases, then we get tested. But the transition from wellness to illness can often be detected decades before any symptom or diagnosis. I want people to have access to their own health data and the ability to engage in self care and lifestyle practices that I believe can optimize their health and reverse the trajectory of chronic diseases that now affect 6 in 10Americans and accounts for over $4 trillion in healthcare costs. And that is why I recently co founded Function Health, where I'm the Chief Medical Officer. Function is a revolutionary way to understand and manage your health through lab testing that you are often not getting through your healthcare system. All the results are delivered in an easy to use dashboard that tracks your numbers over time and gives you actionable insights for every biomarker. The best test, which is really not practical, is something called a magnesium loading test, which is a 24 hour urine test. And you basically give people magnesium IV and then you collect their urine for 24 hours and you see what spills out. And if they don't spill out anything, it means they're low in magnesium. If they spill out out a lot, it means their body's good and they can get rid of what they don't need. The next best test and what we do with function health is called the red blood cell magnesium level. Now this is not as good as the magnesium loading test, but it's pretty good. And it gives you a sense if you're, if you're insufficient or low. And people should be over five and, and often we see levels much lower than that. Okay, so what does magnesium do? Why should you care? As I mentioned, I call it the relaxation mineral. I think about Epsom salt, right? That's magnesium sulfate. You soak in a hot bath, your muscles get, get relaxed, you don't have soreness, it just basically relaxes everything. And again, it controls over 600 different enzyme reactions. It helps in the production of ATP, which is the thing that makes you move and grow and do everything you do. It's basically the energy of life and it's, it's really the key to making energy in the body. And, and often when you see low magnesium, and I've had this before, it, it can be something that's found in chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, often if, if you have insulin sensitivity issues, in other words, you're insulin resistant and your blood sugar is not good, it could be low magnesium. And magnesium is very much involved in blood sugar regulation. Also, it's involved in regulation of vitamin D in the body, the activation and transport of vitamin D. It's important you're not. Not just for muscle health and contraction and relaxation of muscles, but also bone strength and bone density. It's also critical of making hormones such as testosterone, progesterone. Estrogen is important since this of neurotransmitters in your brain. It's involved in calming and relaxation and inhibits the release of what we call excitatory neurotransmitters. It's also involved in DNA repair. It's involved in fluid and electrolyte balance, right? With calcium, sodium, potassium and hydration, which is why it's often an electrolyte. So it's really important for electrolyte replacement. It's critical for heart, right? I mean, heart having a healthy heartbeat. Blood pressure, high blood pressure is basically tightness of the, the arteries and the blood vessels. And so magnesium is used in relaxation. We actually, when we have patients with really severe diseases, this is what's so interesting. When I trained as a doctor, it was kind of a last resort drug, right? It's a mineral, but it was a drug that we used when things didn't work or nothing else worked. For example, so if you're in every icu, in every cardiac unit, in every emergency room, it's on the crash cart, which is basically what we use when we resuscitate a person who basically has their heart stop and stop breathing. And when none of the drugs work, the last thing we give to stop a cardiac arrhythmia, which is the rapid beating of the heart that can kill you. We use intravenous magnesium. We use it to treat preterm labor. If someone comes in in early labor, we give them IV magnesium. If someone has high blood pressure in pregnancy, we call preeclampsia and that causes seizures. We give them intravenous magnesium and we only use it when everything else has failed. But, but it shouldn't really be like that. We also use it for bowel prep if you're constipated. It's basically one of the best treatments, milk and magnesia, you heard of that? And it also is used to prep for colonoscopies such as magnesium, magnesium citrate, which makes you really go. So it's used in everything in the body. We use it in medicine a lot. It's just kind of one of those things that doctors don't really think about as a problem for people when they come in with all these symptoms. So the question is, why are we deficient? Right. Well, 75% of Americans aren't eating enough magnesium in their diet. Where does it come from? Dark greens, beans, nuts, seeds, seaweed. People don't eat that. You know, it's declining soil quality. It's resulted almost a 50% decline in magnesium in fruits and vegetables over the last 50 years. There's been a dramatic decline. So I think it's really concerning also. You know, about 25% of kids are magnesium deficient, which is very concerning to me too, because it's critical for their bodies and to grow. Another thing is ultra processed foods deplete magnesium. So 60% of our diet is ultra processed food. 67% of kids diets, food processing reduces magnesium in the food by up to 80%. Also if we had, if we eat a lot of high starch and sugar foods, which is our standard American diet or SAD diet, those foods deplete magnesium. So the more sugar you eat, the more starch you eat, the more you lose magnesium. It increases the rate of excretion of magnesium and that's not good. So you eat sugar and starch, pee out magnesium.
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Also.
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The recommended levels are to prevent deficiency diseases. The RDA we call the RDA is about 300 to 420 milligrams. It's just too low, it's said to prevent deficiencies, but it's not really about optimal health. And about half the population doesn't even get the minimum amount you need to prevent deficiency. And globally it's a huge problem as well. And a study of healthy university students in Brazil, they consumed an average of about 250 milligrams of magnesium and 42% had lowered levels. In healthy quote, healthy college students. Also, there's a number of groups that are higher risk for magnesium deficiency. So if you're in one of these groups, you got to pay attention. If you're pre diabetic or diabetic, if you're low in magnesium, it increases the risk of various things like eye damage or retinopathy, neuropathy, nerve damage, kidney disease and blood vessel disease. It's really critical in regulating our blood sugar. For women, it's involved in estrogen regulation and metabolism. Detoxification and deficiency is present. About 80% of pregnant women and 55% of women with Hormone related issues. Think about that. You know, I mean, if you're pregnant and 80% of women are deficient, it's one of the biggest causes of preterm labor is low magnesium levels. So if you have low preterm labor or you have high blood pressure in pregnancy, like I said before, we treat you with intravenous magnesium. So why not take magnesium? Also you can get constipated when you're pregnant too. So it helps with all that. 84% of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis had low magnesium. So this is just a rampant problem. As you get older, you're not so good at absorbing things. It's another group that has risk. So you don't absorb it, you excrete more magnesium. If you have certain age related diseases that cause low magnesium, certain medications we'll talk about in a minute can lower magnesium levels and make you peel magnesium. Often things that are used to treat high blood pressure, like diuretics. If you look at hospitalized patients, 65% of people who are critically ill who.
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Are admitted to the ICU or intensive.
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Care unit were magnesium deficient. And with COVID 19, we saw also those who had the highest magnesium intake, had the lowest levels of inflammation and had 70% lower odds of developing severe symptoms. So just taking magnesium can reduce the inflammation. If you get Covid and reduce your risk of having severe Covid by 70%. That's amazing. And this is completely safe unless you have kidney failure is an incredibly safe mineral to take. Now the other thing you should know is most doctors don't think about it unless you're in extreme situation like we talked about, whether you have preterm labor and arrhythmia or having seizures from pregnancy or high blood pressure in pregnancy, we just don't think about it, but we should. Good. And again, as I mentioned, if it's tested, it usually is a serum magnesium which doesn't reflect whole body. It's only about 1% of the magnesium in your body. 99% is in your tissues, your bone, muscle. The body has really tight regulation methods for magnesium and it pulls from the reservoirs in your bone or muscle if you want, if you're needing to keep levels stable. So if your whole body is depleted, it's going to be hard to replenish. And normal serum magnesium levels are about 1.8 to 2.3. But I think anything under 2 is linked to increased health risks and optimal levels should be over 2. So you're getting a serum magnesium, it should be over 2 but I, I don't like that. I like the red blood cell magnesium. So functional medicine looks at this a little bit differently. We look at, you know, comprehensive testing, look at what's going on with all their biomarkers, and we look at red blood cell magnesium. It's way more accurate reflection of whole body magnesium. It measures intracellular magnesium, which is where often it needs to be to do the job. It reflects the magnesium content of muscles and bones. It has a longer half life, it's less prone to fluctuations from your diet, and it correlates clinical symptoms. So it's a really good biomarker that is part of the function panel that you're not getting when you go to your regular doctor. We're sure it's not on your annual panel and it's probably not on any panel that they do at all if they're going to measure magnesium. The other things you can kind of look at in relation to magnesium that are part of the functional panel include kidney tests like creatinine and bun. Vitamin D levels, because low levels are often associated with low levels of magnesium absorption. Just like calcium absorption, calcium levels are also interacting potassium levels. Low levels of potassium or calcium can an indicator of low magnesium. If you're high in sodium. Another clue that you might have a low magnesium. If your blood sugar's high, your insulin's high, your A1C, your average blood sugar is high. Blood sugar control, that that's a sign of low magnesium. So a lot of things you can look at to kind of get a clue that you might be magnesium deficient. Another hormone that's important you should look at is a parathyroid hormone. And we, we, we also think it's important to look at that. And magnesium can be involved in, in the release of parathyroid hormone from the par, from the parathyroid gland in the neck. And if your parathyroid levels are low, you're going to have low. So it's important to look at all this stuff, look at your ekg, look at your heart function. So there's a lot of ways to look at magnesium, but the key is a red blood cell magnesium to start. What are the root causes of having an abnormal magnesium or low, low magnesium? Well, our diet, right, our SAD diet, our standard American diet, as I mentioned, salt and sugar make you pee out magnesium and starch. Phosphorus also, that's in, in soda, right? Colas, particularly food additives. And they're all, all these things are used in ultra processed foods and that caused us to basically pee out magnesium Coffee and alcohol also make us lose magnesium and too much calcium from supplements. Not a good idea either. Stress, another one, chronic stress is a big factor because obviously when you have a magnesium, your nervous system is relaxed, your body's calm. When you are stressed, you actually pee out magnesium. Those living in Kosovo during the war in one study had higher cortisol levels, which is a stress hormone, and lower magnesium levels. Also, if women have heavy periods, it's another factor that can cause low magnesium malabsorption issues. If you have celiac inflammatory bowel disease, colitis, Crohn's, if you have diarrhea, you lose magnesium. If you have diabetes and you're peeing too much, you lose magnesium or kidney damage, you'll have magnesium issues. Also, if you sweat a lot like you do saunas, exercise, go in a hot climate, you're gonna, without electrolyte replacement, get into low magnesium states. Again, over supplementation with calcium, you don't wanna do that. That and then a few other things can cause you to have magnesium issues. One is having aluminum from antacids and cookware, food additives, drinking water, deodorant, all that will potentially affect your magnesium drugs. A lot of drugs, as I mentioned, affect magnesium levels. So these are common drugs like diuretics, which are used in high blood pressure, which is often a low magnesium issue. Certain antibiotics, steroids, I mentioned, the cortisol will make you lose magnesium. Magnesium used for inflammatory disorders, acid blocking drugs we use for reflux are horrible because they block acid which you need to absorb. Minerals such as magnesium and other deficiencies of nutrients like vitamin B6 or vitamin D or selenium often will cause us to have low magnesium. All right, so what are the things we talked about? Let's just kind of go over those. What are the things we should be worried about that can be related to magnesium deficiency? Well, cardiometabolic disease, type 2 diabetes, as I mentioned, in one small study, they looked at the intracellular magnesium status of patients with with diabetes and it was depleted over 30% of patients. And now this problem affects 93% of the population to some degree or another. Heart disease, another big category, if you have coronary artery disease, this is the Rotterdam study, looked at 10,000 people report a 36% greater risk of death from heart, heart attacks and a 54% greater risk of sudden cardiac death in those with low serum magnesium level levels. So that's really concerning. So if you have low magnesium, you're 54% greater to die from a sudden death, 30% greater risk of having A heart attack, that's bad. If you have high blood pressure, often a clue that you might be low in magnesium because magnesium relaxes blood vessels and improves flexibility. If you have palpitations or rapid heartbeat, again, magnesium could be the cure. Heart attack, strokes and a blockage in your arteries. Again. Again, studies show that this was a cross sectional study published in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease showed that otherwise healthy Koreans with the lowest serum magnesium had two times the risk of having calcium buildup in their heart, which is a huge clue that there's atherosclerosis or plaque development and also involved in calcium metabolism. There's too much calcium, not enough magnesium. It's a problem. You've had a stroke. You know, Those with highest versus lowest magnesium intake had a 40% reduction in all cause mortality versus the lowest intake. So basically, if that high intake of, of magnesium and, and end up with a stroke, you're going to have a 40% reduction in your risk of death after. That's pretty good. It's low magnesium is linked to cataracts, it's linked to headaches, obviously. In fact, American Academy of Neurology gives magnesium level B rating as probably effective for the prevention treatment of migraines. So often when someone comes in with a migraine to the emergency room, I would give them intravenous magnesium because it relaxes all the spasming blood vessels in their head and helps them relax. Osteoporosis, often we see it low in osteoporosis, as we mentioned, we see a problem with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. Mood disorders, anxiety, depression, adhd, autism often is very low in these problems. Sleep issues, if you have insomnia and you can't sleep, or other problems that may be magnesium, it's one of the best sleep aids out there. People don't realize it. If you take magnesium at night, you'll sleep well. Well, and Epsom salt baths do the same thing and get it through your skin. If you have hormone issues like pms, often a low magnesium issue or pcos, fibromyalgia, as I mentioned, asthma, twitchy airways, chronic kidney disease, seizures, all these things can be a clue that they may be low magnesium. Now, what about high magnesium? Well, this is very rare, but there are certain things that can cause it. If you have chronic kidney failure, adrenal issues, maybe different kinds of tumors or problems with your adrenals, overtaking antacids with magnesium in the them, severe dehydration because it changes your electrolyte balance and you lose a lot of potassium and sodium. And the symptoms of it having high magnesium are nausea, vomiting, fatigue, low blood pressure, trouble breathing, and even respiratory problems and heart attack because it slows everything down. So basically when we give IB magnesium to women who are in preterm labor, we watch the respirations because it slows down your respirations, it slows down your breathing, it slows down your heart, it relax everything. So the idea of you have too much, it kind of relaxes things too much and that's not good. Okay, so how do you, how do you address this, how do you address and treat magnesium deficiency? Well, it just get rid of the causes, right? We just talked about that. Get rid of the crappy diet, the sodas, the manage your chronic stress levels. Take a look at your medication. Are you taking acid blockers? Are you taking diuretics? What are you taking? Do you have certain health conditions that need to be addressed? Whether it's diabetes or heart disease or other hormonal dysfunctions that can be, be addressed that actually will help you deal with this from the root cause. So really important to look at the, at the, at the causes and remove what's causing the magnesium deficiency. Maybe it's poor diet, maybe it's taking stuff that's causing magnesium loss. So what should you do to actually improve your, your magnesium levels and to address magnesium deficiency or insufficiency? Well, first you want to eat magnesium rich foods. And what are those? Well, dark green leafy vegetables, things like spinach, Swiss charge, KL collards, all that stuff is great. Arugula, avocados, cold water, fish, mackerel, salmon nuts are high in magnesium. Almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, pecans, walnuts, seeds like pumpkin, chia seeds, dark chocolate, my favorite, one of my favorite sources of magnesium. Actually. Whole grains can be helpful. Non GMO soy can be helpful too. I like tempeh. So the diet can be a big factor in replenishing magnesium. Also, you want to find healthy ways to manage stress, right? So active relaxation, yoga, breath work, gratitude and journals. Riding your bike, working out, getting in sauna, cold plunges. There's a million ways to actually improve your stress response. Whether it's I use binaural beats with something called Newcom, which is some fun thing I've been trying, which basically puts you in a different neurotransmitter state and a different, different brainwave state. Also make sure you replenish your electrolytes. If you're sweating, you're exercising, you're doing the sauna, make sure you use electrolytes. Would have sodium, potassium and magnesium and then supplements. What about supplements? I think, you know, of all the supplements, of all the things that I use, one of the most important is magnesium. Probably the second in vitamin D and third would be fish oil. But it's so important and most people have such improvements pretty quickly when they take, take it and it can improve your sleep, it can reduce anxiety, it can reduce palpitations, it can reduce muscle twitching, muscle cramps, I mean so many things, constipation. Now there's a lot of different forms of magnesium, so you should be aware with all the different forms, but the dose should probably between 400 to 1,000 milligrams of magnesium a day. Now there are many different forms of all different effects. So you have to figure out what you need. For example, my favorite basic one for everybody is magnesium glycinate. It's broad spectrum. It works across a lot of things that help with sleep, with relaxation, anxiety, pms, cardiovascular health, health. Best taken at night. Magnesium citrate you can use if you have constipation. So that actually helps you go to the bathroom. Magnesium threonate better for the brain, gets in the brain better. Anxiety and depression is what I use those for. Some are also greater, better for muscles like magnesium taurate, which is great for muscle recovery, blood sugar regulation, heart health. Magnesium malate, again this is part of the mitochondria and energy cycle so it helps energy and athletic performance. Magnesium sulfate, we use that, that's Epsom salt so you can absorb it through your skin. You can try my ultra bath which is 2 cups of Epsom salt and 10 drops of lavender oil hot water. Soak in that for 10, 20 minutes before you go to bed, you'll sleep like a baby. So basically just to review, magnesium is so important, it plays a critical role in optimal health and longevity and chronic disease prevention. Conventional medicine often focuses on on treating the acute issues and not understanding the root causes. You really shouldn't be waiting for symptoms to appear to take charge of your health.
- [38:03]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
The studies that look at epa, essential fatty acids and the gut microbiome, those are the two things that to me it's like it's undeniable. I don't understand how anyone nowadays could even question the idea that getting proper lipid intake, you know, essentially uranus fat. Yeah, these omega 3s are so important. I mean in a double, several double blind placebo controlled studies that I've read, it appears that getting 1,000 milligrams or more per day of EPA, so not just taking a thousand milligrams of fish oil, but making sure that you're getting above that threshold of 1,000 milligrams of EPA from quality sources compared to just with similar effect as SSRIs, prescription antidepressants, but without the side effects. Right. Which is incredible. And that if you are taking SSRIs, it allows you to take a much lower dose to still be effective. To me, like, incredible data. And then the other one is that getting ferment, ingesting fermented foods, one or two servings a day.
- [39:08]
Sauerkraut for the brain.
- [39:10]
Yeah, sauerkraut for the brain. Or I get whatever given culture. Because what I learned, and this is very new and emerging data. There's a guy at Duke, he's incredible. He was a nutritionist, but then he has PhD in nutrition. Excuse me. And now he's a neuroscientist. His name is Diego Borges, not to be confused with the Argentine writer Borges. He's Ecuadorian. And he found that there are neurons in our gut of the vagus nerve. So these are neurons that live in the gut and endothelium. And they sense three things. They fire electrical signals to the dopamine centers of the brain in response to fatty acids. Right. When fats are, you know, meats and things are broken down in the fatty acids, amino acids of other kinds. So from protein and sugar.
- [39:58]
Sure.
- [39:58]
And what. And so these neurons can easily be tricked into signaling the brain to release more dopamine. And because dopamine is really the molecule of craving into craving more of whatever activated those neurons. And so if you give these neurons enough EPA or enough amino acids, so protein and essential fatty acids, the dopamine centers of the brain are just firing like clockwork, which is going to enhance mood, motivation, energy. I mean, dopamine in proper amounts is a beautiful thing. Too high, obviously you don't want, but you're not going to get it too high.
- [40:29]
Dr. Mark Hyman
People don't get addicted to chicken breasts.
- [40:30]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
But they get addicted to sugar.
- [40:32]
Right. And I think that's. I actually think that's because they're. They are. These neurons seem to be responding best to particular amino acids. They seem to want glutamine, of all things. They seem to want the Omega 3s. And what's interesting is that even if they numb the taste so that people can't taste sugar, if people ingest sugar.
- [40:53]
Dr. Mark Hyman
These neurons receptors in your gut.
- [40:54]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
Right. And they crave more sugar even if they can't taste the sugar. So I always thought that the dopamine release to sweet things was because it tastes so good. But the Borges lab results and some other work on dopamine more generally from my colleague Anna Lemke at Stanford, shows that dopamine isn't so much about pleasure. We all, including myself, were taught it's about pleasure. Dopamine is about craving more of whatever it is triggered dopamine release. Yeah.
- [41:21]
Whether it's heroin or cocaine.
- [41:23]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Or sugar.
- [41:24]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
Or sugar. And so these neurons that trigger dopamine release, they are powerfully affected by these quality Omega 3s and by Amino acids. And then what's really interesting is that they trigger the release of dopamine. But then you say, well, okay, that should be pretty simple. Like you said, people don't get addicted to chicken breasts. And I wonder whether or not that's either because omega 3s are too low, so these neurons are not. The full concert of these neurons is inactive, or it could be that for some reason that the other things that people are ingesting has messed up these neurons. And so the whole brain body relationship is disrupted. And it's. I guess Robert Lustig is his name @ucsf and others are now showing that some of the emulsifiers in foods and other things like that, what they do to the gut endothelium. I never really understood how the gut brain thing work, but what I realize is, is that these microbiota, they don't care about us. What they do is they. They're trying to find conditions in the gut where the mucus is at ph of the mucus is just right. And that if people ingest emulsifiers and sugars, what happens is these neurons, and Borges lab has shown this, that these, these neurons that are in the gut, endothelium and can sense amino acids and consents, essential fatty acids, they actually start to retract their processes into the deeper layers of the gut. In other words, if you ingest the wrong things, pretty soon the neurons in the gut remodel the bad kind of neuroplasticity, and you lose your gut brain sensing system.
- [42:58]
Wow.
- [42:58]
And so it's not just a matter of giving it the right things. It's really about, for many people, it's going to be about repairing this system and allowing this portion of our nervous system to grow back. Now, the nice thing about peripheral neurons is that they grow back.
- [43:14]
I got to unpack that because what you said was just so profound right there. Basically, you're talking about uncoupling the natural ability of our body to sense its environment. And to self regulate in the right way to create health. When we eat processed food that contains ingredients that screw up the gut microbiome or the lining, and the all of a sudden that the brain in the.
- [43:40]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Gut, or whatever you want to call.
- [43:41]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
It, the neurons in the gut, start to change as a result of the crappy food we're eating and make us less able to seek out and want the foods that are good for us. And tend to make us seek out and want the foods that are bad for us.
- [43:56]
Exactly.
- [43:57]
That is a massive brain state shift for me because I never really understood, you know, the mechanics of how that happens. But it's clearly true. When people are eating bad foods, they want more bad foods and they keep eating more and more of them. And there are many reasons for that. But the gut story is just fascinating.
- [44:17]
Yeah, these neurons and really, you know, I tip my hat to the Borges lab. It's cool. You know, science as you know, can get really entrenched. And that someone comes from a completely different, different perspective of, you know, his background in nutrition. And he described it. Actually, it's a, it's a relevant story here. He had a friend who was. She was very overweight and she ended up having a gastric bypass surgery and she lost a lot of weight and her diabetes went away and. But she also started craving runny eggs. You know, easy, over runny eggs. But previously, just the thought of runny eggs made her nauseous, made her want to vomit. And he heard that story and he realized that cravings themselves are modified by the conditions of the gut. How could this be? So he started exploring, what are these neurons in the gut? What brain areas are they talking to? It's very clear that these neurons that innervate the gut, they're part of the vagus nerve, connect to the brain areas that release dopamine and create craving. And so the health of these neurons in your gut is strongly going to impact what you want. And so what I love about the literature and I haven't had anything to do with the research I'm describing, but I've spent a lot of time with that work. What I love about the work that he's doing and others are doing is that it really points to, a, the brain body connection is mediated by neurons, B, that what we crave and what we seek really can change. I think that a lot of people that are having a hard time shifting towards healthier eating or healthier relationship to light, as we talked about a few moments ago, it starts becoming reflexive because not just because it's better for us, but because our nervous system actually remodels itself in ways where the good stimulus starts to evoke dopamine release.
- [46:05]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, I find that for so true. If I go off track, I just want more of the bad stuff.
- [46:09]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
If I stay on track, I want more of the good stuff. Stuff like I naturally will crave the things that are good for me. But I think what's happened through, through our radical dietary changes is we've gotten.
- [46:20]
Dr. Mark Hyman
So far away from our natural sort.
- [46:24]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
Of ability to seek out things that nourish us, and we've lost that. Animals have that. They're not going to be running around eating things that are going to make them sick and gain weight and cause.
- [46:35]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Damage to their gut, microbiome or whatever, but they're not thinking about it. Their body naturally will seek out, oh, I want this plant because it's got this nutrition in it, or this one has this phytochemical. They're not thinking that, but their body.
- [46:46]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
Is telling them where to go and.
- [46:47]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Where to look and what to eat.
- [46:49]
Dr. Andrew Huberman
We've sort of really decoupled our ability to be in touch with our natural, healthy cravings and have been hijacked by the food industry to desire all these foods that are driving us into worse and worse states of dysfunction, poor health and poor brain states and poor brain function.
- [47:07]
Dr. Mark Hyman
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- [47:12]
And most potent ingredients you can get. That's exactly what you'll find at my supplement store, where I've hand selected each and every product to meet the most rigorous standards for safety, purity and effectiveness. These are the only supplements I recommend.
- [47:24]
To my patients, and they're also what I use myself.
- [47:26]
Whether you want to optimize longevity or reduce your disease risk, or you're looking to improve your sleep, blood sugar, metabolism, gut health, you name it. Dr. Hyman.com has has the world's best selection of top quality premium supplements, all.
- [47:38]
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- [47:40]
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- [47:42]
So check out Dr.hyman.com because when it.
- [47:44]
Comes to your health, nothing less than.
- [47:46]
The very best will do.
- [47:47]
That's Dr. Hyman.coM-R-H-Y-M-A-N.com if you love this.
- [47:52]
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- [47:58]
Please reach out.
- [47:59]
I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Questions don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness center, my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the.
- [48:27]
Views or statements of my guests.
- [48:28]
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness center at ultrawellnesscenter.com and request to become a Patreon patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public, so I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.