Magnesium is an essential mineral needed for every function in your body.  It activates enzymes, contributes to energy production, supports your immune and nervous systems, helps maintain a healthy heart, build strong bones, healthy muscles… and the list goes on. Magnesium is the most basic, essential anti-inflammatory (do you know that If someone is rushed to hospital with a severe asthma attack, they may get an IV drip of magnesium sulphate if their attack is life-threatening or if high doses of the reliever medicine haven’t worked?)

Magnesium is involved in over 300 biochemical reactions in the body.  Anyone with IBS or ulcerative colitis, diabetes, hyperthyroidism or kidney disease will be deficient.  Also anyone consuming too much caffeine, fizzy drinks or alcohol…or adding too much salt to meals.  These days a lot of people’s magnesium is likely to be on the low side – and stress depletes it even more.

A number of anxiety and sleep issues may be related to low magnesium – the reason for its tag: nature’s tranquilizer.

Deficiency of this wonder mineral can thus lead to an array of symptoms such as restless leg syndrome, abnormal heart rhythms, palpitations, high blood pressure, migraines, and to the bigger-picture diseases, such as cardiovascular, diabetes, osteoporosis and cerebral infarction.

Back to the asthma link mentioned above:  low magnesium intake in childhood is correlated to lower measures of several lung functions (eg. airway flow and lung capacity; American Journal of Epidemiology, 2002).  Interestingly, in another study, researchers found that lab animals severely deficient in magnesium had much higher blood levels of histamine when exposed to allergy triggers.  Hence, they believe that magnesium deficiency may be causing the release of substances that can act on immune cells such as mast cells, making them hyperactive and more likely to release histamine and suffer an allergic reaction.

Even though there are contradictory opinions regarding the effectiveness of supplemental magnesium and chronic asthma,  a study published in the Journal of Asthma (Kazaks et al, 2010) looked at the effect of 6 months of magnesium supplementation (170mg taken 2x daily) on pulmonary function tests, asthma control and the quality of life in patients with mild to moderate asthma.  They found that the 6 month supplementation improved objective measure of asthma alongside their quality of life and asthma control.

If you suffer from frequent involuntary muscle spasms, or eye twitches, anxiety attacks or palpitations it might be worth considering taking a magnesium supplement for at least 3 months, and see if it helps (keep to the daily recommended dose on the bottle, usually 200-400mg).

In spite of our soils often being depleted of minerals, it’s definitely worth adding some top magnesium foods to your diet:

Almonds (and, to varying degrees, all nuts), leafy greens especially spinach, eggs, bananas, avocado, soya, kidney and pinto beans, potato, brown rice and cocoa.

And remember that prolonged stress will zap your levels, so now’s the time to start those yoga, pilates or mindfulness classes you’ve been intending to do since January 1st!

Last week’s cover story in the New Scientist, “Bitter Truth”, explained how the food industry is taking the bitterness out of our greens to satisfy the general public’s love of sweetness. Surely not!

The catch is:  the same chemicals making fruit and veg bitter are also the ones giving them most of their health benefits.

Many of the healthy traits of green tea, dark chocolate, rocket, endive, broccoli, red wine a.o. are due to these very phytonutrients.

Food manufacturers are now removing many of these substances which, according to the article, is turning a lot of these ‘bitters’ into empty calories. They are breeding out the bitter compounds to satisfy public’s sweet tastes, and by doing so they are also stripping our food of essential vitamins and minerals.

We all love sweet; we are programmed to love sweetness! It promises a ready supply of energy, the same way salty food, with its sodium, is necessary for our bodies to function properly.
However they are currently both being eaten in excess hence the rise in diabetes, cancers, cardiovascular disease and most other chronic illnesses.

The article goes on to explain that bitter has always indicated possible toxicity, which is why our natural reaction may be to spit it out.
However, over the past decades, research has proven that these bitter phyto nutrients – as natural protectors for plants against their enemies – also give the host – us, in fact – some important protective health benefits.  Huge health benefits, in fact, which is why I use so many of them in the “Detoxathon” recipes.

This mechanism is called hormesis or the hormetic effect, defined as “favorable biological responses to low exposures to toxins and other stressors”.

And hormesis is why we nutritionists love pushing certain high phytonutrient foods in our clinics, from broccoli to green tea to brussels spouts and wild blueberries (the much stronger and sharper ones than those in supermarkets).
Hormesis, btw, is also why small amounts of stress – which you are then supposed to turn off after exposure to that toxin! – can be beneficial.

Another interesting point about bitters is that bitter receptors are spread along the GI (gastrointestinal) tract.  These are now known to play a vital role in many GI mechanisms.  Appetite regulation for one.
According to this article, getting rid of bitter compounds may also impair our capacity to regulate food intake.

So, not eating bitters may actually increase our waistlines.

It could be that more people are eating vegetables because they are now less bitter, however, with this loss of bitterness the health benefits will also be diminished.  In the end, those amazing anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-ulcer properties will disappear as well.

Everyone knows that you should be drinking a minimum of about 8 glasses of clean water daily – especially on sunny days, or if you’re doing exercise – but you can also hydrate your body with a variety of high water-content foods.

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Attending a CAM summit or conference is always a recipe for an exciting day!  The tome we’re given when we arrive is indicative of the amount of new research, information and developments we will hear about during the day, from the scientific and nutritional expert speakers.

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