WHAT’S NEW With MAGNESIUM
By Dr. Carolyn Dean, MD, ND
It’s safe to say that most health-conscious people are aware of the importance of magnesium. We know that the soil is depleted, water is depleted, stress, drugs, surgery, and illness all burn off magnesium. We also know that the serum magnesium test is highly inaccurate so doctors don’t even put magnesium on the standard electrolyte panel, so it is virtually ignored.
At the same time there is a huge information gap between magnesium research and clinical application. I became aware of this when I asked two famous magnesium researchers, Drs. Burton and Bella Altura to write the Foreword in my “Magnesium Miracle” book, published in 2001.
Initially I was told by their associates that they would never lower their academic standards to endorse a lay publication. However, when I approached them, they said they were completely frustrated with the fact that they were not seeing any evidence that their 1000 plus scientific papers were having an impact on the clinical application of magnesium.
The most important new fact about magnesium is from a paper titled "Challenges in the Diagnosis of Magnesium Status” by Workinger. The abstract began with the following: “Magnesium is a critical mineral in the human body and is involved in ~80% of known metabolic functions.”
That very clear statement is quite mind-blowing and it becomes very clear that if people do not have enough magnesium in their body and in their storage sites, then metabolic functions begin to fail. The number of enzyme processes governed by magnesium that has been bandied about for decades is about 325.
I went to a website called Enzyme Science and saw that there are approximately 1300 different enzymes found in the human cell. Doing the math with 80% of metabolic functions you can see that magnesium participates in 1,040 enzyme systems.
My biggest breakthrough in magnesium research was identifying 65 health conditions related to magnesium deficiency, but misdiagnosed and mistreated as diseases:
Mistreatment usually including medications, which contribute to magnesium deficiency.