But if magnesium levels are low and your body hasn’t been able to store enough ATPs in reserve, you could be in trouble. Electrical system down—or "brown out".
If the body is low in oxygen (i.e. low pH), the
metabolism is likely to switch from aerobic fat burning (ebs cycle) which produces 38 ATPs when plenty of oxygen is available, to anaerobic (hypoxic) states whereby only two ATP are produced. Low pH means cells are
starved of energy, as well as oxygen. "The tumour extracellular pH (pHe) is reported to be more acidic than that of non-malignant tissues; 6.2–6.8 for tumour cells compared to 7.2–7.4 for normal cells."
"During ischemia, aerobic metabolism ceases and intracellular ATP is depleted. As the majority of ATP within the cell is in the form of the magnesium salt, cellular magnesium is also depleted. Moreover,
anaerobic metabolism leads to intracellular acidosis and an increase in mitochondrial uptake of calcium which further inhibits ATP synthesis. Calcium overload is central
in ischemic myocardial cell death."
Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes
There is a direct relationship between magnesium status and sugar metabolism: the lower the magnesium the more prone we become to sugar sensitivity and vice versa. Diabetics will consistently have low tissue levels of magnesium, as well as lower cell pH, which means less oxygen is available to burn fat for energy. Processed carbohydrates (sugars) are metabolised without oxygen
(anaerobic) and produce acidic by-products, thereby further lowering cell pH. It's a downward spiral.
People with metabolic syndrome and sugar diabetes gain excess adipose fat around the middle because low magnesium causes insulin resistance so that the blood glucose and insulin after eating a meal cannot readily
enter the cell for metabolism. "Mg2+ stimulates the insulin receptor tyrosine kinase in both insulin-dependent and independent fashions. Moreover, there is lucid evidence that prolonged increases in cellular Ca2+, arising secondary to a decline in Mg2+, blunt insulin sensitivity."
However you can't have all that insulin and sugar floating around in your blood, so it has to be taken to the liver to make fat cells for storage if not used by mitochondria.
Do you see the conundrum? You feel energy depleted but can't burn enough fat without more magnesium and oxygen. The mitochondria then have to make do with
sugar metabolism which produces less ATPs, but to make matters worse, the insulin cannot escort enough glucose into the cell. We then keep overeating because the brain
doesn't get enough glucose energy, despite all the food going in. This is how excess weight piles on.
Prolonged Stress Leads to Chronic Inflammation
The older we get the lower the levels of tissue magnesium. Could low magnesium status be an indicator of premature ageing (getting older, harder, drier and crunchier faster)? Yes.