Magnesium is an amazing mineral and micronutrient. Essential for making bone tissue, it’s also a key ingredient in the action of nerves and muscles and a critical component in many enzyme reactions in your body.
A good source of magnesium is unprocessed foods that have lots of fiber, especially dark green leafy green vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts. Magnesium is also found in tofu, avocado, bananas and raisins. Although whole wheat has abundant magnesium, when processed into white flour 80% of the magnesium is lost.
Some common medicines and remedies that use also contain magnesium. When you buy a box or bag of Epsom salts, you are taking home powdered magnesium sulfate, my favorite for soaking sore feet and puncture wounds.
Many laxatives also contain some type of magnesium. If you need a little help to “move things along”, you can choose a fizzy solution of clear magnesium citrate or a milky white liquid called magnesium hydroxide, also called milk of magnesia. Magnesium is also used as antacid to neutralize excess acid in the stomach in both tablets and liquid as Maalox®, Mylanta®, and Rolaids®.
Sometimes magnesium can interfere with important prescription medicines. Coming in contact with magnesium can cripple the effectiveness of powerful antibiotics. Magnesium can attach itself to the molecules of doxycycline, ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin preventing nearly 50% of their dose from getting absorbed into your body. You should avoid taking any vitamin and mineral supplement or any laxative or and acid containing magnesium for at least two hours before and four hours after taking any of these antibiotics.
Several years ago while working as a hospital pharmacist one of our patients had severe pneumonia. Once he got better he was transferred out of the intensive care unit and onto a nursing floor but within a couple of days he relapsed, ending up back in intensive care fighting for his life. The culprit was Maalox®, a liquid antacid containing magnesium. On the nursing floor he was receiving doses of Maalox® every 2 hours along with his oral tablets of ciprofloxacin, blocking half of his antibiotic from being absorbed, which nearly killed him. Once we realized this and stopped the Maalox®, he recovered quickly.
If your magnesium is too low it may affect your ability to keep your bones strong, putting you at risk for osteoporosis. Low magnesium levels in your body can also aggravate high blood pressure and contribute to migraine headache. Magnesium deficiency magnifies the effects of calcium or potassium deficiency. That’s because you can’t fix or correct low calcium or low potassium without first correcting low levels of magnesium.
Older adults are more likely to have a low magnesium level. As we age we are less able to absorb magnesium though our stomach and our kidneys tend to increase the amount of magnesium we lose through our urine. Older adults also tend to eat less magnesium in their diet and are more likely to have chronic diseases and take medicines that interfere with magnesium absorption.
Nearly all of the magnesium in our bodies is found inside cells and tissues and over 50% is found in bone. Because less than 1% of our body’s magnesium is in our blood, it may be hard to detect not having enough magnesium.
Here are some tips to help you maintain adequate magnesium:
1. Eat foods that are high in magnesium.
The best foods for magnesium are dark green and leafy vegetables, whole grains such as whole wheat and oats, nuts, and legumes.
2. Reduce or avoid taking potent acid blocker medicines called proton pump inhibitors.
These medicines interfere with your ability to absorb magnesium. If you take a medicine like Prilosec®, Prevacid®, Nexium®, or Protonix®, you may want to taper off of them or consider changing to a less potent stomach acid remedy like ranitidine (Zantac®) or cimetidine (Tagamet®).
3. If you take magnesium as a supplement, choose a form that is most easily absorbed.
There is evidence that magnesium from magnesium oxide or magnesium sulfate is less easily absorbed than magnesium from other sources like citrate, lactate, chloride, or aspartate.
A REMINDER: If you take an antibiotic such as doxycycline, ciprofloxacin or levofloxacin be careful to take any magnesium supplements or vitamins with magnesium either one hour before or 3-4 hours after taking your antibiotic. There’s usually a small sticker on the side of the bottle to alert you to this issue.
More information about magnesium is available at http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-Consumer/.
