Magnesium

Anything But Mid is hosted by Amy Edwards and Whitney Stropp. Neither host is a doctor and nothing here is medical advice. Lightly cleaned for readability.

Whitney: I'm Whitney.

Amy: And I'm Amy, and this is Midlife.

Whitney: But you're anything but mid.

Amy: Yes, you are. That's right. Go get it. Don't be afraid to go get it. So, you got a Mid Moment? What's going on?

Whitney: Oh, girl.

Amy: What is it?

Whitney: I went to to New Braunfels to, we didn't tube the river, but we stop we stayed at the chute. Have you Have you ridden the Have you gone to the Comal and tubed it?

Amy: I hate tubing.

Whitney: Oh, yeah, we've talked about that.

Amy: Uh-oh. I feel so gross. I feel so gross.

Whitney: I love it. Anyway, I love I the water is so clear and beautiful, and you're outside.

Amy: I like that part of it. It's the surrounding that I don't love.

Whitney: The people?

Amy: The bus, the sweaty bus that you sometimes have to take with your tube. I don't.

Whitney: See, I'm lucky because Ryan grew up there, and he has people on the river. We drop his truck. Like we're we're not doing that. We drop in at a neighbor's, and then we have a car.

Amy: Oh, I need to learn this. Okay, I need to learn this.

Whitney: But it's because he has friends that live around there. Anyway, but this time, we didn't actually ride the river. We went to the chute, which is just

Amy: C-H-U-T-E?

Whitney: C-H-U-T-E, and it it literally shoots you down into the next level on your on your tube. It's fun.

Amy: Is it near Schlitterbahn? I think I know that. Yeah.

Whitney: It probably is near Schlitterbahn. Yes, it is. It is. And anyway, it's super fun. And as a kid not as a kid, but like in high school and then in college, we would go, and it was before it was all built up. Now there is a restaurant/area there that you buy a a wristband, and you sit there, and you have a cabana or whatever, and you can have drinks, and you watch people come down, and you watch the lifeguards, you know, jump in and save people. My mom loves it, and that's one of her favorite thing to do. She loves to watch the almost drama.

Amy: Okay. Oh!

Whitney: She's like, "Are they going to Are they going to get out of there? Are they going to lose their tube? Are they going to fall? Is the lifeguard going to get in?" She just loves it. So anyway, my extended family and I all went and set up shop at the chute. And watched people go down, and got in ourselves. But my mom wanted to do it. Things have changed now, and we had to walk up and jump in, and then ride the chute down. You couldn't just go in to the chute itself. It's a whole thing. Anyway, so I'm like helping my mom because she's almost 80, and it's very slippery and everything because of the moss on the stairs and all this stuff. And I am I'm like, "I'm going to get in first so that I can help you into your tube." And bless her heart, she didn't know, as we all know now, you need to do strength training, you need to work on your balance, you need to do things

Amy: What happened?

Whitney: She's fine. She's fine. But I I'm just prefacing by like there were moments where she couldn't get into her tube, she couldn't pull herself up out of the water. You know, she doesn't know what we know now about strength training.

Amy: There's an irony there that she loves to watch the people with the drama.

Whitney: Right, and then

Amy: And then she's nearly

Whitney: she's about to be the drama.

Amy: Yeah, yeah.

Whitney: The real irony in this story is that I know all of these things, I'm trying to help her, I slip, and and I'm fine, but I like I do a weird like half-split, my knee hits the ground, it was like horrible.

Amy: Ow!

Whitney: And then so we're kind of laughing about that, then I get into my tube, everybody's in their tube, and I look at my feet, and both feet have cramps. So my toes are all jacked up and and weird.

Amy: Oh, my god, are you dehydrated?

Whitney: Probably!

Amy: Probably.

Whitney: But I'm like, "What the hell? I'm trying to keep my mom intact and, you know, lecturing her on you really need to do some strength training and stuff." And then I'm the one that had all the issues. If I'd had my phone, I would have taken a picture of my feet cuz they I can't do it, you know, you can't do it on your own. My toes were all jacked up, and my mom just thought it was so hilarious. She was like, "Oh, you and all of your supplements and strength training."

Amy: They were, yeah. Uh-huh. We're still not spring chickens anymore.

Whitney: And I fall, and I get the toe cramps. Anyway, it was still fun, but it was definitely the a moment of like, "Ugh."

Amy: Oh, my gosh.

Whitney: I I never had to think about any of this stuff.

Amy: I would have been a nervous wreck taking if if I had like a older parent doing something like that. I would have been like I don't think I could relax.

Whitney: Yeah, we had the age range was three-month-old to 79-year-old.

Amy: No one got on a the river with a three-month-old.

Whitney: No, no, we didn't get they no, they stayed in the mom stayed Yeah, we we were tubing with that baby. Oh, my god! No, the baby was there, but in a, you know, a a stroller and out of the sun and, you know, had a fan on him and everything. But he was part of it, so it was quite an elect- eclectic group.

Amy: Oh. Okay. Good for y'all for doing it, I guess, cuz that doesn't sound like something I'd want to do, but, yeah, y'all go. You do it. That's great.

Whitney: Yes, good. What was your Mid Moment?

Amy: Oh, I was going to say today I found a new hair on my face.

Whitney: In a new spot?

Amy: A brand-new one in a new spot, and I'm pretty sure

Whitney: Is it your chin? Where?

Amy: No, it was veering from my mustache area to my cheek. And so, I don't like this location.

Whitney: What the hell?

Amy: I'm hopeful I There was a little part of me that's like, "Maybe it was like a brow hair that got down there by accident."

Whitney: Fell off.

Amy: And like

Whitney: Yeah, like was it really attached?

Amy: Right. Was it really attached? That's the question. So we'll see as the future progresses, but it felt like it might have been really attached. So, I'm not happy about that. Because I was away for the weekend, and I didn't even like touch the hairs on my face, so this one was a real surprise. Because I went in to like regroup, because I've They everything had I usually I take stock every day. Like I'll look at the hairs growing.

Whitney: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just bought a even though we talked about this and I was like, "I think you can just shave," I just bought a dermaplane razor thing. It just came in in the mail, so.

Amy: Yeah. Like a real nice one?

Whitney: No.

Amy: Oh, like the cheapies? Yeah, yeah.

Whitney: Yeah. It's like throwaway ones, it looks like.

Amy: Yeah, yeah, they're throwaways. Those Those Those

Whitney: So, yeah.

Amy: I bought a really nice one, but it's so sharp, I'm a little nervous. So, I don't know.

Whitney: I used to have one of those a long time ago, and I didn't like that I had to change, you know, you have to constantly Yeah, change the blades, so I was like, "I'm just going to do these cheapies and see if it works." Because, like I've told you, with the testosterone and the minoxidil, I'm getting very fuzzy. Very fuzzy.

Amy: Change the blade. Yeah. Very fuzzy, very fast.

Whitney: Very, very fuzzy. As a matter of fact, at the at the river, I was like a little self-conscious. Like I didn't have a chance to, you know, really scrape everything.

Amy: Mhm. Oh. I hate feeling like that. You look well scraped today.

Whitney: Oh, well, thanks.

Amy: Mhm. Are you?

Whitney: I haven't.

Amy: Oh, you haven't? Oh, then there's nothing to be nervous about.

Whitney: Well, you never know when I mean, my eyesight's not that good, but, you know.

Amy: When the light When the sunlight hits the glistening hair, that's when, you know.

Whitney: Yeah. Mhm.

Amy: I know. I Believe me, I know.

Whitney: Yeah. Well, I'm sorry about that. Thank goodness you found it.

Amy: I have a lot of hair. I know. Well, let's dive into magnesium today, shall we? Do you take magnesium?

Whitney: Yes, let's.

Whitney: I have taken magnesium in the past. It is not in my routine at the moment.

Amy: Why?

Whitney: Laziness, just it was in that Bryan Johnson supplement, and then No, and then I was taking it on my own, but I had the wrong one, and I was getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

Amy: Oh! The citrate. We're going to talk about that, too.

Whitney: The wrong one. But that one. The L-T or the L one's the right one.

Amy: Yeah, I'll tell you. But then the citrate is like related to laxatives.

Whitney: Or the T one. Yeah. I had the wrong kind.

Whitney: Yes! And I was like I called my doctor, and I'm like,

Amy: Oh, no!

Whitney: "Why?" I I go, "My stomach does not hurt, but it is waking me up in the middle of the night, and I am running to the bathroom." And she was like, "Oh." And I was on like 700 mg or something ridiculous.

Amy: Uh-oh. Okay, that's too much. By the way.

Whitney: So I can't wait to hear about it. So, since then, I'm not on it.

Amy: Well, we're going to cover all the different types, and we're going to cover how much you should take.

Whitney: Okay, good.

Amy: Okay. So, you know, in the middle of the night, we can wake up, right? And fully be awake because this is midlife, and your brain is just like going, going, going. We hate that, right? You're hot, you're cold, all of that. But you can be like, "Magnesium surely is the answer." Well, I'm here to tell you that perhaps It's not? It's not. Perhaps it is, but I don't think it's what we think it is.

Whitney: It's not?

Amy: So,

Whitney: Yeah, I thought

Amy: Is it doing anything? Yes, it is doing something.

Whitney: And we do need it, but

Whitney: But our body We have a lot of magnesium.

Amy: Yes, and I am going to cover that.

Whitney: But we're depleted. Okay.

Amy: Yes, and then we can get depleted, but it's not what we think.

Whitney: But it's not what we think.

Amy: And it's almost impossible to know

Whitney: If you have enough?

Amy: If you have enough.

Whitney: Oh, my goodness!

Amy: The mysteries of our body continue. Okay, it's genuinely though, like even if like you were saying, "I'm taking a lot," or whatever, you can't like hurt yourself taking too much, so that's good to know. So it's safe.

Whitney: Oh, right. It just creates explosive diarrhea in the middle of the night.

Amy: There's a lot of types, and that one does. It's genuinely one of the safest supplements on the shelf

Amy: for healthy people, and it is also a supplement that can go, you know, sideways if you have kidney issues. So or if you're on certain medications, so you just want to take a little care with it, but overall safe. It, you know, is like sort of this thing that I feel like is applied to everything cuz everybody's got some, but we're not exactly sure which one or what it's doing or all of that. Like I thought I was doing the right thing, and we're going to talk about the one I've been using,

Whitney: Yeah, originally, I don't remember anyone saying, "Use this type of magnesium." I just thought, "Magnesium, go to the store, pick up a magnesium, done."

Amy: And how long have you been doing that?

Whitney: Well, I was doing it a couple years ago, and then I got on the Bryan Johnson thing, and so it was included, and then I

Amy: Right. Right. Well, it kind of had a resurgence not that long ago, so we'll talk about that, too. Okay, so magnesium is an element. It's on the periodic table. The symbol is Mg. The atomic number's 12. It's not an herb, it's not a botanical. Nobody made it in a lab. It is a rock component and the eighth-most abundant element in the Earth's crust. It is in seawater, and it is one of the most abundant things dissolved in the ocean after sodium and chloride. So, when a brand says that they have like a proprietary blend or something like that, that means that they've bonded this element, magnesium, with something else and just given it some fancy name.

Whitney: And that's why we have multiple types of magnesium.

Amy: Yeah, that's exactly why. So, it's a silvery white metal. It's light, and in its pure metallic form, it burns with like a bright white flame, which I love. That's so cool. So, it means that it's you know, a magnesium is a compound, meaning it is like like what we're getting is stuck to something else, right? But it is in nature still stuck to other things, like it's in dolomite, magnesite, and brucite, and in food. It's also part of chlorophyll, which is what makes plants green. So when you say eat leafy greens,

Whitney: You're getting magnesium.

Amy: you're getting magnesium. It's structurally in the green because of the magnesium, and it's in pumpkin seeds, which are you eating your pumpkin seeds?

Whitney: Oh.

Amy: I threw mine away cuz I forgot they were in there, so.

Whitney: Buy some fresh ones, buy raw, and then I just toast them in a pan.

Amy: Somebody I did have some in a smoothie recently.

Whitney: Shoot, remember my pantry. I love them like croutons

Amy: ones. I love them. I- I literally don't go a day without them. But, refer to our pumpkin seed episode. Chia seeds, almonds, most nuts, beans, legumes, dark leafy greens as I mentioned, unrefined whole grains, avocado, dark chocolate, and mineral water.

Whitney: Oh, okay.

Amy: Pretty dope, right? A lot of ways to get it.

Whitney: To get it, yeah.

Amy: Yeah. Foods that don't have magnesium: dairy products and anything heavily processed. How much do you need? Well, we're going to talk about this later. But for adult women over 30, daily intake is recommended at 320 mg from everything combined. This means food, water, supplements, dark chocolate, the whole nine. Most Americans are landing somewhere in the 250 to 350 range from food alone. Which means a lot of us are hovering about around the line. But getting enough magnesium to avoid a deficiency is not the same thing as having ideal magnesium status. So like, you can be getting enough, but it doesn't mean you're ideal. Okay? All right. Magnesium has been a wellness trend for about 2,000 years. The name comes from Magnesia, a district in Ancient Greece where they were digging up a mineral called magnesite, which I mentioned. So, it's named after a place. Isn't that weird?

Whitney: Yeah.

Amy: So, the other things named after this place are manganese, I don't even know what that is, and magnets. Isn't that weird? So, they're all different, but they're named from the same place.

Whitney: Magnet. Magnets. Yes.

Amy: So, when you think of them, they're not related. So, that's interesting, right?

Whitney: Oh, cause it's just the place.

Amy: I know. So, there's just been it's perpetuated some confusion about magnesium. So the Greeks and Romans used magnesite medicinally and believed it had healing properties, and they were not entirely wrong. So, fast forward to the 1800s, and this dude, Sir Humphry Davy, who's a British chemist, I almost said chemicist, who discovered several elements. He was also, according to our research, a vivacious inhaler of nitrous oxide.

Whitney: Oh. Wow.

Amy: He is the type of guy that probably would have had a podcast and a cold plunge. Told you about his morning routine.

Whitney: That is hilarious.

Amy: Yes, I know. So, anyway, he did some stuff while he was high. He isolated magnesium using electrolysis on a mixture of magnesia and mercuric oxide, which sounds concerning. But, he was the one who recognized that magnesium was an element, not a compound, and he immediately used it to make things burn, cause, you know, set things on fire, and it made a spectacular new kind of light, which is really cool. And it's really cool that we use it to make light, and, you know, we want to shine bright. So, I just liked that.

Whitney: Mhm. Right.

Amy: Little sidebar. Okay. So, magnesium became an alloy metal, and it was used in cars and airplanes, you know, cases, whatever. And then, it also became Epsom salts. Do you use Epsom salts?

Whitney: Yes, I knew that. That's why you take those baths before bed. It relaxes everything, supposedly.

Amy: It's really the bath doing it. But, yeah, it does. You are just debunking it and poor magnesium.

Whitney: You are. I am. I feel really ripped off of my magnesium after doing this.

Amy: Okay. So, it became the ingredient in a whole category of antacids and laxatives. And then, somewhere around 2019, so this is pretty recent, magnesium got rediscovered by the internet, and was declared like this magic answer to sleep, anxiety, cramps, you know, migraines, blood sugar, and being overwhelmed by modern life, whatever.

Whitney: Right. Yeah, a relaxant of muscles.

Amy: And I feel like we start drinking that Natural Calm. I have had so many unfinished containers of that Natural Calm stuff. Have you?

Whitney: Yeah. No, I've never drank that.

Amy: You didn't? Uh. Well, it's probably for the best.

Whitney: Maybe I'll take one of your half bottles home.

Amy: No, I've thrown them away and I get a new one and throw it away. Okay. So, it got it was just like calm, you know, calming. So, let's get to what it does and what you need to know. Here are four things. Number one: it's a manager, not a worker. So, there's a cited paper from 2012 that's like super cited, like It's everywhere.

Whitney: Legit studies.

Amy: Legit. It's called Magnesium Basics in the Clinical Kidney Journal. And it points out that magnesium participates in more than 300 enzymatic reactions in your body. So, it's like participating in things. It's not necessarily like doing things. But your cells run on ATP molecule, which requires magnesium to be usable. So, it's not like they're saying the analogy I got was like it's not the battery, it's the thing that lets you plug the battery in. Like an essential component.

Whitney: Right, okay.

Amy: Muscle it's also important to muscle contraction and relaxation, nerve signaling, heart rhythm, blood vessel regulation, blood pressure, moving potassium and calcium across cell membranes. I saw a lot about relation to calcium, which I thought was interesting, which I'll I'll mention again later. It's important to protein and DNA production, bone formation, insulin signaling. We like that. And blood sugar regulation. So, these are all things that, of course, overlap with our menopause symptoms. Like all the things that we go on. So, it's no wonder that you know,

Whitney: People are saying We need it.

Amy: we're latching on to it. Yeah. So, this is the next thing you need to know, factoid. Almost none of your magnesium is in your blood. And that's where we're measuring it. So, this is a problem.

Whitney: Where is it?

Amy: So, roughly 99% of your body's magnesium is not in your bloodstream. 50 to 60% is in your bones, which you mentioned. 27%, roughly, is in your muscle. I love that it's like so specific. 27% is in your muscles. And another like 19% is in other soft tissue. But the serum, like your blood, which is how it was measured for me. I went and looked at my blood work today, and it was like magnesium serum magnesium, I think it said. And I was like, "Oh, cool. Optimum." But it doesn't matter. It's measured It holds only 0.3% of your magnesium. So, like basically here's the analogy: your body is a bank. Your bones are the magnesium's retirement account, long-term. Not meant to be used really and saved. It's meant to be saved. Your muscles and tissues are the savings account. And your blood is the checking account. So, when you go to the doctor and get your magnesium level drawn like I did, that test is only looking at that little checking account.

Whitney: Yeah. And it's not a good representation, it sounds like.

Amy: No, it's not. So, number three: your body will go into your retirement account to keep that checking account up to speed. So, that means that, you know, your body is obsessing over keeping your blood in the in the in the optimal range. And it'll do anything, include pull magnesium out of your bones to top it up. Which is weird, right?

Whitney: Right.

Amy: Which means that, and, and research has explicitly said this, that a person can have serum magnesium sitting like at normal levels, but their whole body magnesium is at a deficit. So, yeah. So, it's hard to diagnose. They say that

Whitney: Because your the the the the body is just depositing the magnesium that the blood needs. It's just doing it automatically. So, if you don't have a lot in your muscle, there's no you're not going to know that

Amy: Or your bones, right.

Whitney: from your blood cause your blood will always be level.

Amy: No, you're not going to know. It's obsessing about keeping your blood level. Yeah.

Whitney: Yeah, interesting.

Amy: I know. So you basically also, you know, you can't look at a normal magnesium level in your blood and assume that you're depleted or you're normal. Like you can't

Whitney: It tells you nothing.

Amy: rule anything out, right. So, you have separate defense systems for your bones keeping what they need, though. So, that's good. That is your gut, which adapts. It get magnesium gets absorbed mostly in your small intestine. And so, when your magnesium status is low, your intestines absorb a higher fraction of what comes through. So, basically your body is normalizing it with what you eat, right? And same with your kidneys. Your kidneys are filtering the magnesium every single day and then reabsorbing it. And so, they're letting out, you know, what you don't need. You pee it out basically. So, they're constantly adjusting. That's why, I guess, people who have any kidney issues, you should like make sure you're okay with your doctor before you take any supplements. But for us that don't have kidney issues, then the kidneys are figuring it out all the time, which is good. So, even if you're getting extra magnesium from your food,

Whitney: It doesn't matter. They flush it out.

Amy: your body is figuring it out. That's right. That's right. Also, you've got it in your bones again, which, you know, is a good thing. So, you do have a reservoir going on in your bones. Okay?

Whitney: I wonder if testing your pee, if you don't have any magnesium coming out, if that's an indicator that

Amy: I wonder too. I didn't think of that. I'll have to look it up.

Whitney: There's got to be a way to test tested other than blood.

Amy: Right. Right, right, right. So, okay. There's no giant, decades-long, definitive trial of magnesium supplementation in perimenopausal women or menopausal women.

Whitney: Of course.

Amy: Surprise, surprise. Just mid. So, we have a

Whitney: So mid.

Amy: We have a lot of general magnesium research and a lot of observational data, small trials. And, you know, we're all very enthusiastic about our our supplementation. And marketing. We have marketing. Okay. So, here's what we know: sleep and nervous system studies. This is where the strongest case lives, but it's still kind of modest. On average, just over half of postmenopausal women experience sleep disorders. And people in perimenopause and postmenopause report sleep problems more often than women who haven't, you know, started to transition. Does magnesium help? It's involved in nerve signaling and muscle relaxation. And there is research suggesting magnesium levels influence circadian rhythms and your internal clock. But the trials are small. Some of them are old, and the reviews consistently end with a sentence about needing more research.

Whitney: So So, the idea that you take magnesium to help you sleep, there's no real proof of that.

Amy: It's minor. It seems to be minor. But there is proof that it can help with your nervous system regulations and things like that. So

Whitney: Interesting. Well, and, yeah, relaxation, and muscle relaxation.

Amy: you know Right. Right. Okay.

Whitney: Interesting. Okay.

Amy: So, your bones, when your estrogen declines, bone loss accelerates. Sorry, were we

Whitney: Sorry, we're playing footsie over here.

Amy: playing footsie? And remember what I said, 50 or 60% 50 to 60% of your body's magnesium lives in your bones. Magnesium is structurally involved in bone formation, and it helps regulate calcium. So, that seems really important. So observational research has linked higher magnesium intake to modestly better bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. So, yeah. Eat your magnesium. And I'm saying eat, I think. Yes.

Whitney: Eat, yeah.

Amy: So, there's decent supporting evidence also for mood and anxiety, which I think links to sleep, too, right?

Whitney: Yeah, and just an overall feeling of relaxation.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah, cuz you know I'm taking my magnesium at lunch and at night. We I thought we talked about that, so, what I've been taking. Anyway, there have been reviews that found magnesium supplementation associated with improvements in subjective anxiety in vulnerable populations and it's they found to have associations with bettering depressive symptoms too. So, postmenopausal women have been found that lower magnesium levels in women with depressive I did I read that all wrong. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. That's a confusing sentence.

Whitney: Rewind.

Amy: Observational work in postmenopausal women has found lower magnesium levels in women with depressive symptoms and higher levels in women without, meaning that if you feel depressed you might have low magnesium. Interesting. That's one of those things that like is it connected or not, you know?

Whitney: I feel like, I mean, just in general, if your body's not getting what it needs, whatever the the vitamin or supplement is, it can create a change in your mood.

Amy: Everything's not functioning right. Your brain's not getting the nutrients it needs.

Whitney: Right. You're not getting sleep. It all really goes back to sleep at the end of the day.

Amy: I know, it really does. It really does. Oh, my god. My sleep score last night I really slept good. Can I just brag? Oura Ring brag, hashtag.

Whitney: Yes, but did you feel that too when you woke up?

Amy: Yeah, I mean I feel like I dreamed my head off, and, sure enough, I got like over two hours of REM sleep. I got over two hours of deep sleep. I was like, whoo.

Whitney: And what time did you go to bed last night?

Amy: Kind of late actually, like 11:00.

Whitney: And what time did you wake up?

Amy: 8:00. Yeah, not about nine hours in bed, but not not a full nine hours of sleep, cuz I do wake up some. Yeah, I've been reading in bed and reading myself to sleep and that's helping. I did I tell you I'm obsessed with Dungeon Crawler Carl series?

Whitney: That's good. No, I never even heard of that.

Amy: Oh, you haven't? Oh, they're gonna make it a series for TV now.

Whitney: What's it about?

Amy: It's about, like, the earth is destroyed and Oh, my god.

Amy: It's turned into an intergalactic game show and the survivors have to survive in an intergalactic game show and Carl

Whitney: What's that show that they already did, the Korean show where they're in a game show and what's that called? I can't remember.

Amy: Oh, yeah. Squid Game.

Whitney: Squid Game. Sounds a lot like Squid Game.

Amy: It's got some similarities. It's got some Hunger Games in there. It's got

Whitney: It does not sound relaxing in any way.

Amy: No, it's not. But it's a comedy. It's funny. And and one of the main characters is this is his cat. Not really his cat, his girlfriend's cat. Like she was She accidentally got like lived through the apocalypse with him and so entered the game show with him. And now she can talk and everything and she's like, "I live for Princess Donut. I'm obsessed."

Whitney: Oh, I heard you say on one of your reels with Justin you were talking about Princess Donut.

Amy: I was like, "I look like Princess Donut." Yeah. Yes, Princess Donut.

Whitney: Okay. I was like, "Who is Princess Donut?"

Amy: She is the costar of Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Whitney: She's a cat.

Amy: Yes, and now they're making a series of it with Seth MacFarlane is gonna be in charge and so he did Ted.

Whitney: Then it really must be funny if Seth

Amy: Oh, it's great. It's so funny.

Whitney: And they're books right now, a series?

Amy: There's eight books. I'm on book four. Yeah.

Whitney: Oh, my gosh. Do you have book one through three? Or did you get them?

Amy: I loan I gave someone book one, so.

Whitney: All right, I'll have to test I'll have to read one.

Amy: Do you like sci-fi?

Whitney: Not really.

Amy: Okay, then no. You won't.

Whitney: But I'm watching Pluribus right now.

Amy: Does Does violence bother you?

Whitney: Yes.

Amy: Then this is not for you.

Whitney: Then I will not be reading it.

Amy: This is not for you. If violence bothers you, this is not for you.

Whitney: And this is your bedtime reading? This is so funny.

Amy: I know. Is that not ridiculous?

Whitney: That would not That would not relax me in anyway. I would not be able to sleep. And are your dreams frightening?

Amy: No.

Whitney: Okay. All right, back to magnesium.

Amy: It's outlandish. Anyway.

Whitney: I'll pass.

Amy: It's so weird. But I'm obsessed with Donut. Okay, anyway, why are we on this? Cuz my sleep is good, that's why. Okay.

Whitney: That's right. Very proud of you for having a good sleep score.

Amy: Thank you. Thank you.

Whitney: I'm jealous.

Amy: I feel really validated. Okay. So basically magnesium is not a treatment for depression, but we think that it could help and obviously sleep helps, so, you know. There we are. "Does it help with hot flashes?" you asked.

Whitney: I did ask.

Amy: Well, magnesium has not demonstrated a benefit for hot flashes, weight changes, or cognitive symptoms. Minimal studies, like two studies,

Whitney: All right.

Amy: there were done and the answers were maybe and no. So, but if magnesium helps you sleep better and feel less like wound up, the flashes may bother you less even if you're still having them. So, all right. So, let's let's just recap for a second. Magnesium in midlife is a reasonable low-risk, cheap thing to get. We're we're gonna cover how much it costs. It's mostly for bones, sleep, nervous system, not really for hot flashes, and it's a foundation not a fix. It's not something that you're gonna take and feel better like that like you do with all your other magical supplements. All right. So, let's talk about the types because you mentioned diarrhea. So,

Whitney: Yes, I did. I love to talk about diarrhea.

Amy: Yes, you did. Okay. Who doesn't? Magnesium glycinate is the main one that we probably want. It's magnesium plus glycine, which is an amino acid. Glycine has calming properties of its own. Some research suggests it helps the body drop its core temperature slightly.

Whitney: I like that.

Amy: Which is how you Part of how you fall asleep, so that can help too. It is gentle,

Whitney: That's

Amy: but it is only about 14% elemental magnesium when you take it. See?

Whitney: I did not think that was the the right magnesium.

Amy: Oh, there's another

Whitney: You're thinking There's an L-one or something. I thought that's the one.

Amy: L-threonine or something. Yeah.

Whitney: Threonate? Yeah.

Amy: Yeah, it's not. And then magnesium taurate maybe taurate you were thinking? Anyway, yeah, this is glycinate. This one is the one.

Whitney: So, I I didn't even know about this one. Maybe that's the one that cause Yeah, that's the one that caused my diarrhea.

Amy: No. No, yours is magnesium citrate.

Whitney: All right. Well, we'll get Hold on. Hold on to your horses. We're gonna get to the diarrhea.

Amy: To your diarrhea. Okay.

Whitney: That's right.

Amy: Magnesium glycinate. So, like if it says magnesium glycinate 2,000 mg, you are not getting 2,000 mg of magnesium, right? You're getting a shit ton of glycinate, because I just said it's only the way it combines is only 14% magnesium. So, this did the math for me and it said that that means you're getting 280 mg of actual magnesium, not 2,000.

Whitney: Okay. And the other The other thing

Amy: Is glycine.

Whitney: does what? Like, why Why are they mixing these? Why are they Why not are they not just giving us magnesium? Why are they mixing it with other things?

Amy: I think it has to attach to something. I think it has to attach to something for our bodies to process it. I'm not 100% sure on that.

Whitney: Oh. Okay. And this one is taken for

Amy: This one is glycine, which has calming properties and it's an amino acid.

Whitney: Okay, which an amino amino acid is is good.

Amy: Yeah. But you wanna go on your bottle, you wanna look to see where it says Get your readers out. And then you look to see where it says like actual milligrams of magnesium

Whitney: And it was 14%.

Amy: not the glycinate, right? So, it's gonna be less than 2,000 or whatever you're reading. Next, magnesium citrate. So, that one is the one with citric acid and it pulls water into your intestines.

Whitney: That's the diarrhea. Yes, it did. Good time in the late, late evening.

Amy: Yeah. It's also used as a laxative and it shows up like in colonoscopy prep. In fact, I just had to buy some for Justin, yeah.

Whitney: Oh, he's having another colonoscopy?

Amy: No, no, when he did. When he did. Yeah. So, brands It is in that Natural Vitality CALM thing, the powder that I was talking about. It's in NOW Foods. It's on in some Thorne ones. I don't think you need this. Okay? The next one is magnesium oxide, which is the cheapest form. It's the highest magnesium content by weight, so the number on the bottle looks really good, but it's not absorbed easily. Much of it stays in your gut. A lot of drugstore house brands and cheap brands, like antacids and laxatives too, have some of this magnesium oxide, like the brands are Mag-Ox, Nature Made, generic store brands. It's not useless, but, you know, it can veer into laxative territory or antacid territory, but if you're looking to really take magnesium like we're talking about, no.

Next, magnesium L-threonate.

Whitney: Yeah, the expensive, like brain one.

Amy: It's bonded to threonic acid. I guess I'm saying that right.

Whitney: That's the one that I heard we have to be taking.

Amy: Yeah, it's super hyped up and it is talked about for cognition and brain function because of research suggesting it's good at crossing the blood-brain barrier.

Whitney: And I would guess that's because it helps you sleep and then your body can repair and so then your mind is clear.

Amy: Right. Right. You'd guess that, yeah. It's sold almost universally under a trademarked ingredient Magtein, which is then licensed out and the brands are Life Extension, Neuro-Mag, Double Wood, Nootropics Depot, whatever.

Whitney: I would guess. We're not doctors. Yeah.

Amy: The human evidence in this is still early, and much of the buzz traces back to animal work and a small number of trials, and it's low in elemental magnesium per capsule and can be very pricey. Like, we're talking a dollar a day. So, if you're interested in brain fog, this may not be the answer. I know. Magnesium malate And can I just say there could be mistakes in this.

Whitney: We're not doctors.

Amy: No, it's not.

Whitney: So, our own research.

Amy: Magnesium malate, M-A-L-A-T-E. So, this is malic acid, combined with malic acid, which is involved in your cell's energy cycle. It gets recommended for fatigue and muscle pain, often for fibromyalgia, mostly on the reasoning on mechanistic reasoning, meaning mostly on the mechanisms that it works through, rather than like strong trial data, but it is well-tolerated. So, you can take that one easily during the day. It's gonna help with muscles more. Magnesium

Whitney: Allegedly, though.

Amy: Allegedly. taurate, T-A-U-R-A-T-E. So, this is magnesium plus taurine. Taurine has its own cardiovascular research, which is why this form gets pitched for heart rhythm and blood pressure. Reasonable, gentle, and worth a conversation with your doctor if your cardiovascular risk is on your radar. So, and after estrogen declines, you know, we can this is a consideration for sure. Magnesium chloride and topical, so this is what's the magnesium in sprays, oils, bath flakes. I've bought them all.

Whitney: I've never heard of a magnesium spray.

Amy: Oh, I have. I've bought one.

Whitney: What do you spray it on, your face?

Amy: Your skin. Like where your muscles might need it. That was the way it was pitched to me.

Whitney: Oh, right, right. Oh, okay.

Amy: And then I we literally never used it. I bought it for Justin and the woman talked me into it at like a farmer's market.

Whitney: Oh, sure.

Amy: So, of course, I bought it. Okay. So, the so the evidence that magnesium is absorbed through your skin is weak. There's not a lot of evidence, and it is just not well established. It might do something. It has not been shown to raise your magnesium status, but are they can they really measure it that well? No. So, I don't know. Does that mean no?

Whitney: Right. So, the baths

Amy: Well, if if doing it before bed like taking a bath, you know?

Whitney: But you said before, it's probably more just the bath and the ritual, not the magnesium.

Amy: Well, this is the oil Right. Next is magnesium sulfate, that's the Epsom salts. So it's the same thing as above, is it absorbed through your skin? We don't know exactly, but a warm bath before bed does lower your core temperature, which supports sleep. So

Whitney: Oh sure.

Amy: you're supporting sleep. I find it relaxing, but you are taking a bath. Sometimes I get dizzy when I use Epsom salts in a hot bath and get out.

Whitney: Oh, really?

Amy: Yeah, I don't know why. Anyway, maybe it's pulling all the water into my small intestines or something. So, magnesium orotate and the blends. Orotate is a niche, expensive form with some athletic performance and cardiac research and that's kind of all I know about that. There's some brands that contain that, and then there are blends, okay, seven forms of magnesium in one capsule, which is what I have been marketed into taking with BIOptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough.

Whitney: That is multiple magnesiums.

Amy: They said seven, seven forms of magnesium. So it says that it has proprietary blends.

Whitney: Oh, liar.

Amy: Fucking A. So it has glycinate, biglycinate, it has something that I never, oxide, which we don't need, that's a cheap one, malate, orotate, taurate, and your favorite, citrate. So

Whitney: I'm getting a vision of that INXS video where it's like and he's got the signs and it's like all the eights.

Amy: Magnesium, malate, orotate, try not to hate. Yeah. So I feel like this is marketing, and I feel like this is very representative of all the things that we do, and

Whitney: Yes, that are unnecessary.

Amy: I was a little disappointed. So I'm I guess I'll finish this. I have been

Whitney: Why finish it? You just you just There's Eat eat your leafy greens, and be done.

Amy: And be done.

Whitney: I think so. Man, the more we do the shows, the more I start to think we are just buying we are letting these people just

Amy: Yeah, there's a new movie coming out that I want to watch. It's done by the Ben something or other, he's from Austin, and it's called Everybody Wants to Sell You Something or something like that. It looks really good because everybody does want to fucking sell you something, and this is all marketing and they're all just putting shit together with a cute label to make us think, "We need that. I need that." So

Whitney: pull the wool over our eyes. But doctors are telling us that we need the magnesium. Like I didn't just come up with that on my own, my OBGYN

Amy: Told you to do what? Take some?

Whitney: I'm pretty sure. Take magnesium with the L, no?

Amy: Supplement it or eat it? Oh really, with the L? What did we say that was?

Whitney: That was the la la la la thorate.

Amy: L-threonate, the expensive That one's free Yeah.

Whitney: That's the one that that I was told to get on by my function health doctor, and I didn't realize there were different types of magnesium, so I purchased the diarrhea magnesium.

Amy: I know. No, it is hard because there's One of the reasons I picked I picked this one, because I was like, "Well, this has all seven, so I'll be covered."

Whitney: You're like, "I get all of them." Yeah.

Amy: Which is how our brain functions, right?

Whitney: Dude, we just need to eat good food.

Amy: Well, okay, a lot of it is marketing, yes, and we are susceptible to that. So maybe things aren't absorbing and all of that, but we're paying premiums for this, and we don't need to be. So take a deep breath, chill.

Whitney: You're out of there, magnesium. You're out of there!

Amy: That's right. Check the label to see what you're actually buying. And and then now you know a little bit more, right? At least a little.

Whitney: But what are you going to do?

Amy: I don't know yet.

Whitney: What's keeping you wanting to take it?

Amy: The fact that I bought it.

Whitney: Oh, yeah.

Amy: I might as well just finish it. It's kind of what I'm thinking, and maybe there's a placebo.

Whitney: That's to I definitely That was the other thing I was going to say, there there is always a placebo. If you're taking something right before bed that you think is going to help you sleep, you're you're already putting yourself in the right frame of mind to go to sleep.

Amy: Yeah, you are.

Whitney: And that's why my mom now is is like

Amy: Our our guinea pig, your mom.

Whitney: I know, bless her heart. No, she's always She takes a sleeping pill, and she was spending the night at my house a couple of weeks ago, and went home She forgot her sleeping pill,

Amy: What is it?

Whitney: drove all the way back to her house to get it, cuz she thought, "I won't be able to sleep. I won't be able to sleep." But by the way, when you say, "Let's get Let's How Nine times out of 10 or, you know, not nine, but like how many times out of 10 sleeps are you actually getting a good night's sleep?" I don't think it's even half. But she's like, "But I I can't go to sleep without it."

Amy: What is it?

Whitney: I don't know. Yeah. That's a placebo, I think.

Amy: I think so too.

Whitney: She worked herself up, "Now I don't have it, I can't sleep, I won't be able to sleep, I've got to go get it, I've got to go get it, I've got to go get it, I can't sleep." So then she has trouble sleeping.

Amy: That's crazy. That's fucked.

Whitney: Ugh.

Amy: Yes. We're all

Whitney: All right.

Amy: So how much do you need to take? Here's what you need. You need about 320 mg for midlife women, men 400 to 420, so a little bit more for men. That's from all sources combined, we're talking food, supplements, water, so you can get it from your food. The tolerable upper intake limit for magnesium from supplements is 350 mg per day. So if you're taking 500 mg in a bottle along with your food, you're not really You don't need that. Like So you just need to make sure you are getting the maximum amount you can, and that's that, right? Your body's going to flush it out. So many women are taking more supplemental magnesium like me, then the established upper limit on the recommendation, you know, of marketing functional health. marketing, functional health, whatever. So it's very frustrating.

Whitney: Most people are actually eating enough.

Amy: An average of 300 mg from food. So yeah, so a supplement of like 1 to 200 of elemental magnesium is a sensible start, right? So start low, take it with food, increase it as you need to. You're not going to feel better right away. It's not like a magic pill that you feel.

Whitney: It's a building block.

Amy: Right. Mhm. But go with glycinate probably if you're not sure, in the evening. I mean, you could go with the one that you wanted, but I don't think you need to.

Whitney: No, don't because you're waking up in the middle of night to go to the bathroom.

Amy: Oh, not the citrate, the the the T one. Oh yeah, the LT. Give it four to eight weeks to see if you feel anything, because, you know, it's like I said, it's not like instant. And if you Yeah, it's just it's Those are drugs, right? So it should overall cost I don't know, about $0.60 a day, so whatever that turns out to, you know, like a normal amount rather than what I was spending on this like $30 for for a bottle. Actually, I think I was spending more than that, I think I was spending This one's I was buying ones of 60, and they were costing like a lot. And

Whitney: Oh my gosh.

Amy: Oh don't Don't even.

Whitney: Oh my goodness.

Amy: You, of all people.

Whitney: No, I'm the worst. I'm the worst.

Amy: I expect a lot less judgment.

Whitney: No, you're absolutely right. I am the worst, but now after this, I just think you should toss that in the trash.

Amy: You do? And this bottle?

Whitney: I kind of do.

Amy: So That's right. I feel like I've paid so much for it. So, okay, so if you have kidney impairment, talk to your doctor, right? And cuz there is something called hypermagnesemia, which means that you have too much, and it accumulates in your kidneys, you don't want that. Medications, can it interact with other medications? Yeah, just take your like thyroid medicine you know, hours before basically, which I'm always looking for thyroid medicine like, "Is it going to interact?" It can affect absorption of like antibiotics, so you know, you just want to watch taking, you know, with other things, but it's not like I I I take it with a bunch of other stuff, and it doesn't interact with like my HRT, for instance, at least not as far as I know. Also, heat and prolonged exercise increase magnesium losses, so if we're doing you know, going to a hot yoga class like right now

Whitney: Or a sauna. in Austin.

Amy: Right. Then you can be losing magnesium, so you might need to make sure you're eating right, and just get your pumpkin seeds on. So

Whitney: The magic the magic seed.

Amy: Yeah. There are not really signs if you have low magnesium.

Whitney: Oh, I thought cramping

Amy: Oh! Yeah, I did too, actually.

Whitney: was a sign.

Amy: Maybe that's I think that's a lot of dehydration, too. You know? So you can be low and feel fine, so symptoms don't necessarily confirm it or rule it out. Like your magnesium may be fine, maybe you were just dehydrated that day or something. So

Whitney: Or just old.

Amy: Or that, and/or, right? And/or. So, severe magnesium deficiency is linked to low potassium and low calcium. So those are kind of good markers to watch, too. So if you have low potassium and calcium, maybe up your magnesium, you know, why not? So it is infrastructure, it is not a miracle pill, and half your live half your supply is in your bones when your bones need back up. It's not going to cool your hot flashes. It might help you sleep. It probably helps your bones, and your mood, and your blood sugar, and it should cost roughly $0.30 a day, so you should be paying 20 bucks a month for your supplements. That's always good to know, right? So don't get the cheap one, don't get the oxide, get something better. So, but really get it from food, pumpkin seeds, greens, nuts, beans, whole grains, dark chocolate. I love that it's in dark chocolate. Supplement it modestly in a form that doesn't, you know, give you diarrhea or whatever and respects that like 350 mg supplement ceiling, and then check with your doctor if you have kidney concerns. And then I think also like the well-tolerated, that was based on like diarrhea, not toxicity. So, and just remember to just read on the bottle. Like this front part is an advertisement. This is the marketing, so go look, read the label, see how much you're actually getting, cuz that's what it's about. There you have it.

Whitney: Okay, magnesium.

Amy: That is magnesium and all you wanted to know and more.

Whitney: Yes. And as always, we're not doctors, we're not scientists, we're just doing some research and giving you our thoughts. I'm on the fence now about magnesium. I feel like it should I'm actually I'm I'm a no. I'm a no on magnesium.

Amy: You're a no?

Whitney: I'm a no now. And you know, I had my own bout with it, didn't work.

Amy: Well, that would turn you off.

Whitney: For sure, yeah. I probably lost a little bit of weight.

Amy: Well, I tell you what, if you change your mind, here you go. All right, remember, ultimately we do what we want.

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