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If children are sugar sensitive they can become hyperactive with only small amounts of sugar. That gives you another clue as to possible magnesium deficiency because as magnesium becomes more deficient in the body, sugar sensitivity increases.  In contrast, as magnesium stores go higher, it dampens down the sugar sensitivity and hyperactivity. This relationship has a see-saw effect.

Chronic or severe stress is a known risk factor for metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity and heart disease, because stress is the biggest contributor to magnesium loss and deficiency.  Magnesium deficiency leads to metabolic syndrome, which progresses to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

When the body is dehydrated it can also cause oedema, a pooling of fluids around the ankles or puffiness around the eyes.   The reason for fluid retention is usually because the body cannot properly eliminate wastes when there is not enough free water flowing through the system. In order to protect the vital organs the body holds back and pools water in regions where the toxicity needs to be diluted most (eg. sites of inflammation or acidity). Waste products can also pool up and cause swelling in the lymph system - the body's protein waste disposal system. This is another case where toxic residues need to be diluted with more water.

Magnesium deficiency or antagonism (blockage) can cause any one of these steps to malfunction, causing overdose of stress hormones and inability to relax enough to sleep deeply.

It's almost impossible for you to get a toxic magnesium dose or overdose, unless magnesium is given at high dose intravenously, where there is no magnesium deficiency or the person has kidney problems and can’t excrete excess salts. 

We can become addicted to more than just pharmaceutical drugs or alcohol.  Researchers are now noticing symptoms of addiction also to excessive exercise.  Does excessive exercise or over-training have negative side effects?  Could it harm health and cause premature ageing?  The research indicates yes, mainly because of increasing magnesium deficiency.

Magnesium deficiency weakens performance, stamina and increases risk of injury When you push your muscles hard your brain is telling your body to ‘squeeze’ and act. Adrenalin and cortisol increase, and that helps push the calcium into the calcium channels of the muscle fibre cells, which makes them contract. Magnesium is temporarily pushed out of these channels during the contractions. When we relax, calcium comes out and magnesium moves back into the channels to relax the muscles again. 

As magnesium drops lower from excessive stress, there is less control over adrenaline and cortisol release, so that these catecholamines (stress hormones) escalate and chronically flood the system in a fight or flight (sympathetic) mode.  We can get stuck in that mode, unable to relax and move back to rest and recover grazing (parasympathetic) mode.  The stress hormones prompt glutamine to overstimulate neurons causing rapid and incessant calcium firing.  Without enough magnesium to control the calcium and switch off the catecholamine release, we can’t relax.

The review goes on to explain glyphosate’s mechanism of toxic action. Firstly, it is a strong chelating agent, creating complexes that immobilize the mineral micronutrients of the soil, such as magnesium, calcium, iron, manganese, nickel and zinc, making them unavailable to plants. This means that the food supply is robbed of vital mineral nutrients. We eat the food, it fills a void, but it doesn’t supply valuable nutrition. The end result is that we keep eating more and more empty carbs until obesity and other metabolic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, senile dementia, inflammatory bowel disease, renal failure, thyroid or liver cancer develop.

Premature ageing is usually marked by excessive weight gain (especially adipose tissue around the middle), exaggerated dehydration, hypercalcemia, joint stiffening, acidosis and inflammation.  In other words, getting overweight, dry and stiff with creaky and brittle bones before our time. Skin can also get very dry and saggy looking. As we need magnesium to synthesise collagen proteins and elastin fibres, which are the structures that hold us together as skin, bone, ligaments, sinew, smooth muscle walls in arteries etc, low magnesium means those structures lose their integrity. [6]  Thus magnesium helps us to stay more hydrated, flexible and stretchy longer!

Transdermal magnesium absorption means that magnesium ions (electrolytes) can pass into the epidermis (outer layer) of the skin, which acts as a nutritional reservoir until the tiny capillaries of the dermis underneath can absorb nutrients as required. From this skin reservoir the body may also absorb the vitamin D it made when you got some sunshine on your skin.

Whether you are a professional athlete or a gym junkie, if you think you are doing your health a lot of good with over-exercise, then think again.  It can cause serious harm in the case of magnesium deficiency.  In some cases over-exercise or over-training has even resulted in cardiac arrest and death on the track.

An essential nutritional element for growing bodies is magnesium.  Children need it for proper growth and development of bones, brain development, energy supply, immune system support and general wellness.  In our modern society burdened with processed fast foods and industrial farming methods which deplete soils of valuable minerals, we are often short-changed in quality nutrition - particularly magnesium.  Magnesium deficiency in children can look very much like symptoms of ADHD.

Magnesium chloride flakes (magnesium chloride hexahydrate) are natural mineral salts that are completely water soluble and able to be absorbed by cells without further digestion.  Adding these salts to your bath is a natural way to boost your magnesium uptake and provides much more magnesium to your muscles and bone cells than oral tablets and powders.   Magnesium chloride flakes derive from ocean, salt lakes or dried up salt pockets sandwiched in rock strata.

Are you suffering from muscle cramps and been told to stay hydrated and consume more electrolytes? The main electrolytes (combined with chloride) are sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, but it's magnesium that's the one we usually get most depleted in and it's magnesium that controls the movement of calcium.  They have a direct relationship.  Calcium is a contracting mineral and hardening element, and magnesium is the relaxing mineral because it restores the correct charge and electrolyte balance, allowing muscle flexibility.  We need magnesium for muscle recovery.

There is a great variation of magnesium status in the population, however the overall deficiency levels are growing in line with growth in chronic stress exposures. It’s not so much a question of whether we are magnesium deficient these days, but more a question of by what amount.