Magnesium helps prevent type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 9-28-2010

Friday, 9-24-2010, last week, Reuters Health had a story titled:

“Diabetes risk may fall as magnesium intake climbs.”

People who consumed the most magnesium in foods and from supplements were about half as likely to develop diabetes over the next 20 years as people who took in the least magnesium.

The research was done by Dr. Ka He of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his associates. (SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/xuz35p Diabetes Care, published online August 31, 2010.)

“People with the highest magnesium intake, who averaged about 200 milligrams of magnesium for every 1,000 calories they consumed, were 47 percent less likely to have developed diabetes during follow up than those with the lowest intakes, who consumed about 100 milligrams of magnesium per 1,000 calories.

He and colleagues also found that as magnesium intake rose, levels of several markers of inflammation decreased, as did resistance to the effects of the key blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin. Higher blood levels of magnesium also were linked to a lower degree of insulin resistance.

"Increasing magnesium intake may be important for improving insulin sensitivity, reducing systemic inflammation, and decreasing diabetes risk," He…” “said.

But there is more to this story.

Eating foods such as nuts and greens – and whole grains if you eat grains in your food – are relatively high in magnesium. You can also take 200 mg of Magnesium as a supplement per capsule.

So, it looks like eating these foods and taking 200 to 600 mg per day of magnesium lowers insulin resistance and either prevents type 2 diabetes or makes it less severe.

But getting that much magnesium also has been found along with restricting sodium salt to lower high blood pressure by a few points.

And this study showed that higher intakes of magnesium lowered chronic inflammation.

Since type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure and chronic inflammation also causes heart disease or makes it worse or both, that means that getting enough magnesium also helps prevent heart disease.

For type 2 diabetes, it also helps to stop drinking soft drinks, eating sugary foods several times a day instead of a few times a month, and eating foods made with refined grains. It also helps to avoid eating potatoes and foods made from them and white rice. Vigorous exercise also tends to turn off insulin resistance AND has been shown to lower the blood sugar measure, HBA1C if it’s high.

Lastly, another recently published study found that people who had type 2 diabetes and were obese who were taught to do the things just listed well enough to lose 6.2 % of their bodyweight in a year, had dramatically better health outcomes than those who were given drugs.

Now, by adding 400 mg a day of magnesium, preventing or improving type 2 diabetes without drugs will likely even work better.

And, for preventing or improving heart disease, you can also cut down on inflammation by NOT eating oils high in omega 6, such as corn, soy, saffola, and canola; not eating foods made from refined grains; eating just a bit of whole grain foods instead of a lot; and NOT eating much fat from animals fed grains instead of their natural diet. In addition, eating extra virgin olive oil, nuts, avocados does NOT boost inflammation and has other health benefits. Third, you can directly LOWER inflammation by eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils and by taking omega 3 supplements made from purified fish oil.

Regular exercise helps with heart disease in other ways such as increasing the beneficial HDL cholesterol; AND it also lowers inflammation and high blood pressure.

Now, by adding 400 mg a day of magnesium, preventing or improving heart disease by lowering inflammation will likely work even better.