Dean Carolyn L - The Miracle of Magnesium

Table of Contents

To the Miracle Women in my life.
My mum, Rena, my three sisters: Chris (who
labored with me on the first drafts of the wee maggie),
Anne, and Evelyn. And my agent, Beth.
Thank you all.

More praise for The Miracle of Magnesium

Every doctor and patient should read this comprehensive book on the many roles of magnesium.... I loved this book. Clearly written and packed with information, it offers a compendium on natural medicine and is an invaluable resource for both practitioner and public alike. It is the most comprehensive and well-referenced guide to the myriad benefits of magnesium published to date.

DR. CAROLYN DEMARCO
Author of Take Charge of Your Body:
Womens Health Advisor

Throughout this volume and with utmost clarity, Carolyn Dean presents invaluable recommendationsbased on the latest magnesium research. Virtually every American can benefit.

PAUL PITCHFORD
Author of Healing with Whole Foods:
Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition

Physicians and therapists have paid scant attention to this very important element, which is also involved in maintaining our good health. The massive evidence is here in this important book on magnesium. I am pleased to have been taking magnesium for so many years.

ABRAM HOFFER, M.D.
Author of Putting It All Together:
The New Orthomolecular Nutrition

Please turn the page
for more reviews....

Excellent research together with valuable inspiration to empower the doctor within each of us.

JOSHUA ROSENTHAL
Director of the Institute for
Integrative Nutrition
Author of The Energy Balance Diet

An enlightening and practical book. Dr. Dean supplies powerful information for people while trumpeting a reminder to doctors about this essential and often overlooked mineral elixir. The Miracle of Magnesium should be required reading for living a rich, healthy life.

EUGENE CHARLES, D.C., DIBAK
Author of Physician Heal Thy Patient
and Becoming Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

I have been in complementary medicine for thirty years and I believed I knew all there was to know about magnesiumuntil I [read] the latest book by Dr. Carolyn Dean. This book is the most comprehensive review on the subject I have ever read. As one can expect from a physician with such vast and diversified knowledge,The Miracle of Magnesium contains information on allied fields of medicine that makes this book an incredible resource for doctors and patients alike. The Miracle of Magnesium is a book that is going to be of great service to humanity since, as the author points out, there is so much information on magnesium that has failed to be included in the medical curriculum.

SERAFINA CORSELLO, M.D.
Wellness Medical Center for Integrative Medicine
Author of Ageless Healing

Foreword

Clearly there is more to life than magnesium is one of the remarks from Dr. Deans remarkable, almost encyclopedic, but very readable book. Her book is long overdue, for it gives the lay reader a chance to discover for him- or herself the many needs for this mineral in a healthy diet, and the reasons why this has not been emphasized in the everyday literature.

The requirements for magnesium in our diet is indeed a much neglected topic and this book by Dr. Dean brings the message home by her carefully written repetitive emphasis on the subject. That does not mean that there are not many other nutrients necessary in our daily food intake, as stated above, but the point she so clearly makes is that the public in general has not been notified to look for the proper amount of this mineral in the daily diet and of the many reasons magnesium is needed in our bodies.

After a cursory overview of the material, the book should be read as one would read an encyclopedia, that is pick out the parts one is particularly interested in, and then go back and try to read it all. This way the reader will get the gist of how important magnesium really is and how little he or she has been informed, be it from newspapers, magazines, or the rest of the news media. As the old adage says, An ounce of prevention is worth its weight in gold, and so it is with a balanced nutrition, which includes this all-important mineral in adequate amounts.

(As to the other interesting parts of the book, our qualifications only allow us to comment on the material pertaining to the scientific basis for the need of magnesium.)

Dr. Bella T. Altura
Research Professor of
Physiology and Pharmacology
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Brooklyn, New York

Dr. Burton M. Altura
Professor of Physiology,
Pharmacology, and Medicine
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Brooklyn, New York

Introduction

From the 74th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document no. 264:

Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until depleted soils from which our food comes are brought into proper mineral balance? The alarming fact is that foods (fruits, vegetables and grains) now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain minerals are starving usno matter how much of them we eat. The truth is that our foods vary enormously in value, and some of them arent worth eating as food. Our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon the minerals we take into our systems than upon calories or vitamins or upon the precise proportions of starch, protein or carbohydrates we consume. Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago. No man today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his stomach with the mineral salts he requires for perfect health, because his stomach isnt big enough to hold them! And we are turning into a nation of big stomachs.

Do you know when those words were spoken in testimony before the Senate? Nineteen thirty-six! Today farm-lands are even more mineral-deficient and fertilizers still dont fully replace those minerals. Magnesium is one of the most depleted minerals, yet one of the most important. We imagine that medicine has advanced to the stage of miracle cures, yet its not technology that were lacking but basic nutrients that power our bodies and give us our health.

Quick-fix medical solutions from doctors are all around us via television, the Internet, radio, and infomercials. In a world of rapid change, our bodies are going through peaks and crashes every day. We rely on double cappuccinos in the morning, a Power Bar for lunch, and an acupuncture treatment after work before we go to the gym for our energy hits. Harnessed to our cell phone, laptop, Palm Pilot, and pager, were exhausting our natural physical stores of energy, straining our bodies capacity to function and heal. Although we cant change our digital environment, we can learn how to preserve and rebuild our energy levels naturally.

Magnesium regulates more than 325 enzymes in the body, the most important of which produce, transport, store, and utilize energy. Many aspects of cell metabolism are regulated by magnesium, such as DNA and RNA synthesis, cell growth, and cell reproduction. Magnesium also orchestrates the electric current that sparks through the miles of nerves in our body. Magnesium has numerous physiological roles, among which are control of nerve action, the activity of the heart, neuromuscular transmission, muscular contraction, vascular tone, blood pressure, and peripheral blood flow. Magnesium modulates and controls the entry and release of calcium from the cell, which determines muscular activity. Without magnesium, muscle and nerve functions are compromised and energy is diminished. We are operating with the power turned off. Muscular weakness, soft bones, anxiety, heart attacks, arrhythmia, and even seizures and convulsions can result.1