Dr. Angela Agrios, ND
My very talented Naturopathic Doctor
She treats a wide variety of conditions
Office & phone appointments available
Los Angeles, CA (Pacific Palisades)
Naturopathic Medicine
Magnesium Is A Natural Way To Treat Constipation Interview with Dr. Angela Agrios, ND My personal naturopathic doctor. Dr. Agrios is in Los Angeles and
accepts office and phone appointments.
Magnesium is essential to life, period. It just is. It’s one of the most prevalent minerals in the body. It’s involved in over 300 metabolic pathways in the body. You're never going to get adequate magnesium in a multivitamin. Magnesium is found in dark, leafy greens. Almonds are a really good source of magnesium. I have my patients supplement with magnesium because so many of the issues that I see are magnesium-related. Magnesium deficiency can cause leg cramps and migraines. Insomnia from a lack of magnesium is a really common problem. Muscle tension can be caused by lack of magnesium and lots of my patients have muscle tension. They’re just working too hard.
Magnesium will help with all of those things. So I really like Natural Calm brand. This is available everywhere such as Whole Foods and other health food stores. Natural Calm magnesium is so easy because the one thing about magnesium is it’s kind of a large molecule, so sometimes to get a good dose of pills, you kind of have to take like, three or four pills and nobody likes taking… I mean, some people are just pill people, and that’s totally fine, but most of my patients are like, “No more pills.” It’s like, they totally are just, “No more pills.”
With Natural Calm magnesium I have my patients do about a teaspoon in water before bed, and they just kind of work their way up in dosage. There are different flavors. I think the raspberry lemonade tastes better. It kind of makes a little fizzy drink, but you could make it as a tea as well. This is just magnesium citrate. Some people are a little bit sensitive to magnesium if they tend towards diarrhea; if their stools are looser, magnesium can really accelerate that. On the flip side, if a person has had chronic constipation issues, this is typically their Mecca.
And the other thing to say is that magnesium can drop blood pressure, so people who are already really hypotensive, careful with taking too much at once. You really just want to kind of break up your doses throughout the day, and you can add sea salt to the diet to kind of bring up the blood pressure if the blood pressure’s too low. But I think that magnesium is really wonderful. The only other place to really caution with magnesium is if people have kidney damage. It’s actually really helpful for kidney stones, but if people have kidney damage, like they’re on dialysis, that is a place where they would need to check with their physician, but otherwise, I love magnesium across the board.
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You had a question on magnesium. So her comment was that she had heard all of the beneficial health things about magnesium, but she was also told that it really helps just keep the colon clean, and it does. I mean, if you dose up with magnesium the same way as if you dose up with vitamin C, you will really promote a looser stool. The higher up you go, you will just see a direct effect, so it does help you clean out constantly. So in terms of a gentle detox on a regular basis, magnesium will keep your bowels moving.
Depending on your body type I recommend taking 400 milligrams to 1,000 milligrams of magnesium per day. Start with a teaspoon of Natural Calm magnesium. Make sure you tolerate that, and then just work your way up. So basically start with 150 milligrams and just kind of inch your way up and make sure you're tolerating the amount without diarrhea. Most of my patients take 600 milligrams easily in a sitting, but it’s better to kind of start slow and work your way up.
