Show Notes

What is Magnesium and why is it important?

• An essential mineral, found in animal sourced foods, fruits, vegetables and water
• Mg2+ is a positively charged ion. Most abundant free divalent cation in the cell.
• On average an adult body (70kg male) contains 25g of magnesium with 50-60% present in the bones.
  • Bones store roughly 13,000mg of magnesium.
  • Muscle around 6600mg
  • Other tissue 4900mg

• Co-Factor in over 600+ chemical reactions in the body
  • A Co-factor is a substance that assist and enzyme do its job
  • An Enzyme is a large protein structure that lower the activation energy for a chemical reaction

• Activation energy is the amount of energy needed to be added to the system to initiate a chemical reaction. Think, you have to money to make money

• Enzymes make chemical reactions occur more frequently and more efficiently. Without enzymes chemical reactions in our body would take too long and we would have never evolved past single cell organisms. 

• Mg involved in stabilizing and creating DNA. Mg cofactor in the enzyme that produces DNA, DNA polymerase. Create DNA by assembling nucleotides.

• ATP must be bound to magnesium to make it biologically active

Magnesium and Our Metabolism: ATP Production

Without magnesium we wouldn’t be able to produce ATP either aerobically (with oxygen) or anaerobically (without oxygen). Since Magnesium is required for both glycolysis and the citric acid cycle. Mg involved in 6 of the 8 steps of the citric acid cycle. 

Example Magnesium is involved in a lot of the reactions in the metabolism of glucose. 

The first step in glycolysis is the step that add a phosphate group to glucose. This requires ATP to give up one of its phosphate groups. The enzyme is Glucose Hexokinase and its co factor is magnesium. 

Mg2+ involved twice here. This makes magnesium unique. It reacts with substrates and enzymes. Once as a co factor for the enzymatic reaction to occur and second it is attached to the ATP molecule that is being hydrolyzed to provide fuel (energy) for the reaction to occur.

• ATP must be bound to magnesium to make it biologically active. This is why that is:

A basic principle of biochemistry is that like charges repel each other. Negative charges repel negative charges and positive charges repel positive charges. Think of a magnet. The end with the same charge wont stay together no matter what. They want to repel each other. 

So the hydroxyl group on the glucose (which we want to add the phosphate to) is negatively charged and the third phosphate group at end of the ATP, which is the one we want to remove, is surrounded by negatively charged oxygen ions. So naturally these two substrates repel each other, they cant get close enough to each other to initiate a chemical reaction. 

This is where the magnesium ions come into play. So the positively charged magnesium ions pull apart the oxygen ions giving the negatively charged electrons from the glucose enough space to go in and react with the phosphate group from ATP. Detaching it and creating glucose-6-phosphate and ADP.

This is the first step in glycolysis 

Important for ATP recycling

ATP is bound to Mg2+. Which stabilizes the other two phosphate groups making it easier to release only one phosphate group in reactions requiring the hydrolysis of ATP to occur. This is important because our body can very easily recycle ADP back to ATP. However if two phosphate groups were to be pulled off during the reaction our body can’t recycle AMP back to ATP. Our body will break down AMP to uric acid and get rid of it in our urine. 

The key step that links glycolysis to the Citric Acid Cycle is pyruvate dehydrogenase. At the end of glycolysis you produce pyruvate. That has to be converted into acetyl Co-A before it can be run through the Citric Acid cycle. The enzyme complex pyruvate dehydrogenase does that. It requires Mg as a cofactor. Irreversible step. Tightly regulated. You cant take acetyl co a and turn it back into pyruvate. Just shows the importance of Mg evermore.

Magnesium And Calcium: Yin and Yang

Our body is electric. Calcium is the trigger for generating electricity. Magnesium is required to regulate that action. Acts as an off switch, our own internal natural calcium channel blocker. Relax blood vessels, decrease workload on the heart. Delivering more oxygen rich blood to the heart.

Yin and Yang, Calcium and Magnesium. They antagonize each other. 

Mg keep Ca dissolved in solution, our blood. Without enough Mg Ca will fall out of solution and deposit into soft tissues. Can lead to calcification of arteries. This can happen in our kidneys leading to kidney stones 

Early human diets ratio of calcium to magnesium was 1:1. Similar story to omega 3 and omega 6. It’s not that calcium is bad or that omega 6 fats are bad its the fact that they work together in harmony and our current diet and lifestyle have messed up the ratios to such an extent to cause disease. Little fast magnesium is involved in turning omega 3/6 into prostaglandins. Which are the active form of these fats. Locally produced hormones. 

The current recommendation of 2:1 ratio calcium to magnesium, ratio found in most supplements is based on a mistranslation of a French scientist from 1989. Dr. Jean Durlach. He said the ratio should never exceed 2:1. This was misunderstood as a recommendation not a hard cut off point. It also implies to the uninformed that more calcium than magnesium is a good thing. 

Standard American diet is close to 10:1 Ca to Mg

Sea water has a 3:1 ratio Mg to Ca. Water is where we used to get most magnesium. Think “Hard water” as water flows past mineral deposits, it collects them. 

Harms of supplementing with Ca

Research from Bollands 2015 paper showed that Ca supplementation didn’t help with decreasing bone fracture it actually hurt. They found it can increase kidney stones, acute gastrointestinal events, increase the rick of heart attack and stoke. 

The problem with supplementing with Ca and not including magnesium is the body needs directions to tell it where to deposit the Ca. It doesn’t just know to dump any extra calcium into our bones, That would be nice. Without the proper signals Ca will accumulate in soft tissue and muscles including the heart. 

Three hormones parathyroid hormone, calcitonin and vitamin D are involved with dictating the level and location of calcium in the body. All three of these require magnesium for their activation and regulation. 

Mg converts Vitamin D from its supplement form or stored form in our body, calcidiol to its active form, calcitriol. 

Mg activates the hormone calcitonin which helps preserve bone structure and draws calcium out of the blood and away from soft tissue and into the bones where it’s supposed to be stored. 

Parathyroid hormone secreted by the parathyroid glands, 4 small endocrine glands located behind the thyroid in the neck. is involved in regulating the amount of calcium in our blood. When Ca is low it secrets PTH and it pulls Ca out of the bones and puts it in the blood.