Hi Jimmylegs,
Wow, that's an interesting article you sent. Both for the information on magnesium, but also for how twisted or to put it neutrally "different" the Pharm industry thinking is!!! Instead of saying HEY, this magnesium stuff works, and maybe a magnesium deficiency is the reason why people get depressed, they say, "hey, look, we can make these mice depressed by depriving them of magnesium, and then find new expensive drugs (probably with side affects) to treat them so that they seem o.k. even though their real problem is that they still have a magnesium deficiency!"
Separate from that, I really need to start taking a magnesium supplement!!! I've been getting about 5 or six cups of green veggies/half a beet/half a carrot/ and some colorful fruit every day as two vitamix smoothies for close to a month now. Its clearly helping to reduce my fatigue and cog fog, but unfortunately its not helping to reduce my poor memory/word finding, feeling dumb issues, at least not yet. But hey, its an absolute miracle that I feel less fatigue! So I ain't complaining.
And to get back to magnesium, I haven't been doing as well about adding healthy meats to my diet. I basically don't cook meat, I buy it in restaurants from time to time, and have been buying from two local restaurants that sell organic poultry and wild caught sea food. That's expensive so I don't do it as often as I should, which means I'm eating less meat than I'd like to.
Can you explain to me if I can overdose on magnesium and about how much I should supplement a day? Or can I get enough from the raw veggies I'm now eating in my smoothies (Kale, Purple Cabbage, Bok Choi, Carrots, Red Beets)?
Also, I wish I knew how often to drink the beet juice. Since beets increase brain perfusion (which is something I definitely need as per my MRI results) I'm wondering if what I'm actually doing is causing twice a day reperfusion injuries (Cheer had a link to an article about reperfusion injuries, which are not a good thing). Maybe I should be sipping beet juice all day long? But if I do that, what's the chance that the beet juice is rapidly becoming oxidized as its sitting there in the glass, and then causing me more harm that good! I also wish I knew how long my smoothies stay good in the fridge. I definitely feel like my own guinea pig sometimes!
And to get back to depression, I wonder if anyone has looked to see if magnesium deficiency increases the production of Cytokines? ... OMG, look at this:
Pathobiology of magnesium deficiency: a cytokine/neurogenic inflammation hypothesis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1384353
M.A.