Managing magnesium Q: I read your letter the other day about how not getting enough magnesium can make your muscles weaker. But I thought I read something from you awhile back warning about not taking too much magnesium. What's the real story?
JVW: Magnesium is an essential nutrient with hundreds of known functions in the body -- and probably just as many "unknown" ones as well. Preserving and strengthening muscle function is just one of those benefits. But you're right: Magnesium does fall into the "too much of a good thing" category.
If you've ever taken milk of magnesia you're likely familiar with one of the side effects of this mineral: Large doses of magnesium can be quite irritating to the bowel and will usually make you "go." Some people are more sensitive to this effect than others, but even if it doesn't affect you to the point of experiencing loose stools, magnesium can actually speed up your intestinal transit time (see "What is..." below for more information on this term), which pushes the contents of your intestines through your body more quickly than normal.
That means it's possible for you to take a magnesium supplement every day but never get any health benefits because your body doesn't have time to really absorb the nutrients before magnesium-induced contractions "push" everything out. I call this situation "magnesium-induced magnesium deficiency."
Most people can take between 200 and 600 milligrams of magnesium a day without worrying about magnesium-induced magnesium deficiency, but if you're concerned that this may be a problem for you, you can determine your own intestinal transit time by following the steps outlined in Clinical Tip #80 in the December 2000 issue of Nutrition & Healing. Subscribers can download and view this issue for free by visiting www.wrightnewsletter.com and logging on with the username and password listed on page 8 of your most recent issue. What is...intestinal transit time?
Intestinal transit time is a term that describes the length of time food takes to move through the intestinal tract. Normal intestinal transit time ranges anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. | 
