Great reference to all the benefits of magnesium! I use it as a sleep aid but good for so much more! ( )

Important health information your family physician may never speak to you about.

This little book is very dense with important information and I cannot begin to even tell you what a life-changing experience it has been for me. If you are seriously looking to feel better and improve your health overall, this book will help you do just that. One interesting point I would like to make here is that whatever your ailment may be, it probably is due to a magnesium deficiency.

You are probably wondering how I can make this statement, however, it is a true fact that magnesium deficiency causes many different symptoms and even diseases, depending on the individual. Even though some people share similar symptoms, some may be extreme depending on how magnesium deficient they are due to daily nutrition. Others may have more subtle symptoms if they are getting a little more magnesium in their diet, this also includes our children, there health, and the current epidemic of obesity, autism and ADHD in our society.

However, the simple fact of the matter, and the main point of this book is that there is an epidemic in our society because of magnesium deficiency. Which has been made worse since the "Got Milk?" was licensed to the National Milk Processor Board (MilkPEP) in 1995. Other agencies following the push including to this day the NIOH (National Institutes of Health) and other government agencies who stream into the mainstream society that we don't get enough calcium in our diets when the fact is we get more than we need. Which is why people are so sick.

In the 1950's the soil used in farming had already began to be depleted of this mineral, it has only gotten worse since then. Farmers do not add this mineral to the soil and food grown in the soil do not contain this mineral and if they do it is in minuscule properties. So much less so that even if you think you are eating healthy by eating a healthy diet and incorporating fruits and vegetables in your diet, you are not getting enough of this mineral. Unless you are eating organic foods grown in magnesium enriched soil you definitely are not getting the magnesium your body needs. Creating an imbalance in your body of too much calcium which builds up and causes a wide variety of symptoms and problems to your health and the health of loved ones, friends and family.

So, if you are like me and wonder why, even though you eat healthy, stay away from high fat, processed foods, corn syrup, soda, and other unhealthy foods, exercise regularly, yet still feel lousy and are having health issues you need to look into magnesium as a daily supplement. If you are not like me and are having more serious health issues you seriously need to look into magnesium supplementation.

One thing you cannot do is go asking your doctor for a magnesium blood test, as Dean points out in the book. Our blood only carries 1% of magnesium, the rest, all 99%, is stored in our body tissues. So a blood test will only tell you and your doctor that you are not magnesium deficient. This is another reason why people are not aware of their deficiency, because it is not picked up in a serum blood test. However, if you really want to know at all costs, Dean does speak of less than a handful of other specific tests that you can have done to find out your levels.

I, however, am not adamant about being tested or recommending a test for two reasons. The main one being you cannot overdose on a magnesium supplement. Whatever your body does not need comes out in your stool and urine. If you are sick of feeling ill, then you need to take that fact into consideration. Magnesium will not hurt you. The only symptom you will have if you are taking too much is diarrhea, which is not totally a reason to cut back and I will tell you why.

There are many forms of magnesium out on the market today. Some are less tolerable than others, depending on each individual and their bodies ability to process or break it down. This is one major reason to either read this book or study other information on magnesium deficiency from a reliable source, as you want to make sure to get the right information.

Even the author herself has already amended this book by including a few more pages of information I found important for me. You can receive a copy of this information free on her website when you sign up for her newsletter.

I, however, will save you some legwork here with a little information that has helped me and will help you whether you have a sensitive digestive system like mine or you just would like to take the maximum absorbable magnesium out on the market because of your symptoms or illness to get better as quickly as possible. On Dean's website she talks about how she came across the most highly absorbable magnesium only after she wrote The Magnesium Miracle. You can say maybe she did not do her homework before writing this book or you can just say that the information was just not available to her at the time. It really does not matter, as I am sure she did not do it intentionally and this is why she provides this additional information on her website for free.

Dean also speaks how she is not able to tolerate many of the magnesium supplements on the market due to her sensitive digestive system and that raised a red flag for me right away, as I have these same problems. I had actually bypassed the forms of magnesium which could cause me diarrhea, like the citrate, after working on a review of Natural Calm from the company Natural Vitality. I am not saying this magnesium did not work for me as it did wonders for me right away. However a few days after I had started it, I was having loose stools due to not having a gallbladder and a sensitive digestive system. If you are prone to constipation or do not have sensitive digestive issues this is a great form of magnesium, in fact, I started giving it to my mother and she is doing fine with it.

For me however, I switched over to taking a chelate form of magnesium which is easier for my body to break down and absorb. There is also a magnesium oil that can be applied to the skin which bypasses the digestive tract and also eliminates the problem of diarrhea. Since I do poorly when it comes to remembering to apply something to my body, I decided to go with an oral form.

I am now moving onto the form of magnesium that Carolyn Dean has listed on her website that she came across after writing this book. This magnesium is called Angstrom Liquid Magnesium and can be found easily online at many health outlets or through the manufacturer itself, Angstrom. This magnesium not only will not give me any sort of diarrhea or upset stomach but it also is the most highly absorbable form there is on the market. It is 99.9% absorbable by the body, where the other forms of magnesium are less then 40% absorbable depending on the type. All different types of magnesium and absorbability information is included in The Magnesium Miracle except for information on the Angstrom magnesium. ( )

This is a well-written, easily read and IMPORTANT book, magnesium being the most essential supplement needed.

In this comprehensive treatment of the various ailments/diseases caused by lack of this mineral, the author includes chapters on depression, migraines. strokes, hypertension, PMS, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc. etc. In fact the author lists 68 common complaints caused by lack of magnesium and cites various medications also causing such lack. Magnesium regulates more than 325 enzymes in the body and since nowadays our farmlands are mineral-depleted, we cannot obtain enough magnesium even from an optimal diet rich in organic vegetables without supplementation.

We are provided with a wealth of facts about the mineral, for example, that fluoridated water banishes magnesium, that stomach acid is essential for magnesium absorption and that magnesium is blocked by certain foods, such as raw spinach. Also magnesium is required for adequate blood sugar control (can't remember reading that in any of the many diabetes books I've read and reviewed!), and treatment of stress.

In fact, this book is an absolute mine of essential little-known information about magnesium that can contribute to optimizing our health, should we choose to implement this knowledge. Not only can this simple mineral cure us of many serious complaints, but we can thereby avoid having to take the harmful drugs our doctors might otherwise persuade us were necessary to poison our systems with.

The best forms of magnesium in the author's opinion are magnesium taurate, magnesium glycinate, magnesium citrate, magnesium malate, magnesium orotate and magnesium oil. Your magnesium supplements should preferably be taken between meals since absorption requires stomach acid, and if magnesium is taken together with meals, the stomach acid will be busy digesting the meal, and this may impair magnesium absorption. Kelp is the foodstuff containing the highest amount of magnesium (760 mg per 100 g).

Moreover, Carolyn Dean endears herself to me since unlike many health authors I complain about in my reviews, she is well aware of the dangers of aspartame and statins and warns us against their use.

I have personally long been aware of the importance of magnesium, since if I don't take magnesium supplements, I suffer from psychomotor seizures characterized by 1) hearing of loud bangs or clicks that no-one else hears 2) experiencing my head being lit up inside perhaps together with a bang 3) seeing "fire" coming out of a wall. These symptoms can be accompanied by jerking of the legs and generally occur in the stage preceding sleep. Also I have had a period with acute and constant pains in the head. All these symptoms disappeared immediately on magnesium supplementation with two strong pills a day, and do not recur as long as I continue to take these pills. However, when I attempted also to supplement with calcium, the pains recurred, so I had to stop taking calcium supplements. These two minerals work together, and I assume I was getting too much calcium in relation to magnesium in my diet. Without magnesium I also suffer from leg cramps or tics.

The only thing I lacked in this book was a more comprehensive treatment of the importance of magnesium supplementation for sufferers of epilepsy (as mentioned above), there being only a small paragraph on this topic.

To sum up, I would strongly advise everyone to read this essential book. ( )