Because magnesium is highly soluble, the magnesium that does appear in foods is often removed in any form of commercial processing. Modern commercial fertilizers do not routinely replace magnesium, so it becomes depleted growing the green leafy vegetables that like to extract magnesium from the soil and make it available for us to eat. Magnesium deficiency has become widespread, largely because of decades of mineral depleting farming practices. Magnesium works in partnership with calcium in many physiological functions including nervous and cardiovascular processes and bone-building. Magnesium deficiency should be considered as a partial or determining cause in any of the following conditions: In conventional medical circles, magnesium deficiency is considered rare, but most nutritionally minded physicians recognize the symptoms of potential magnesium deficiency in its many presentations. Optimal mental and emotional function require adequate magnesium for neurotransmitter and hormone production. Our heart is a muscle, and regulation of the electrical and muscular function of the heart depends on magnesium. Magnesium plays a vital role in the contraction and relaxation of muscles, including skeletal muscles, as well as the of the gastrointestinal tract, and muscles regulating blood flow, blood pressure and breathing passages. Our energy currency is called ATP, and magnesium is essential for its production and utilization. Magnesium is essential to life, found in every living cell and involved in every physiological process we rely on to live.
It is embedded in rocks, or molten in earth, or dissolved in seawater. Magnesium is a chemical element that chemists refer to by the symbol Mg, but Mg never exists by itself anywhere on the planet.