The Top Benefits Of Magnesium - And How Magnesium Levels Affect Epilepsy

Over the years, I’ve gotten increasingly interested in nutrition and how we can fuel our bodies in a healthier way than I had been taught as a child. And when I noticed that a lot of Rach’s epilepsy symptoms fluctuated depending on what she had been eating, I started researching even more about the topic.

As I researched, one of the things that stuck out to me was magnesium levels. Not only because it’s a very important mineral, as you’ll see in this article, but also because I could tell that Rach and other loved ones of mine were deficient in it. And apparently magnesium deficiency is fairly common!

So today, I’d like to talk a bit about the role magnesium plays in our bodies and also about the role it can play in treating epilepsy. Plus ways to find out if you’re deficient and how to treat it if you are. Let’s get started!

Benefits Of Magnesium

As promised, the first thing we’ll be discussing is the benefits of magnesium. Just note that there are many of them, a lot more than I can list in this article, so I’ll mention the most significant ones.

Magnesium Can Improve Your Mood

There are a lot of different physical factors behind your mood, and there are a lot of variables that can cause depression or help you feel happier. Magnesium is one of these variables, individuals deficient in magnesium are considerably more likely to struggle with depression than those who have the suggested magnesium intake.

Many studies have been done to prove this fact, and it’s been established that consuming magnesium supplements can actually decrease depression symptoms and improve your mood, especially if you’re very deficient. Additionally, healthy magnesium levels have also been linked to decreased anxiety.

Magnesium Can Play A Role In Keeping Your Heart Healthy

Magnesium is known to help improve the health of your muscles and that includes one of your most important muscles, your heart. Magnesium deficiencies have been noted in many people suffering from congestive heart failure and there’s reason to believe the deficiency worsens their symptoms.

On the flip side, healthy magnesium levels are believed to lower your risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes.

Plus, magnesium is sometimes even used as a treatment for people who have just had a heart attack since it can slightly decrease the possibility of death in those situations. And magnesium is a part of treatment for congestive heart failure as well, due to its ability to lower the risk of an abnormal heart rhythm.

Magnesium Can Be Used To Treat Migraines

Yet again, this benefit is also a way to illustrate how a magnesium deficiency can negatively impact you. Magnesium deficiencies have been linked with migraines, so therefore taking magnesium supplements has actually served to prevent or treat them in many cases.

Reasons why a lack of magnesium might cause a migraine is that it restricts blood vessel constriction and affects neurotransmitters in the brain. To combat this, sometimes a daily magnesium intake of about 400-500 mg may be set by a doctor to prevent migraines from beginning in the first place.

Magnesium Can Make Your Bones Healthier

We’ve already covered how magnesium plays a role in keeping our muscles healthy, but like calcium, magnesium actually makes your bones healthier as well. More specifically, it aids in preventing things like fractures, bone loss, and even osteoporosis.

Additionally, magnesium helps promote bone health by regulating other nutrients that are important for keeping your skeletal structure healthy. Two major examples are vitamin D and calcium.

Magnesium Can Potentially Help Prevent and Treat Diabetes

Because magnesium levels affect glucose control and insulin metabolism, which are two things many diabetics struggle with, magnesium levels may also play a role in diabetes forming in some people. And in fact, most people suffering from diabetes have actually been found to have low magnesium levels.

So by making sure that you have the appropriate magnesium levels in your body, some doctors think that you’re lowering your risk of forming type 2 diabetes. And furthermore, some people have found that their diabetes symptoms can be lessened by upping your magnesium intake.

How Magnesium Levels Affects People With Epilepsy

Now that we’ve talked about some of the overall health benefits of appropriate magnesium levels, let’s look deeper at the benefits a person with epilepsy could experience as well as some of the potential effects if they have low magnesium levels.

Firstly, I’d like to share a fact which should illustrate exactly how much magnesium levels can have to do with seizures. Low magnesium levels can cause seizures to occur in people that don’t suffer from epilepsy! So you imagine how much the possibility for magnesium-related seizures would be magnified if a person does suffer from epilepsy.

And there have been studies that show people with epilepsy might be more likely to have lower than normal magnesium levels, meaning they need to be even more aware of watching their magnesium intake.

More studies need to be done to dive deeper into the effects of magnesium in people with epilepsy, but so far it seems that increasing magnesium levels can cause a decrease in seizures. 

Or at the very least, a decrease in some symptoms of the seizures. Depression and migraines, for instance, are issues that can arise from epilepsy and as you read earlier in this article, can be treated with magnesium.

Additionally, one study found that an increase in magnesium levels actually caused a decrease of seizures in people with drug resistant epilepsy. And a few people from that study even reported that they were seizure free after increasing their magnesium intake.

So if you have epilepsy, finding out if you have a deficiency and potentially increasing your intake could be helpful for you! I know that personally with my daughter Rach, she began to have a smaller amount of seizures after we started trying to work on her magnesium deficiency. 

Although they didn’t go away completely, the decrease was worth it. Not to mention all the other health issues she could be avoiding that could be caused by a deficiency.

How To Know If You’re Magnesium Deficient

If you think you may be magnesium deficient then you can get a blood test done to determine your levels. This is the most efficient and foolproof way to find out if you have problems with your magnesium. 

But I also want to share some signs and symptoms that you may have low magnesium levels, so that you know if you need to bother with a blood test in the first place. Note that the symptoms will worsen the longer a deficiency goes untreated and the lower the levels get.

Less severe symptoms may include…

But as things progress, you might start to notice these symptoms…

• Abnormal heart rhythms
• Numbness or tingling feelings
• Changes in personality
• And as we discussed earlier, potentially even seizures

How To Treat A Magnesium Deficiency

You can talk with your medical provider about how to treat a magnesium deficiency if you have it, since there’s a lot of personal variables that might be involved. But I’d like to break down some of the common ways you can up your magnesium intake yourself.

Diet -

Obviously diet is a huge part of getting your magnesium levels back on track. So if you have a deficiency then as much as you can, you need to start adding magnesium rich foods into your life. You might need to pick and choose which ones, depending on potential allergies or preferences, but here’s a quick list of a few of the options available.

Seeds and nuts are great sources of magnesium. Examples would be peanuts, pumpkin seeds, or almonds.

Dark, leafy green vegetables also tend to contain good amounts of magnesium. Kale and spinach are two great options.

Whole grains such as wheat, oats, and barley can also be good ways to add magnesium to your diet.

Supplements -

If diet changes aren’t enough to treat your magnesium deficiency then you may need to move onto trying some magnesium supplements in addition to the dietary adjustments. There are a lot of different types of magnesium supplements, and you can get them yourself or have one suggested by your healthcare provider.

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ve found this article interesting and informative whether or not you have a magnesium deficiency yourself. But if you do, or you think you or a loved one does, then I hope it was helpful as well.

I know researching nutrition can be overwhelming, and especially when it comes to epilepsy related nutrition, there can sometimes be a lack of info. So I did my best to fit as much into one article as I could. And if you have experience or knowledge about magnesium deficiencies that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear it!