Magnesium: Water to the rescue!
Magnesium can help turn-off pre-diabetic
patterns like low HDL and small LDL, reduce blood pressure, and
prevent heart rhythm disorders. But getting adequate magnesium from
water and food is getting increasingly difficult. As a result, the
average American is significantly deficient.
Here’s the Track Your Plaque guide to using water to increase your
magnesium intake.
Is Your Water Killing You?
In “Is
Your Water Killing You?”, our last report on the health
implications of water, we discussed how the purification process to
produce drinking water removes the majority of contaminants like
lead, pesticide residues, nitrates, etc., but also removes desirable
minerals like calcium and magnesium. Many Americans, distrustful of
their city-treated water, have also added water filters or purifiers
that extract any remaining minerals.
This problem has been compounded even further by modern enthusiasm
for bottled water. Americans consumed nearly 8 billion gallons last
year. In the U.S., nearly all bottled water has little or no
magnesium. The result is that little or no magnesium is obtainable
through most water sources, bottled or tap.
In “Is
Your Water Killing You?”, we advised you to obtain magnesium via
foods rich in magnesium and through supplements like magnesium
citrate. However, there’s one more way to get healthful magnesium in
your body: choosing water that is rich in magnesium.
Unfortunately, in the U.S., that’s not easy. The FDA regulates
bottled water and they mandate that the only additives permitted are
fluoride and antimicrobials to deter bacteria from growing—that’s
it.
Magnesium deficiency has reached a level such that measurable
increases in sudden death have been reported in regions with the
lowest water magnesium levels. These data have caught the attention
of national and international public health officials. A recent
World Health Organization (WHO) report on the quality of drinking
water cited 80 studies that have examined the relationship between
cardiovascular death and water hardness (measured principally by
magnesium and calcium content). The WHO concluded that magnesium
content of water is indeed a cardiovascular risk and should become a
priority for water supplementation.
A Water Primer
While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates the quality of tap water, it’s the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that’s responsible for regulating bottled water. In 1995, the FDA issued its most recent set of regulations. They classify various waters as:
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Copyright 2006, Track Your Plaque.