Magnesium deficiency has become a major health concern in the United States. This vital mineral is responsible for over 300 biochemical reactions in the body. The wide array of diseases and symptoms that magnesium deficiency produces has to do with the fact that approximately 99% of your body’s magnesium is located intracellularly in bone, muscles, and soft tissue. The other 1% of magnesium is found in plasma and red blood cells. The body will always try to maintain the magnesium in your blood, so by default your system draws it from the intracellular reserves. This is why you can have blood work done and the analysis will show normal magnesium levels; it’s not measuring the depletion that could be occurring in the bones, muscle, and soft tissue.
Maintaining the 1% of magnesium in your blood is critical to help prevent migraine headaches, muscle cramps or spasms, irregular heartbeat, and other health conditions triggered by a magnesium deficiency. Depleting your magnesium is fairly easy to do. Many people lose magnesium due to alcohol intake, sweating from exercise and as side effects from taking other medications such as water pills (diuretics) and acid reflux drugs just to name a few examples.
So lifestyle, diet, and medications can cause significant magnesium loss from the body without you even being aware. This is at the core of the widespread magnesium deficiency Americans are facing. Since you can only get so much magnesium from your diet (unless you are aware and making healthy magnesium rich food choices), most people over time become deficient. That’s where supplements come to the rescue. As with all supplements, the factor that determines success is absorption. The formulation of Mag-Tab®SR contains the most absorbable magnesium salt yet studied in the USA. The sustained release component delivers the magnesium lactate slowly, so that the body can absorb it and the kidneys can efficiently deliver the magnesium to the blood and intracellular areas. Otherwise, magnesium delivered too quickly to your system simply gets flushed out and does not replenish your reserves to maintain the 1% needed in your blood.
Mag-Tab®SR has undergone trials proving it’s excellent absorption rate (see PDF of study here). Doctors prescribe Mag-Tab®SR even though it's available over the counter to ensure that their patients are taking a verified magnesium supplement with documented results. Diet alone does not necessarily provide the amount we depend on, and daily deficiency prevention is key.