Magnesium as an Anti-Stress Agent

Magnesium is the major element in the prevention of negative consequences of stress. Recommended nutrient intakes of (ANC) magnesium is 6 mg/kg /day or 330 mg/day for a woman of 55 kg and 420 mg/day for a man of 70 kg. Pregnancy and lactation requires an increase of 50% of daily intake and is 500 mg /j.En (France). Beyond the age of 12, the average magnesium intake remains insufficient. Approximately 18% of the population has the HLA-B35 group (major histo-compatibility complex) and is more vulnerable to stress and its cardiovascular events, because it has a lower cell retention of magnesium and a severe tendency of magnesium depletion.

Magnesium has an important role in the transmission and neuromuscular activity. It depresses conductivity and irritability. It is a nerve sedative that enhances muscle performance. Lack of magnesium and acute stress causes a significant release of adrenaline from the adrenal gland. Epinephrine causes a muscle contraction, particularly important. This contraction is accompanied by a hunting magnesium muscle cells to plasma. The kidney eliminates this excess of magnesium plasma leakage resulting in urine.

This loss of magnesium increases the vulnerability to stress. After acute stress, a magnesium deficiency will be felt as a feeling of exhaustion, chronic fatigue, a fatigue with exertion. It leads to a dynamic self-aggravation and the result is crisis of tetany in which the spasm gets thin.Subjects with less spasmophilie have a sensitivity to noise related to a low erythrocyte magnesium. In animals, injection of catecholamines or magnesium deficiency leads to accelerated loss of hearing in the presence of noise. Among military pilots, the importance of hearing loss is correlated to the decrease of serum magnesium.

Magnesium supplementation reduces the decline in hearing induced by exposure to noise permanently. Workers experiencing high noise levels between 86 and 103 decibels, have serum catecholamines and an increased systolic high blood pressure, inverse correlation with the rate of erythrocyte magnesium. Under stress, the higher the rate of magnesium being low, the higher the blood pressure goes. The diet expose people to a significant deficit in magnesium, linked not only to the deficiency of magnesium intake but also renal leak.

To compensate for this deficit, the contribution of magnesium must be greater than 480 mg. High doses of calcium, phosphorus, potassium citrate, vitamin D and lactose generate a deficit in magnesium and fiber reduces its absorption. Some eating habits such as regular alcohol induces malabsorption and hyperexcretion sweat, intestinal and urinary magnesium. Some diseases that are responsible for magnesium deficiency are malabsorption, psychoses, neuroses, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, excess estrogen. Many of the drugs are also responsible for significant losses of magnesium.It's deficiency leads to a personality disorder of neurotic type, an anxiety, hypochondria, phobias or depression.

Thus, the main indication of magnesium supplementation is stress and its consequences: the latent tetany, the spasmophilie, hyperventilation syndrome, syndromes of chronic fatigue, lability and hyperactivity, signs of hysteria, depression and hypochondria. Magnesium is involved in tone and well-being by improving energy use and performance muscle in modulating the reactivity to stress, inhibiting neuronal excitability and reducing oxidative stress. In subjects with a low or normal erythrocyte magnesium, taking Magnesium reduces vulnerability to stress. It reduces the secretion of catecholamines and glucocorticoids during stress.

The magnesium supplementation improves stress tolerance and fight against its central events: hyper-emotional anxiousness, pharynx and laryngeal paresthesia, chest tightness, blocked breathing, tremors, nervous asthenia morning, headaches and neck aches, dizziness, insomnia, faintness (distressing impression of imminent fainting with pallor, sweating, ringing in the ears and blurred vision). It avoids the peripheral manifestations of stress: paresthesia, tingling, tremors, fasciculations (muscle contractions simultaneously visible under the skin, but do not cause displacement), cramps, spinal pain, contractures, myoclonus (brief, involuntary contractions), fatigability and exaggerated effort.

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