Hello, this is Dr. Jeremy and this is Dr. Michael Lam.
Today we're going to be talking about magnesium supplementation and Lyme disease
and how they are kind of just intertwined.
So, what are your thoughts on magnesium?
Well, nature has provided us a wonderful compound that's unlike any other minerals.
Magnesium is a mineral, but most minerals are stimulating,
but nature has the opposing wisdom to give us magnesium which opposes the stimulatory effects of calcium for example.
It is a primary opposing mineral. What does this mean?
It means that magnesium is actually nature's best muscle relaxant.
That's why, in fact, for OB patients during delivery you give magnesium shots in order to relax the uterus.
Then people use-- what do you call it-- Epsom salt bath to help relax the muscles.
Epsom salt is really magnesium sulfate. So, what does that mean?
That means that when you immerse yourself and the body with magnesium,
your body tends to relax.
Well, is it important in the case of Lyme disease? The answer is “it depends on what.”
First of all, you don't need magnesium supplementation if you are not deficient.
Unfortunately, most of the magnesium is found in vegetables for example,
coming from soil that's already depleted.
So if you do an intracellular red blood cell magnesium count, and you can ask your doctor to do that,
this not only measures the magnesium in the serum, but more importantly,
it measures the intracellular magnesium which is the real amount of magnesium in your body.
Eighty percent of you will be deficient and that's why taking magnesium supplementation is very important,
and it's especially so for women.
Now, when it comes to Lyme, what is the real significance of magnesium?
It’s two folds.
One is magnesium doing what the property is designed to do which is a relaxant.
One is the magnesium behaves paradoxically.
So for some people, in fact for most people I should say,
magnesium is a muscle relaxant.
It helps sleep. It helps relax the body.
It helps reduce inflammation, and so if a person has Lyme
it's a lot of metabolites that is not being processed,
magnesium can be helpful.
It gives them better sleep, deeper sleep.
However, the interesting thing is that magnesium can also be excitatory and so you have these dual properties.
In some people that take magnesium especially, magnesium oil, they become excitatory.
So instead of relaxing, they actually can be- unable to sleep.
Of course, I'm making a very general statement because there are lots of exceptions.
The reason is because not only the body's intrinsic ability to process magnesium is different from cell to cell
and from person to person.
There are over seven types of magnesium.
Some are more neuro-focused. Some are more GI focused.
You have magnesium citrate, magnesium oxide, magnesium glycinate.
So everyone responds differently.
So while magnesium is inexpensive, it’s readily available,
the proper use of magnesium is critical in Lyme disease because if you don't use it properly
what you end up doing is taking a lot of magnesium thinking that it helps,
but the metabolites accumulate and you know what happens when the metabolites accumulate, right?
Yes, you just end up eventually crashing because you have too much metabolites in your body
and you're not able to detoxify the metabolites.
Yes, so people come in with the magnesium,
they think they're doing the right thing because they read the internet.
They feel good. They feel a little bit more relaxed,
but they don't realize that these things can have a downside to them if you don't know how to titrate them properly.
We are very careful in the use of magnesium because it's such a wonderful compound if you know what it is,
if you know how to do it, but at the same time if you don't know,
you can cause a lot of negative consequences.
Yes, so those are our thoughts on magnesium and Lyme disease.
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This is Dr. Jeremy Lam and Dr. Michael Lam and we're empowering you to take control of your health.