I've heard before that when you take calcium, you need to take it with magnesium. It didn't really register with me why. But lately, after going thru some links in @Amazoniac 's thread of the Primary Sources of Acidity..., and after going through a week of magnesium bicarbonate supplementation, I'm beginning to see why these two needs to be taken together. I'm not going to discuss the ratio now, as it is beyond my scope here. I just want to go through the qualitative aspects of it.
First, as I've been working my way up to therapeutic levels of magnesium supplementation at around 1200mg/day, I've found it necessary to gradually increasing the dose I take each time. Too much individual dosing easily causes loose bowel movement. If I'm taking it with meals, I'll do it 3 times daily and that will be my daily dosage. I'm currently at 800mg/day, and I'm a little impatient getting to 1200mg/day. I don't even know if I'll hit that goal, with loose bowel movement (LBM) being the reason.
Then I remembered that calcium is constipatory just as magnesium has an opposing laxative effect. Hmmm
Secondly, I turned the pages on a an article by Thomas Remer, courtesy of Amazoniac, "Influence of nutrition on acid-base balance – metabolic aspects" found on the first posts on the thread I mentioned, and found that the absorption rate of calcium, at 0.25, is close to the absorption rate of magnesium, at 0.32. This contrasts with the absorption rate of potassium at 0.80, and sodium, at 0.95. I thought this to be interesting, as if I take equal molar amounts of calcium and magnesium, I might be able to keep calcium from being constipatory, as well as keep magnesium from having a laxative effect.
Thirdly, Ray Peat has mentioned magnesium and calcium to be somewhat of a pair (I'm paraphrasing here) where magnesium resides inside the cell while calcium outside the cell to balance each other, just as potassium stays inside, while sodium stays outside to balance each other out. This is especially important for the heart to pump well, as the proper contraction and relaxation of heart muscles depend on these electrolytes being present in the right place.
Over the next few weeks, aside from making DIY magnesium bicarbonate, I'll also be DIYing calcium bicarbonate. I'll be mixing calcium bicarbonate with magnesium bicarbonate to see if I could increase my magnesium intake with less risk of LBM.
My goal here is to use calcium bicarbonate to aid my intake of magnesium bicarbonate. The benefit from calcium intake is secondary, even while I expect it to be beneficial as well.
There is risk of irregular heart beat taking magnesium, and I have experienced that. I will be monitoring with my blood pressure monitor, which would give me a warning when they detect arrhythmia.
Excessive magnesium intake may have other bad consequences so I'll just keep my upper limit of magnesium intake to 1200mg/day. This is a conservative therapeutic dose already as I have read Mark Sircus and he has mentioned therapeutic levels ranging from 1500-3000mg/day.
I'll let you know how this goes.
First, as I've been working my way up to therapeutic levels of magnesium supplementation at around 1200mg/day, I've found it necessary to gradually increasing the dose I take each time. Too much individual dosing easily causes loose bowel movement. If I'm taking it with meals, I'll do it 3 times daily and that will be my daily dosage. I'm currently at 800mg/day, and I'm a little impatient getting to 1200mg/day. I don't even know if I'll hit that goal, with loose bowel movement (LBM) being the reason.
Then I remembered that calcium is constipatory just as magnesium has an opposing laxative effect. Hmmm
Secondly, I turned the pages on a an article by Thomas Remer, courtesy of Amazoniac, "Influence of nutrition on acid-base balance – metabolic aspects" found on the first posts on the thread I mentioned, and found that the absorption rate of calcium, at 0.25, is close to the absorption rate of magnesium, at 0.32. This contrasts with the absorption rate of potassium at 0.80, and sodium, at 0.95. I thought this to be interesting, as if I take equal molar amounts of calcium and magnesium, I might be able to keep calcium from being constipatory, as well as keep magnesium from having a laxative effect.
Thirdly, Ray Peat has mentioned magnesium and calcium to be somewhat of a pair (I'm paraphrasing here) where magnesium resides inside the cell while calcium outside the cell to balance each other, just as potassium stays inside, while sodium stays outside to balance each other out. This is especially important for the heart to pump well, as the proper contraction and relaxation of heart muscles depend on these electrolytes being present in the right place.
Over the next few weeks, aside from making DIY magnesium bicarbonate, I'll also be DIYing calcium bicarbonate. I'll be mixing calcium bicarbonate with magnesium bicarbonate to see if I could increase my magnesium intake with less risk of LBM.
My goal here is to use calcium bicarbonate to aid my intake of magnesium bicarbonate. The benefit from calcium intake is secondary, even while I expect it to be beneficial as well.
There is risk of irregular heart beat taking magnesium, and I have experienced that. I will be monitoring with my blood pressure monitor, which would give me a warning when they detect arrhythmia.
Excessive magnesium intake may have other bad consequences so I'll just keep my upper limit of magnesium intake to 1200mg/day. This is a conservative therapeutic dose already as I have read Mark Sircus and he has mentioned therapeutic levels ranging from 1500-3000mg/day.
I'll let you know how this goes.