Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Magnesium Boosts Brain Function improves brain plasticity to ease anxiety and boost cognition

Magnesium Boosts Brain Function improves brain plasticity to ease anxiety and boost cognition





A study shows that intake of magnesium1 above what is traditionally considered the normal dietary amount has a dramatic effect on improving multiple aspects of memory and learning. These findings held true for both young and old.

In the study, magnesium directly improved synaptic plasticity, which I previously explained is the key to the future health of your brain. Various regions in the brain associated with learning and memory experienced significant improvements in synaptic function as a result of magnesium dietary supplementation.

“Our findings suggest that elevating brain magnesium content via increasing magnesium intake might be a useful new strategy to enhance cognitive abilities,” explains lead author Guosong Liu, Director of the Center for Learning and Memory at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “Moreover, half the population of industrialized countries has a magnesium deficit, which increases with aging. This may very well contribute to age-dependent memory decline; increasing magnesium intake might prevent or reduce such decline.”

The data suggests that the daily recommendation of 400 mg of magnesium, while adequate for some important functions of magnesium, is not adequate for optimal brain function. Over the years I have seen significant health improvement in individuals consuming magnesium in the 600 mg – 1,000 mg range. Because magnesium tends to have a laxative effect the amount any one person can consume as a dietary supplement is sometimes limited by bowel function. However, for those interested in strategies to help maintain optimal brain function, higher levels of magnesium intake are likely to be helpful.

Magnesium is found in fruits and vegetables. However, minerals in food are at low levels due to excessive processing of food, poor farming that depletes soils, and the use of pesticides that interfere with the natural sulfur cycle, leaving us not only with chemically adulterated food but food that has lower nutritional value. It is now common sense to supplement fine quality magnesium.

Quality of magnesium supplements is important. Low quality forms of magnesium include magnesium oxide, magnesium aspartate, magnesium gluconate, and magnesium sulfate. At Wellness Resources, we use highly absorbable, high quality forms of magnesium including magnesium glycinate and magnesium malate.(NaturalNews) Magnesium is an essential mineral required to perform more than 300 critical biochemical enzymatic reactions within the human body. Optimal circulating magnesium levels are well known to promote cardiovascular health. Emerging evidence published in The Journal of Neuroscience explains the importance of this mineral to promote proper electrical and neurotransmitter function in the brain.

Researchers have found that magnesium is necessary to dissipate the effects of traumatic stress that can occur from intense episodes of fear or anxiety. Writing in the journal Magnesium Research, scientists posit that optimal levels of the mineral may support energy-generating functions that control storage and retrieval of memories. Many health-minded individuals will want to supplement with magnesium to help prevent cognitive decline and improve brain plasticity to better deal with stress and anxiety.

Anxiety disorders, including phobias and posttraumatic stress disorder, are among the most common mental maladies. This has led researchers on a quest to find non-pharmaceutical therapies to provide relief for these conditions that result in countless hours of lost productivity in the workplace and that cause billions to be spent on useless prescription medications.


Magnesium Improves Memory Formation and Aids Normal Thought ProcessingResearchers from the Center for Learning and Memory, School of Medicine at the University of Texas in Austin found that elevating brain levels of magnesium can help undo the bad programming from prior stress experiences by helping to create new brain response patterns not influenced by fear or anxiety. Researchers included supplemental magnesium to a cohort of volunteer participants and found that elevated brain magnesium was able to induce the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a compound used by the brain to rejuvenate cellular function.

The scientists concluded that increased magnesium levels led to an increase in synaptic plasticity that allowed the learned fear response to become altered. Fear and anxiety create obstacles that interfere with the quality of life and the willingness to do new things. Moderating the effects of intense and ongoing fear and of anxiety improve quality of life, healthy cognition and memory development.

Additional evidence supporting the importance of magnesium from proper diet or supplementation demonstrates that the mineral is critical to the process of making ATP (the cellular unit of energy) as well as of enabling the vital functions of cellular DNA and RNA. When magnesium levels are diminished, the final stages of energy production do not proceed efficiently. This leads to low brain energy output and may be a precursor to degenerative conditions including Alzheimer's dementia. Nutrition experts recommend supplementing with magnesium daily (300 to 500 mg) to improve cognition and to alleviate the effects of stress and anxiety.

Sources for this article include:
http://www.wellnessresources.com/health/articles/magnesium_boosts_bdn...
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/42/14871.abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21951617


Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034262_magnesium_cognition.html#ixzz26yhgMaih

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