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  #61   ^
Old Mon, Apr-25-11, 15:34
Elfie's Avatar
Elfie Elfie is offline
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Posts: 588
 
Plan: Bernstein
Stats: 330/140/140 Female 5' 3"
BF:
Progress: 100%
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Thank you both. I read somewhere that insulin resistance may be caused by a magnesium deficiency and that it (or diabetes) will then continue that vicious cycle. I am a diabetic, but no excessive urination. My diabetes is controlled with diet. I do eat a rather varied vegie diet - asparagus, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage...I haven't met a vegie I don't like.

.
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  #62   ^
Old Mon, Apr-25-11, 16:11
CarolynC's Avatar
CarolynC CarolynC is offline
Getting Healthy!
Posts: 1,755
 
Plan: General LC
Stats: 213/169/166 Female 5' 8.5"
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Progress: 94%
Location: Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cajunboy47
We lose magnesium through excessive urination & diarrhea, so we should address these concerns. Excessive urination for diabetics, means reducing blood sugars....

My comments aren't intended to relate only to magnesium, but to minerals and vitamins in general for diabetics. There's more to this than just their elimination through urination.

I'm a type 2 diabetic with a very strong family history of diabetes. So, this is an issue that concerns me personally. I'm also a chemistry professor and a faculty member on the graduate committee of a PhD student who is studying the effects of chromium on diabetes. Last week, this student gave his final research seminar leading up to his PhD defense. The student found that diabetic rats excrete more chromium in their urine than non-diabetic rats. Why? Because diabetic rats absorb more chromium from their diets than non-diabetic rats. More goes in, so more goes out. Chromium isn't even an essential element for humans or rats (which was the major conclusion of the PhD research), although in some cases it can bind on insulin receptors and help the body to use insulin better.

So, I asked the question as to why diabetic rats absorb more of the chromium from their diet than non-diabetic rats. The answer from the student and his major professor (a world leader in metallobiochemistry) is that diabetes upsets the body's absorption of many minerals and vitamins. Compared to non-diabetics, some species are absorbed more strongly by diabetics (e.g., chromium) and some more weakly (e.g., magnesium). And, then excretion may also be different for diabetics relative to non-diabetics. The reason for this is almost always unknown because the biochemical pathways involved are complex and still not well elucidated.

And, here's something else that is not known: How does a diabetic with well-controlled blood sugar absorb and excrete various minerals and vitamins? That is, if blood sugar is kept "normal," is a diabetic's ability to absorb/excrete minerals/vitamins similar to that of a non-diabetic? In general, no one knows. I'm not aware of extensive and conclusive studies of mineral/vitamin absorption/excretion on diabetic people or rats with well-controlled blood sugars.
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  #63   ^
Old Mon, Apr-25-11, 18:00
Cajunboy47 Cajunboy47 is offline
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Posts: 2,900
 
Plan: Eat Fat, Get Thin
Stats: 212/162/155 Male 68 "
BF:32/23.5/23.5
Progress: 88%
Location: Breaux Bridge, La
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarolynC
The student found that diabetic rats excrete more chromium in their urine than non-diabetic rats. Why? Because diabetic rats absorb more chromium from their diets than non-diabetic rats. More goes in, so more goes out. Chromium isn't even an essential element for humans or rats (which was the major conclusion of the PhD research), although in some cases it can bind on insulin receptors and help the body to use insulin better.

And, here's something else that is not known: How does a diabetic with well-controlled blood sugar absorb and excrete various minerals and vitamins? That is, if blood sugar is kept "normal," is a diabetic's ability to absorb/excrete minerals/vitamins similar to that of a non-diabetic? In general, no one knows.


Good and reasonable questions, and with the answers you received, it seems prudent to pursue living as healthy a lifestyle as possible and becoming more informed about supplementation of vitamins, minerals, herbs, etc..... as science doesn't hold all the answers.

Not to address how a diabetic compared to a non-diabetic responds differently, but to how a healthy vs non-healthy body responds:

In my experience, a healthier body seems to absorb nutrients more easily than an unhealthy body. Going from unhealthy to healthy is simple to me now, as I look back on my experience.

Do what a sensible, wholesome healthy person does and supplement as needed till the body can absorb more efficiently, then reduce the supplementation, but keep monitoring myself.

The way I did this was to get complete blood work every 3 months till I got healthy enough to where those numbers became static in the normal ranges, and now I do that every 6 months to make sure I'm staying healthy. I know there are arguments on the validity of some of the tests such as magnesium levels, but paying attention to blood testing and making adjustments accordingly has worked for me, along with learning to think about how I am feeling.

But you said one thing that rings a bell for me and this is how I see my health:

I can't look for one thing that is going to make a difference in my health, but rather, I need to not let my focus become narrow as one thing grabs my attention. I need to continue looking at the whole picture and keep working on it from every angle and never give up and never become stagnant in my thinking.
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  #64   ^
Old Tue, Apr-26-11, 02:39
Hutchinson's Avatar
Hutchinson Hutchinson is offline
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Posts: 2,886
 
Plan: Dr Dahlqvist's
Stats: 205/152/160 Male 69
BF:
Progress: 118%
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarolynC
My comments aren't intended to relate only to magnesium, but to minerals and vitamins in general for diabetics. There's more to this than just their elimination through urination.

Thanks for your observations.

I hope no one will assume that if Chromium isn't even an essential element for humans or rats the same applies to Magnesium.

I would be interested to learn from your comments on this paper
Effect of Magnesium Deficiency on Various Mineral Concentrations in Rat Liver.

I'm sure most people here will be aware of the problems Caused by iron overload/inappropriately liganded iron in relation to diabetes and aware of the Cross-Talk Between Iron Metabolism and Diabetes: Interacting Pathways Linking Glucose and Iron Metabolism
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  #65   ^
Old Tue, Apr-26-11, 04:38
SilverEm SilverEm is offline
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Posts: 1,081
 
Plan: LC RPAH/FailSafe
Stats: 137/136/136 Female 67"
BF:
Progress: 100%
Location: Maintenance since 2001
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Hutchinson, that second link on iron, appears as a log-in page for MedScape, on my computer.
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  #66   ^
Old Tue, Apr-26-11, 05:58
Hutchinson's Avatar
Hutchinson Hutchinson is offline
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Posts: 2,886
 
Plan: Dr Dahlqvist's
Stats: 205/152/160 Male 69
BF:
Progress: 118%
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SilverEm
Hutchinson, that second link on iron, appears as a log-in page for MedScape, on my computer.
You have to register but anyone can do that, you don't have to be a health professional. The articles are all intended for professionals rather than the layman so they tend to be "consensus" medical opinion and well referenced.
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  #67   ^
Old Tue, Apr-26-11, 08:22
Patina's Avatar
Patina Patina is offline
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Posts: 417
 
Plan: Less than 30 grams a day
Stats: 259/241/155 Female 69 inches
BF:Yes
Progress: 17%
Location: WA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfie
Thank you both. I read somewhere that insulin resistance may be caused by a magnesium deficiency and that it (or diabetes) will then continue that vicious cycle. I am a diabetic, but no excessive urination. My diabetes is controlled with diet. I do eat a rather varied vegie diet - asparagus, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage...I haven't met a vegie I don't like.

.


Elfie, I have read the same thing in many different sources and I absolutely believe that being deficient in Mg, is just one part of the equation that sends the body down the path to insulin resistance. That's why I started supplementing with Mg in the first place and at least in my case, there is no doubt that taking Mg is helping reverse my insulin resistance.

I will always take Mg from here on in... even if I am able to reverse my insulin resistance 100% and get off all my meds, I will never stop supplementing with Mg.
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  #68   ^
Old Wed, Apr-27-11, 04:28
SilverEm SilverEm is offline
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Posts: 1,081
 
Plan: LC RPAH/FailSafe
Stats: 137/136/136 Female 67"
BF:
Progress: 100%
Location: Maintenance since 2001
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Hutchinson, thanks!.
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  #69   ^
Old Wed, Apr-27-11, 12:20
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sollyb sollyb is offline
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Posts: 880
 
Plan: modified Peat
Stats: 202/214/180 Female 62.5 inches
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Progress: -55%
Location: Wyoming
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hutchinson


Thanks for those links. they are of particular interest to me because of my personal health issues, and because of my family health history, which is rife with the diseases strongly connected to iron overload. I have also had ferritin that was too high, and rising yearly, even though it was not out of "range", my online reading shows that the range is dangerously skewed and is far too high. Anyway, it is time for me to get ferritin checked again, and see if I need to donate blood again. One of my concerns with keeping my blood glucose levels under good control is that I never want to have to inject insulin. Injecting any kind of insulin would mean I could never donate blood again, and would have to have a doctor's order for phlebs, and I have been totally unsuccessful in getting a doctor to agree I have an iron problem.

From accidentally going too low from overdonating, I found that I load iron back fairly quickly, faster than a couple of people I know who have actual genetic hemochromatosis, which I do not have. So I mean to keep being able to donate when "I" believe my ferritin is too high. Besides, donating to a blood bank is free, doctor ordered phlebs are quite expensive, and I don't believe medicare pays for them.
sol
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  #70   ^
Old Thu, May-19-11, 08:09
Patina's Avatar
Patina Patina is offline
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Posts: 417
 
Plan: Less than 30 grams a day
Stats: 259/241/155 Female 69 inches
BF:Yes
Progress: 17%
Location: WA
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Thought I'd resurrect this post because my husband was going in for an annual physical for his job and I suggested to him that he get his Vitamin D level checked.

Well he did get it checked and low and behold he was very low. Not depleted but at the very bottom of the range. But the shocker was that the doctor also diagnosed him "pre-diabetic" because he had a FBG of 105. I should add my husband is in general good health and with an acceptable BMI for his height and weight. In fact, the doctor, jokingly, told him he only needs to lose 4 lbs!

So once again, my suspicion that Vitamin D (and Mg which he didn't have tested) are directly tied to type 2 diabetes.

Now I personally have come to believe there is no such thing as pre-diabetic. I think you are or you aren't because either way, you need to make changes.

So I'm trying to get my husband on a daily regimen of vit d and mg supplements along with me but so far, he's not consistently taking them. He is however, starting to pay more attention to his carb intake which is a good thing.

Anyway, I'm just convinced that by the time a person is having blood sugar issues, their Vitamin D and Mg levels are probably woefully deficient or depleted along with other issues but mainly those two. I just recently bought a book dedicated to the subject of Vitamin D and another devoted to Mg because I'm that convinced they are critical to the process of reversing Type 2.
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  #71   ^
Old Thu, May-19-11, 09:30
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Posts: 25,842
 
Plan: DDF
Stats: 202/185.4/179 Female 67
BF:
Progress: 72%
Location: San Diego, CA
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There are a lot of skinny-fat people. They store their fat around their internal organs, in their liver, etc. It's actually worse than having subcutaneous fat like us vanity dieters have.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6220596.stm

If someone is skinny and they eat a lot of carbs everyone assumes they're healthy. I don't make that assumption any longer.
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  #72   ^
Old Thu, May-19-11, 10:40
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is online now
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Posts: 14,602
 
Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150 Female 67
BF:
Progress: 136%
Location: USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nancy LC
If someone is skinny and they eat a lot of carbs everyone assumes they're healthy. I don't make that assumption any longer.


I don't make that assumption, either, especially recently.

A friend of a friend got married to a man who was an avid hiker and skier, slim as a rail, and was a low fat high carb devotee -- he always "ate healthy."

He dropped dead of a heart attack on their honeymoon. In his early forties.

Last edited by WereBear : Thu, May-19-11 at 10:46.
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  #73   ^
Old Fri, May-20-11, 07:54
dancinbr's Avatar
dancinbr dancinbr is offline
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Posts: 811
 
Plan: Dr. Bernstein (modified )
Stats: 298/205/199 Male 5 foot 11 inches
BF:
Progress: 94%
Location: Smithtown, NY
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Hello everyone,

So we need magnesium and if you eat good foods you will get a lot of it from your leafy vegetables.

We also supplement.

I have seen the charts that show magnesium oxide has more elemental magnesium than magnesium citrate.

But then I hear that magnesium citrate is absorbed better.

I never get loose stools with magnesium citrate. I am taking 1200mg a day 600mg in the morning and 600mg in the afternoon.

As I look back at one of the charts elemental magnesium in the citrate form is 16% so I am actually taking 192mg elemental.

Talk about confused!

Should I go back to magnesium oxide, which would be 60% elemental ( it does loosen my stools) and 60% of 1000mg is 600mg???

Help

Ralph
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  #74   ^
Old Fri, May-20-11, 08:06
Patina's Avatar
Patina Patina is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 417
 
Plan: Less than 30 grams a day
Stats: 259/241/155 Female 69 inches
BF:Yes
Progress: 17%
Location: WA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nancy LC
There are a lot of skinny-fat people. They store their fat around their internal organs, in their liver, etc. It's actually worse than having subcutaneous fat like us vanity dieters have.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6220596.stm

If someone is skinny and they eat a lot of carbs everyone assumes they're healthy. I don't make that assumption any longer.


That was an interesting article! You're right...we do associate body size as an overall indicator of someone's state of health. That's exactly why my husband was stunned when he saw the doc had written " pre-diabetic - cut back on daily carb intake" on the test results. My husband declared..."I can't be pre-diabetic! I'm not fat!"

I took the time to try and explain it to him again about how eating sugar, whether you're fat or not, is doing to his insides. I think it's just really hard for him to really understand what his daily glasses of milk, toast and jam, hotdog w/bun meals are doing to him because overall, he feels just fine. Which is exactly why diabetes is such an insidious disease...people don't feel sick early on. Plus he's not fat and everyone assumes only fat people get diabetes because that's what is out there in the media.

So for sure I have my work cut out for me bringing him fully over to the low carb side. I have to give him some credit that he is making a semi-attempt to cut back so hopefully over time he'll embrace this WOE.
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  #75   ^
Old Sun, Jul-17-11, 18:04
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JLx JLx is offline
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Posts: 3,199
 
Plan: High protein, lower fat
Stats: 000/000/145 Female 66
BF:276, 255 hi wts
Progress: 0%
Location: Michigan U.P., USA
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I've been supplementing with magnesium for years but was nevertheless recently diagnosed with diabetes. [sigh]

I've experimented with quite a few forms of magnesium, which I started taking primarily for depression after I discovered this website http://george-eby-research.com/html...on-anxiety.html. I like to give him credit as I feel he may have saved my life.

I've tried various forms of mg through the years; favorites are mg taurate, mg glycinate/lysinate, mg malate and mg orotate.

In my experimenting I've found that if I'm not eating dairy, which I didn't do for a while, it is indeed possible to take too much magnesium, even at modest doses of 300-600 mg. Food cramps and general weirdness were my clues, relieved by some calcium. Maybe it's just me. I feel like I'm always working out that calcium/magnesium ratio. My understanding is that magnesium and calcium are antagonistic and synergistic so that too much or too little may render the other ineffective. Before I was supplementing with mg, my theory is that I was getting way too much calcium and probably utilizing very little of the mg in my diet. Calcium can be an excitotoxin to the brain which is what I believe was happening when I was so depressed I could barely function. If I had listened to my psychiatrist, btw, I wouldn't have tried magnesium as he said it would be useless.

Anyway, thinking myself a pretty practised experimenter, probably averaging about 500 mg a day, but much more some years and a bit less at times, I was really thrown for a loop last year when suddenly magnesium seemed to be acting differently in my body. I was taking the recommended dose of Vit D for my weight, I thought, and assuming I was probably low to begin with (too poor/cheap to order a self test) which was anywhere from 5,000 IU to 10,000 IU/day. No danger of toxicity, right?

But I began having heart palpitations daily, bad enough to keep me awake at night. And my usual magnesium doses were making them worse, and giving me leg cramps besides. It was really messing with my head because I feel I need magnesium to stay sane. I still took 125 to 250 mg a day of mg taurate, my absolute minimum, but had to cut back on any additional. Subsequently I realized, after I quit taking so much Vit D that they went away. Vit D promotes calcium absorption I've learned so that's probably the connection but I still don't get what was going on there.

Right now I'm taking 600 mg of magnesium glycinate/lysinate and think I may experiment with a more after reading this thread. I'm getting 1,000 IU of Vit D in my daily multiple and take another 2,500 IU about once a week. I'm afraid to take more because of the heart palpitations and another issue as well.

I found out my blood sugar was high when I went to the doc for post menopausal bleeding. I have a mass in my uterus and see the oncologist next week. Vit D has always felt to me like it definitely increases some sex related hormone, most likely estrogen I'm assuming, as I can feel a direct hit to my libido when I take it (intermittently, not continually! ). Anybody else ever notice this? I have additional bleeding when I take more Vit D and in fact, the initial onset of this symptom, worse back then, was when I was taking all that Vit D. (Both uterine cancer and polyps are affected by estrogen I now know.)

I'm curious what other experiences people may have had with the calcium/magnesium ratio being impacted by Vit D as well as any other hormonal observations.
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