Ben Greenfield walks through a magnesium deficiency questionnaire that can catch what blood tests miss. Drinking more than three cups of coffee daily, pregnancy, and certain medications all raise your risk. A score above 50 suggests significant deficiency.
Well, I've said before on videos that one of the ways I read myself to sleep is by looking at big boring studies and questionnaires. My name is Ben Greenfield. I'm a biohacker, celebrity trainer, nutritionist, New York Times best selling author and world renowned speaker. I'm on a constant quest to uncover powerful and practical health hacks to awaken, unlock and unleash the full potential of the human body, mind and spirit.
You hear everybody talking about magnesium these days and how you should supplement with magnesium before you go to sleep. If the boring studies that you're reading aren't putting you to sleep. And it is true that magnesium can help with relaxation. Magnesium is responsible for hundreds of different enzymatic reactions within the body. And a lot of people, in many cases due to dietary issues or some of the other issues I'll tell you about here shortly, they're deficient in magnesium. So recently I heard from this guy, Dr. Andy Galpin, great smart guy, cool podcast, good follow. He mentioned that and he's right about this, that the average lab test that you can get for magnesium are not really accurate or sufficient. However you can, even without having to get in your car and drive and give a bunch of tubes of blood, find out or at least approximate your magnesium or your magnesium deficiency status with something as simple as a questionnaire. This is really interesting. I got this from the Max Health Therapies website. I'll link to this particular questionnaire and in the caption wherever you're watching this video, but it describes the importance of magnesium for your nervous system, for your heart, for your bones, for your metabolism, for relaxation, for something like constipation. It can help out with, but it also has different questionnaires that tell you the type of things you might be engaged in that can cause a magnesium deficiency. I thought it was very interesting. So what you do is you fill out the questionnaire, you add up all your points at the end and it tells you how likely you are to be magnesium deficient. There's a few in here that are surprising though. So for example, more than three coffee cups a day can cause magnesium deficiency. I would say the same applies for energy drinks, nootropics, smart drugs, anything like that can actually cause mineral and specifically magnesium deficiencies. So there's a whole diet and lifestyle section regularly having undigested food or fat in your stools that just traditional pieces of corn on the cob and carrot in your stool. Maybe you have a magnesium deficiency. So a lot of good diet and lifestyle questions that you might Find surprising. And then we've got health conditions. If you get, for example, frequent lethargy or fatigue, no surprises there. Underactive thyroid or overactive thyroid. High blood pressure. Magnesium is fantastic for high blood pressure, by the way. It's. It's one of those things that can help with relaxation and also assist with cardiovascular health in general. Currently pregnant or recently pregnant, you're at high risk for magnesium deficiencies. So a lot of really interesting health conditions, including if you get chronic headaches or migraines, it's not always going to be a magnesium deficiency, but it can be, which is interesting. So next you have medications and supplements. Many medications and supplements can cause a magnesium deficiency. For example, taking digitalis, digoxin, frequently using antibiotics, currently on some kind of a steroid, taking oral contraceptives. A lot of people don't know that that can cause a significant magnesium deficiency. Taking iron supplements or zinc supplements at the same time as you're not taking magnesium. A lot of these things can also cause magnesium deficiencies. So look into the medication supplement section. Then we have the nervous system section. This is going to come as no surprise. Muscle spasms, night cramps, leg cramps, difficulty sleeping. A lot of those nervous system issues that you would associate with the magnesium deficiency, they're on here too. And then a few. You might not expect cold hands and feet, loss of libido, shakiness or tremor in your hands, experiencing long or intense periods of stress. All of these things in sections A, B, C and D that I just gave you a little glimpse of can add up. If your score is 0 to 25, you're probably not magnesium deficient. If it's 26 to 50, you probably have low levels of magnesium. And if it's over 50, you probably have some significant magnesium deficiency symptoms. So remember, when it comes to magnesium, sometimes a blood test isn't necessary and sometimes isn't accurate. But there are things as simple as a questionnaire like this that can tell you whether or not you need to be taking magnesium. The approximate levels of magnesium you might want to be thinking about when you take it. And also the. The type of things that you might be experiencing that could be caused. This is very common by a magnesium deficiency. So thanks to Dr. Andy Gelpin for alerting me as to the existence of this questionnaire. I like it. I've been sending it out to a lot of people, so check it out. The Max Health Therapies Magnesium Status Questionnaire. I'll link to it wherever you're watching this video. Thanks for watching.
