What Type of Magnesium Do You Recommend?
15 Dec 2025 · 6 min
Podcast episode (transcript) of JJ Virgin's 'Ask the Health Expert' answering listener questions about types and dosing of magnesium supplements. The host explains magnesium's physiological roles (energy, DNA, glutathione, blood sugar, relaxation, bone health, kidney-stone prevention), recommends chelated forms (bisglycinate for general use), other forms for specific issues (malate for muscle pain, threonate/glycinate for brain/ADD, oxide/citrate for constipation), and gives a dosing range (about 300–1000 mg, titrate to tolerance). The transcript also includes multiple sponsor ad reads and other podcast promos.
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Type of magnesium do you recommend? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer author. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions, and now I'm sharing what I found with you.
Welcome to Ask the Health Expert.
Diana asked on my Superimmune Secrets masterclass. She asked, there are so many types of magnesium. What do you recommend? And then Kathy C. From Instagram asked, how much magnesium should I take? So I think I can cover all that in one answer and I will deconstruct magnesium when we come back.
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All right, so I am a big proponent of taking a good, high quality, professional brand multivitamin mineral antioxidant formula. And that's a great start. There are a couple things that you generally will need more of because you're not going to be able to get them from. You know, first of all, forget a one a day. You can't get in anywhere near what you need in one a day. But minerals are little rocks. They take up a lot of space. So generally, even if you're taking a high quality multivitamin, multi mineral antioxidant formula, you'll probably be taking like four a day. You know, somewhere in there, you're going to need extra magnesium because most people will still be deficient. All right, so what does it do? What I'm going to do is walk through why I love magnesium so much, what all it impacts, and then I'll talk about the different forms so you can make the right decision for you. Okie dokie, here we go. So magnesium is a mineral, and minerals play very crucial roles in your body. They keep your bones, your muscles, your heart, and your brain working properly. They also help make your enzymes and hormones. And, and there's two types of minerals. There's macrominerals and there's trace minerals. And magnesium is one of the first, a macromineral, which means we need more of it to stay healthy. Now, what's important to think of here is a mineral is like a little rock, and so you want to make sure that you are taking a chelated form of it because it's very hard to digest. That means that you want to take it in a very bioavailable form, so your body is can actually use it. So why do you want magnesium? Well, it's required for energy and DNA production as well as creating the master antioxidant glutathione. So magnesium can help you stale stay energetic while you are defending against premature cellular aging. And it also plays a major role in blood sugar and insulin metabolism. It's super important. In fact, people with higher levels of magnesium in their diets tend to have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. And research shows that magnesium can also improve insulin sensitivity, and it can even lower the risk of progressing from prediabetes to diabetes. Now, what about Belly talk. So low stomach acid, constipation, or if you're on acid blockers, then you're going to want to look at magnesium. It's a go to when you are not able to go. So it helps a lot if you're a little constipated. But it's also super important if you are on long term proton pump inhibitors or other stomach acid reducing drugs. And what about bone health? Because we always think of calcium for bone health, but yet magnesium is an equal player here. So whenever you think of bone health, I want you to always think of magnesium because. But also think of it in terms of relaxation. You've heard of taking Epsom salts baths to help your muscles relax. Well, that's the magnesium in there doing its trick. So it enhances relaxation, promotes a sense of calm and can also support normal sleep patterns. Okay. Kidney stones. So low magnesium levels are common in people prone to developing kidney stones. And increased magnesium concentrations are shown to reduce the formation and decrease the size of calcium oxalate crystals, which can translate into fewer kidney stones. All right, so let's talk about what magnesium is ideal for. It can be important for helping with low stomach acid or constipation. It can help with bright happy moods. It can improve insulin sensitivity, it can help with muscle relaxation and staying heart healthy. It supports healthy blood pressure and it can help with good bone density. Hopefully that's selling you on taking the magnesium. Of course we want to eat our nuts and seeds where we get some magnesium as well. But again, I find that beyond the multi, you're also going to want to take some extra magnesium. And so here are the types that you can look at. And if you were just going to take one, I would tell you to take a good chelated magnesium and probably just magnesium chelate bisglycinate. This is the most common one that you can use for most things. It's calming, can help with sleep. I take it before bed every single night. Magnesium malate, if you've got muscle aches and pains, fibromyalgia, that's the one I would recommend. Magnesium glycinate and magnesium threonate are great for brain. If you are dealing with add, this is the one I would recommend. And if you are looking for some constipation help. And this is a great travel hack by the way. Not appropriate right now as I'm talking, because I'm talking during the pandemic, no one's going anywhere. But once we start traveling again, if you find that travel disrupts your regularity, taking some magnesium oxide hydroxide, citrate or ascorbate before bed can help tremendously. Just watch how much you take because if you go too much there you will not be a happy person. And how much do you need? Gosh, it really depends on you see what you're going to get in your multi. It's probably not going to be a lot. I find people do well with anywhere between 300mg and 1000mg and if you bring it up slowly, if you get loose stools, back it down. All right. And most important of all, again, make sure that you're getting a professional grade chelated form so your body can actually use it. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetoj.com.
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