Calcium or Magnesium?

Quite a few of you ask why I tend to make sure your supplements have more magnesium than calcium in them when the vast majority of them have the reverse ie. more calcium than magnesium. Look at these consumption statistics and then you’ll understand why…

 The average Briton’s diet delivers a daily average of 960mg of calcium from food sources alone and the recommended daily intake (RDA) is 800mg, (source: National Food Survey, DEFRA, 2000). But, interestingly, we don’t get optimum levels of magnesium from the average British Diet, calculated at 267mg per day and yet we have an RDA minimum for health of 375mg, (source: National Food Survey DEFRA 2000).

The make-up of most supplements then doesn’t stack up, does it, if even by Govt statistics we are more likley to be deficient in magnesium than calcium? Put that in context, too, of the recent media hype about taking calcium supplements causing heart attacks. We know that most calcium taken is simple chalk (manufacturers use it because it is cheap) and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that adding unabsorbable chalk on to the top of a body that is already likely to have more calcium than it can handle (because of our high grain and dairy diet) is likely to contribute to hardening of the arteries. 

That’s why it is important to take the right balance of magnesium and calcium – I favour a 2:1 ratio – and to take the right absorbable forms. Nutrigold complexes (eg. Calcium Magnesium Complex) and Archturus formulas are pretty much the only manufacturers who achieve this and that’s why I use them.  So, next time I ask you to stop using regular supplements, that’s one of the reasons why. Simples.

Check out my previous post on calcium causing heart attacks.