Last week I attended a 4-day conference in Chicago on nutrition and chronic disease.  The conference itself was fantastic, but I’m writing this blog to tell you of my 4-day love affair with the free samples of magnesium glycinate (the same form of magnesium found in our very own Mag Calm and Essential Calm) that were provided at the conference.  You see, the conference was sponsored by a supplement company that wanted to make sure the practitioners in attendance knew all about the wonders of their supplements so they had open bottles of their entire product line for us to sample.

Magnesium is commonly used for the nutritional treatment of a diversity of issues including osteoporosis, pre-menstrual syndrome, fatigue, fibromyalgia, arthritis, insomnia, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, arrhythmia, and diabetes.  I personally experience none of the above but since an estimated 80% of the US population doesn’t get enough magnesium in their daily diet I thought I’d take advantage of the free samples.

After just one day of taking about 400 milligrams of magnesium I found myself sleeping better, waking up easier, and just generally feeling relaxed and refreshed – which is not usually how I feel when sitting in a chair for 8 hours a day listening to scientific lectures.  The dosage I took is slightly above the RDA of 310 mg/day for women but magnesium is hard to overdose on when taken orally – if you get too much your body will eliminate the extra via the bowels (translation: if you find yourself running to the bathroom, you took too much).  The only exception to this would be if you have inadequate kidney function or are on medications that alter your metabolism of magnesium.

As I write this blog I’m staring at my own bottle of Mag Calm, which I keep by my computer to remind me to keep up the experiment I started at the conference.  It’s been a week and I’m still feeling energetic and waking up refreshed and happy in the morning which is highly unusual for me when it starts getting cold outside!

Magnesium has so many amazing qualities that I couldn’t do it justice in one blog so I wanted to also provide you with a link to one of my favorite reference websites on nutrition – the Linus Pauling Institute.  Here is the link to their page on magnesium.  Enjoy!
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/minerals/magnesium/

In three short weeks, I will be teaching a webinar (online seminar for you non-webbies) on blood sugar. This subject is so huge that I could probably teach on it for eight hours straight. When I realize that I only have an hour of your attention I get into editing and prioritizing mode.

When most of us think of blood sugar, we think of diseases – like diabetes since it can be a life and death issue for a person dealing with the illness. But there is so much more to blood sugar than that! It is a topic that applies to every single one of us living in today’s world of processed foods and readily available junk who need to learn how to make choices that keep our bodies balanced.

Many health practitioners believe that erratic blood sugar is the cause of accelerated aging and disease. I know for a fact that the fatigue so many of us deal with daily (though it has been good business for coffee shops) has a lot to do with a lack of blood sugar control. Uncontrolled blood sugar is also a major impediment to maintaining a healthy weight and preserving muscle mass.

Needless to say, it will be an hour jam-packed with information, along with my super funny and sometimes lame jokes. There is nothing stranger than the feeling of telling a biochemistry joke (yes, the best jokes of all!) while staring at my computer and knowing that 50+ people are on the other end of that computer and I can’t tell if they’re laughing or crying. Oh well, I just hope I don’t talk too fast. Click here to register for the excitement, or go to marilynfarms.com and click on the promo piece next to the specials.

If any of you out there have ideas for future blogs or webinars, please share by adding a comment below!