This article aims to clear any doubts and questions you may have about this subject and we will do our best to do so.
Taking Vitamin D And Magnesium Together
It’s suggested that people whose magnesium intake is high are less likely to have a vitamin D deficiency than people whose magnesium levels are low. It’s also claimed that magnesium supplementation increases vitamin D levels in people who are deficient in the vitamin, but causes a reduction in people whose intake is high.
Do You Need Magnesium To Absorb Vitamin D?
Like any vitamin or mineral, vitamin D can’t work without first being converted into a form your body can absorb. The level to which a vitamin or mineral can be absorbed is known as its “bioavailability.”. Vitamin D’s bioavailability depends on magnesium.
Unconverted, vitamin D can actually increase your calcium levels rather than regulate them as they should. And exceeding your recommended dietary allowance of calcium can stimulate your hormones into drawing the mineral out of your bones—where it’s needed—and depositing it in soft tissues such as arteries. Taking magnesium supplements helps your body to absorb and use minerals such as calcium, phosphorus and potassium, and vitamins like vitamin D.
If you take vitamin D supplements, they won’t work properly in strengthening your bones unless the concentrations of boron, magnesium and zinc, and vitamins K and A, are at the correct levels.
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One should consider the supplementation therapy to be preventative rather than curative at this time. Data sources: PubMed search of several reported associations between vitamin D and Mg with diseases. Based on the epidemiologic studies, ∼75% of all adults worldwide have serum 25(OH)D levels of <30 ng/mL. Mg is essential in the metabolism of vitamin D, and taking large doses of vitamin D can induce severe depletion of Mg.
Getting To The Source
Dark leafy greens, beans, whole grains, dark chocolate, fatty fish (salmon, for example), nuts, bananas, and avocados are among the foods rich in magnesium. Dai told Healthline that the study proposes a novel system for getting individuals to the levels of magnesium needed for proper vitamin D utilization.
“An additional 200 mg or so of magnesium will safely bring most people up to an adequate intake,” Rachel Fine, a registered dietitian and owner of To The Pointe Nutrition, a nutrition counseling firm in New York City, told Healthline. A single avocado contains 58 mg of magnesium, for example. The magnesium, vitamin B6, and fiber that are lost in the process of refining whole grains are not added back.” Laura Kunces, PhD, RD, director of nutrition research at Thorne Research, told Healthline that given the widespread deficiencies in both vitamin D and magnesium, the findings may support wider use of supplements for both.
“This study found that low magnesium may reduce vitamin D levels in persons within a normal range,” she said. “This is an important connection because we continue to see a high prevalence of suboptimal blood levels of both vitamin D and magnesium for many reasons: location, age, weight, diet, genetics, etc.” “This study also looked at people who were not clinically magnesium deficient, and found that even in these individuals, supplementation with magnesium helped to reverse resistant vitamin D deficiency,” Kunces added.
The Link Between Magnesium And Vitamin D
Here, Dr. Dai and team found that individuals with high levels of magnesium intake, whether from dietary sources or taking supplements, were less likely to have low levels of vitamin D. Importantly, the researchers also found a possible association between magnesium intake and a reduction in mortality, particularly when they looked at mortality due to cardiovascular disease and bowel cancer.
“Magnesium deficiency shuts down the vitamin D synthesis and metabolism pathway,” Dr. Dai explains.