7 tips on taking magnesium
You can help to maintain your health by taking magnesium regularly. Magnesium is one of the things our bodies need for lots of processes that are energy-dependent. A low-magnesium diet can quickly deplete your reserves, resulting in deficits. Magnesium products can help combat this. Look at the tips below to find out about taking magnesium and the doses you might need.
1. Take magnesium at the right time of day
Generally, you can take magnesium at any time of the day, regardless of meals. If you have night-time leg cramps due to magnesium deficiency, however, we recommend taking magnesium in the evenings. This helps to stop magnesium levels falling in the night-time and is better for preventing cramps over the long term.
Magnesium should be taken over a period of several weeks to eliminate magnesium deficiency as a cause of your symptoms. For sportsmen and women, it doesn’t matter whether you take magnesium before or after training.
2. Make sure you take the right daily dose of magnesium
Ensuring you get the right daily dose of magnesium is more important than when you take it. Biolectra® magnesium products are high-quality and provide different strengths of magnesium to ensure you meet your own personal requirement. Making it easy for you to get all of your daily requirement. That’s 300 mg for women aged 25 or over and 350 mg for men. Pregnant women (depending on age), breastfeeding mothers or young people need up to 400 mg a day.1
3. Make sure you take it for as long as you need
It can take a few weeks to correct a magnesium deficiency. So, you should carry on taking the magnesium even if acute symptoms such as leg cramps subside after a few days. That will help you to top up your magnesium levels over the long term. Under certain life situations such as stress, strenuous mental or physical activity, or growth periods, the daily magnesium requirement cannot always be covered by food alone. So in situations like those it’s advisable to supplement your diet with a magnesium product to ensure you don’t develop a deficiency.
4. Watch out for magnesium depleters
There are various medicines that remove magnesium from the body. A lot of stimulants increase the amount of magnesium eliminated from the body. And certain foods make it more difficult for the body to absorb magnesium. These include:
- various medicines such as certain antibiotics,
- stimulants such as alcohol and
- foods that contain oxalic acid (for example, rhubarb and beetroot)
5. What about overdosing?
There is no risk of you overdosing on magnesium provided that your kidney function is normal and you take it in accordance with the package insert or as recommended by your doctor or pharmacist. Taking high doses of magnesium may cause soft stools or diarrhoea. This is not dangerous and can be reversed in many cases by simply reducing the daily dose. The body eliminates any excess magnesium.
6. Make sure you take the right ratio of magnesium to calcium.
In addition to magnesium, calcium is a significant building block for the body: Both minerals play a complementary role in muscle function. The body normally needs three times as much calcium as magnesium for the minerals to work well together. Calcium and magnesium can prevent each other being absorbed by the body, but only when they are taken simultaneously in very high doses. This problem does not arise as long as you take the recommended dose.
7. Choose the magnesium product that's best for you
The Biolectra® range offers the right product for every need. Check out our varied dosage forms.
- Capsules: Biolectra® Magnesium Capsules are a compact form of magnesium. The capsules are very small, easy to swallow, and just one capsule covers your daily magnesium requirement directly.* They are available in strengths of 300 mg, or 400 mg magnesium for people with higher requirements.
- Direct: Biolectra® Magnesium 300 mg Direct and Biolectra® Magnesium 400 mg ultra Direct are a convenient way to take magnesium. The handy pouches contain micro-pellets that melt on the tongue. They’re available in orange and lemon flavours.
- Granules for oral solution: Tear open the sachet, dissolve in water and drink – Biolectra® Magnesium 400 mg ultra Granules for oral solution is quick and easy to take. And they also help you to maintain your fluid levels.
- Effervescent Tablets: Biolectra® Magnesium Effervescent Tablets dissolve quickly in a glass of water. You can choose from three different strengths (150 mg, 243 mg and 365 mg) in tasty orange or lemon flavours.
* Recommended daily intake for women aged over 25 by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung (German Nutrition Society)
