Bottom line is this: your heart is a muscle and it has certain requirements to do its muscle work, which is to contract and relax rhythmically in order to pump your blood. In fact, each day your heart pumps the same five quarts of blood around and around. That's equivalent to some two thousand gallons of blood! It works out to about 2.4 ounces per beat - around a third of a cup. Add exercise and those numbers increase. You can tell that that's a lot of work!

To carry it out, your heart needs calcium to contract, and magnesium to relax. When it has enough calcium to contract, but not enough magnesium to relax, it can contract and stay contracted - a muscle cramp that is a type of heart attack. Add sufficient magnesium and voila! The cramp is resolved. Keep your magnesium levels sufficient in the first place, and you avoid that type of heart attack all together.

That's why experts in emergency medicine teach people that if they are having a heart attack, to tell the emergency response team to start an IV of magnesium immediately.

So how can you tell if your levels are sufficient? Easy. You can do your own muscle test. Here's how:

     1.Get a magnesium supplement handy.

     2.Either bend to touch your toes and see how far you go ( don’t force) or alternatively, put   your hands together in front of you, then keeping them together, rotate your torso around so that you swing your arms as far as you can to the left (or right). Again, don’t force, just notice.

     3. Next, pick up the magnesium, hold it in your hands and do the same movement again. Notice the difference in your range of motion.

The more range of motion you had holding the magnesium, the more your body needs it. If your range of motion is about the same, your magnesium levels are likely OK.

Here are three other common symptoms that indicate a magnesium need:

     1. A tendency toward constipation.

     2. Generalized body tension, especially as if wearing your shoulders up around your ears.

     3. Craving chocolate.

Last, when you supplement magnesium, it's important to know when enough is enough. The easiest (and most obvious!) way is referred to as 'bowel tolerance'. In other words, when your bowels are demanding you visit the bathroom way more than usual, you're probably good to back off your dose.

Then, too, you can return to the muscle test method described above. When your range of motion is about equal when you're holding magnesium or not holding it, you've likely reached sufficiency.

Then you can feel assured that you've eliminated that heart attack risk factor!

                                   ************************************
(Note: Bones require magnesium as well. If you'd like to receive a complementary 84- item checklist you can use to determine how many symptoms you have that may indicate bone loss, go to http:www.perfectbones.com).

Pamela Levin is an R.N. with professional experience in most hospital environments. She is a Teaching & Supervising Transactional Analyst with 500+ post graduate hours in Clincal Nutrition, Herbology & Applied Kinesiology. In private practice 45 years, she is an award-winning nutritional journalist and author of many books.

Pamela Levin, R.N., T.S.T.A.
June 2, 2015

For lots of tips to support your better health and greater well being of body, mind, spirit, emotions and relationships, go to BetterHealthBytes.com Click on Archived Newsletters to search for your topic. If you have a request, click on Ask-About-Health.

Tweet

Tags: heart health healthy heart how to have a healthy heart risk of heart attack cardiovascular disease risk factors what causes heart attack

Do these articles spark any topics you'd
like to see covered?

If so, suggest them here.

Subscribe to Better Health Bytes NEWSLETTER so you'll know when your topic is addressed.

We HATE SPAM and respect your email privacy.

By letting us know what you're intererested in, you help shape health improvement content that can empower a large number of people, so we encourage you to let us know what you'd like covered.

Note: We do not make recommendations based on any individual's specific health situation.We offer general information beneficial to anyone with health concerns. We cannot guarantee an answer to every question or request.

Source: http://www.betterhealthbytes.com

 ↑ Back to Top