It may seem a little odd, but I found an interesting article on using magnesium for anxiety that was interesting and thought it was worth a share on the blog for anyone who may be finding my site here. It is not uncommon to hear athletes discussing whether to supplement with magnesium when they are experiencing muscle cramping, but it doesn’t get as much discussion for those who have some anxiety and panic issues. Using magnesium for anxiety may not be a one stop fix for everyone, but it may be something to look in to. I’ve tried to think back about when I supplemented with anxiety because of athletics and cannot remember what my state of mind was like. Being a high school and college semi-athlete, my way of thinking was far different than today, that is for sure. Let’s look at a little bit of the article.
A supplemented intake of magnesium is found to enhance the brain’s ability to reduce fear and anxiety responses, making way for a possible supplemental treatment for many anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic disorder, specific phobias and others. In the October 2011 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, top neuroscientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing, University of Texas, and University of Toronto revealed that by increasing the extracellular magnesium concentration in the brain through a new magnesium compound called Magtein™, the cognitive ability – an essential facility that controls fear and anxiety – is enhanced. This development becomes extremely significant considering anxiety disordersare the most common mental illness in America, affecting 18% of the population(1).
Anxiety disorders can be triggered by fear and thus, affect cognitive functioning. When in danger, fear is essential for survival. This fear triggers the brain to respond with many split-second changes in the body to prepare to defend against the danger or to avoid it. This response is a healthy reaction meant to protect a person from harm.
….
“Through our study, we found that increasing brain magnesium with Magtein enhances not only the learning and memory ability, but also top-down inhibition of fear memory of rats,” explains Dr. Guosong Liu, one of the study’s principal scientists. “When the cognitive ability is enhanced, fear responses such as anxiety-like and PTSD-like behaviors, are controlled.”
According to Liu, the use of a high magnesium treatment induces a unique pattern of action on brain regions involved in and responsible for the body’s emotional processes. It heightens the function of the prefrontalcortex, a brain region involved in controlling fear responses, without affecting the function of amygdala – the brain’s evolutionary conserved region involved in fear memory formation and storage. “By increasing brain magnesium through Magtein, cognitive ability goes up, fear memory remains unchanged”.
