PH level and magnesium: how magnesium affects the pH levels of our body and its other contributions to overall health
Does magnesium alkalize your body? Let’s answer your question right away: yes, it does. In one way or another, magnesium helps to maintain the PH level of our body. Magnesium’s chemical reaction is acid-binding; hence it directly aids in alkalizing your body. However, this is just one of the many functionalities of magnesium. It is a wonder mineral for our overall health, probably the most important considering how it affects the functionalities of a few other essential minerals. And there is one common function among those minerals – they all alkalize our body and help to maintain optimum pH balance.
In short, not only magnesium itself is an effective alkalizing agent, it promotes several other alkalizing minerals in our body too. Let’s take a closer look at how the pH balance being maintained in our body, with a little bit verified “science”, shall we?
Acidity and alkalinity: the “science” behind the pH of our body
PH level is what determines if something is acidic or alkaline. PH level starts from 0 and ends at 14. When 0 means something is completely acidic, on the other hand, pH 14 means totally alkaline. 7 is the middle number of pH level which is neutral, neither acidic nor alkaline. Now, the pH of your body cannot be the same throughout every organ or body parts, and it’s completely natural – it’s how our body works.
For example, the pH of our blood is a little bit alkaline with a level varies between 7.35 and 7.45, in an otherwise healthy human body. However, if you consider the stomach – it’s highly acidic with a pH level of maximum 3.5, or below. It has to be very acidic, cause the job of your stomach is to breakdown food so that the nutrients of food can be absorbed by the body.
Lastly, the pH of our urine is never fixed, it’s always changing based on what we are eating or drinking. This is exactly how pH works in our body, in a normal healthy human body.
Do not try to balance your body pH with synthetic supplements or medications
Contrary to popular belief, or what those so-called white-gowned quacks say on TV shows or on the internet – you should not try to “control” your body’s pH level by taking any kind of synthetic medicines by any means unless of course, you’re sick due to pH imbalance.
However, in case you think that you have a pH imbalance in your body, you should be tested and treated according to your doctor’s advice. You must never ever self-treat with over-the-counter drugs or untested dietary supplements according to any website, cause no website is a holy bible – it’s the doctor to whom you must put your trust.
So, what if you don’t think a doctor is giving you the best advice or his/her diagnosis is wrong? Things like that happen always, right? The solution is simple, just go to another doctor, preferably the one who has specialization and more experience to treat your specific condition. Only another doctor can be an ideal substitute for a doctor.
Now, getting back to where we started – “we should never try to control or interfere with our body’s pH balance”. But you heard things different, right? Every now and then some white-gowned so-called experts appear and tell us to eat something which is “alkaline” in nature to maintain our body’s pH, and they insist that neutral pH is not enough, our body should be in an alkaline state.
Nothing could be further from the truth; you must ignore what those quacks are saying. Almost always the reason behind it is the promotion of some special supplements.
So, what’s the truth then?
Related: Is your body overloaded with toxins?
Our body maintains its own pH level according to its need
Our body is a very complex organic machinery which is well-capable of maintaining its state without any interference from outside, provided it’s in its healthy state already. Just like I said above, our stomach is very acidic, why? Because it needs to break down the food we eat, hence the acidic environment in the stomach is necessary – and our body makes sure to keep it that way always. Our blood needs to be alkaline in nature, so the body takes care of that.
However, here’s a little bit of trick those quacks use to fool people. They sell diet plans, special supplements, etc. which consist of “alkaline” ingredients. And most alkaline ingredients are usually vegetables, fruits, etc. which are naturally good for our body’s overall health.
Like if I say I have a magic diet plan which will make you healthy, and sell you a diet which is a balanced mix of fresh vegetables, fruits, lean meats, etc. – did I tell you a lie? Yes and No. No, because a diet plan with the proper amount of fresh vegetables, fruits, and lean meats will actually keep you in your optimum healthy state (please note, there are various factors that are responsible to keep one healthy other than diet only, such as regular exercise).
However, I told you a lie too, because it’s no magic diet – any doctor and nutrition specialist would recommend this diet to anybody with closed eyes and it’s just common sense. So, it’s unethical (if not illegal) to sell such “common sense” in a wrapped box with a “secret” label.
Does magnesium alkalize your body?
Now, as we know the “science” behind the pH label, let’s discuss how magnesium helps to alkalize our body. Again, please note – while I am saying “alkalize” our body, I do not mean alkalizing the ideal pH level of a body in its optimum healthy state. Let me explain what I actually mean to avoid any confusion.
When some of the parts of our body, such as blood, which needs to be in a slightly alkaline state, gets acidic and our body cannot reverse the situation or better say like this, unable to “maintain” the pH balance automatically which is its job, due to any reason – then we need to interfere (here we mean the doctors, not ourselves) and alkalize the blood to bring it in its previous normal state.
Contribution of magnesium in the ideal pH level of our body:
Our body needs several minerals to function properly. This is a very important thing. Because, usually when we talk about food, diet, supplement, etc. – we mainly, and probably only talk about carbohydrate, protein, fat, and vitamins. We never talk about the essential minerals which our body needs as badly as the other nutrients. This general unawareness of minerals can lead to some serious diseases in people over time.
Out of several essential minerals, there are 4 minerals that are responsible to maintain the body’s pH level, along with other necessary functions they are entitled to do: magnesium, calcium, potassium, and sodium. All these minerals play very crucial roles in our body, deficiency or surplus of any of them can gradually lead to some serious health hazards.
And out of these 4, magnesium is probably the most essential one due to the fact that along with playing its own role, it complements or affects the other minerals and nutrients too, such as calcium, potassium and vitamin D. So, not only magnesium does help in proper maintenance of pH balance by itself, but also it plays important roles in the assimilation of other minerals who contribute to maintaining pH balance by themselves.
Let’s find out how magnesium contributes to our overall health
- Magnesium is responsible for the proper functioning of 76 percent of the total enzymes in our body. Even doctors who are usually aware of potassium deficiency and can detect the same in a patient easily, rarely they check for the magnesium deficiency in the same patients. But oftentimes when a person suffering from potassium deficiency, he/she is also suffering from magnesium deficiency (because as we mentioned earlier, magnesium affects and complements potassium in our body) and only treating for potassium deficiency wouldn’t help much, unless he/she is treated for magnesium deficiency at the same time.
- Magnesium complements calcium in the body. Without adequate magnesium, calcium cannot get assimilated into the bone properly, which can lead to weaker bones and joints, calcification in arteries and calcification in kidneys. Calcification in arteries can lead to narrowing and ultimately blocking the arteries – causing heart attack and subsequently resulting in death. Calcification in kidneys can cause kidney stones.
- Magnesium has a crucial contribution to the metabolism of carbohydrate and glucose. Therefore, magnesium deficiency is one of the main reasons for type 2 diabetes. We already discussed how magnesium plays a very crucial role in calcium assimilation, and without proper calcium assimilation, how it can lead to heart disease. Apart from indirectly reducing the chance of heart disease by helping in calcium assimilation, magnesium directly affects heart health as well!
- Magnesium is another important factor for optimum muscle health, and that includes heart muscles too. It has been proven by several studies that insufficient magnesium intake is directly linked to hypertension, arrhythmia, and atherosclerosis.
Recommended daily consumption of magnesium
Adult males (age 19 or above) should consume a minimum of 420 mg of magnesium every day. When adult females should take 320 mg daily at the minimum.
Final thoughts: Does magnesium alkalize your body?
So, does magnesium alkalize your body? Yes. When our body’s pH balance gets disturbed and become acidic, one thing is certain, that there’s a magnesium deficiency in the body. As I said earlier, we usually do not care about minerals in general, let alone caring about magnesium specifically. That’s the reason almost 80% of the total US population has a magnesium deficiency, according to a nationwide medical survey.
This data gets scarier when it reveals that people in an average American household consume only 40% of their daily minimum need for magnesium. And this can cause serious consequences including death.