I’m going to let you know one thing maximum dentists received’t.
For 40 years, I watched sufferers do the entirety proper — brush two times an afternoon, floss, minimize the sugar — and nonetheless lose teeth. Nonetheless grind their tooth at night time. Nonetheless get up exhausted. Nonetheless come again with extra sensitivity, extra recession, extra injury.
However, in lots of instances, the issue wasn’t their toothbrush or floss.
It was once a mineral deficiency that virtually no person assessments for — and that in keeping with NHANES information, 48% of American adults have presently with out figuring out it.
Magnesium.
I do know. You’ve almost definitely heard of it. You could even already take it.
However what I’m about to proportion modified the way in which I follow dentistry, and it will alternate the way in which you take into accounts your tooth, your sleep, and your mind.
Your tooth won’t be capable of restore themselves with out it.
Magnesium is a part of your teeth. A 2016 find out about in Acta Biomaterialia discovered that magnesium ions react with enamel teeth thru a procedure referred to as dissolution and re-precipitation — actually restructuring the crystal lattice on the floor — and the end result was once more difficult, extra resilient tooth. A follow-up find out about in Acta Biomaterialia (2020) showed it: roughly a 20% build up in nanohardness.
However right here’s the place it will get frightening…
When your magnesium is low, your saliva loses the facility to deposit calcium and phosphate again into your teeth. That procedure — remineralization — is how your tooth repair tiny cracks and injury each and every unmarried day. With out sufficient magnesium, that restore gadget can sluggish to a move slowly — or stall fully. It is advisable have the most productive brushing regimen on the earth, and your teeth might nonetheless be dropping flooring.
Take into accounts that. Your frame has a integrated enamel restore gadget. And most of the people will have unintentionally became it off.
Your mind is shrinking. Magnesium might sluggish it down.
A 2023 find out about within the Ecu Magazine of Vitamin (Alateeq et al.) tracked over 6,000 adults ages 40–73 and measured magnesium consumption towards mind quantity on MRI. The discovering stopped me chilly: other folks eating upper magnesium had brains that seemed roughly twelve months more youthful through age 55. Greater overall quantity. Fewer white topic lesions. Higher-preserved areas for finding out and reminiscence.
12 months more youthful. From a mineral that prices pennies an afternoon.
Girls noticed even better neuroprotective advantages within the Alateeq find out about — and the reason being alarming. Between 30 and 40% of menopausal ladies have medical hypomagnesemia (low magnesium) with out figuring out it. Estrogen is helping control magnesium retention, so when estrogen drops all over perimenopause and menopause, magnesium plummets with it. And magnesium is what permits your frame to in fact use nutrition D — so should you’re supplementing nutrition D (as most ladies over 40 are advised to), it won’t also be running with out ok magnesium. It’s a cascading failure that virtually no person is connecting the dots on.
Wow! Greater brains. Fewer lesions. Measurably more youthful construction. And this wasn’t a small find out about — it was once over 6,000 other folks tracked with MRI. The researchers even discovered that the neuroprotective advantages of upper magnesium have been better for ladies than males throughout each and every measure they checked out.
For those who’re anxious about staying sharp as you age — about reminiscence, about center of attention, about your mind simply… running — this one mineral might topic greater than virtually the rest I’ve observed in 40 years of studying analysis.
This might be why you’re grinding your tooth at 3am.
A double-blind, placebo-controlled medical trial printed within the Magazine of Analysis in Scientific Sciences (Abbasi et al., 2012) gave topics 500mg of magnesium day-to-day for 8 weeks. The effects: statistically vital will increase in sleep time, sleep potency, and melatonin ranges — and demanding decreases in cortisol (the strain hormone) and sleep onset latency. They fell asleep quicker. They stayed asleep longer. Their pressure hormones dropped.
When my sufferers began slumbering higher, one thing sudden took place: they stopped grinding and clenching at night time.
The jaw at ease. The teeth stopped cracking. The sensitivity dropped.
I take magnesium each and every night time, 1–2 hours prior to mattress. If I skip a dose — particularly when touring or in a brand new time zone — I understand.
Now — vital caveat from a dentist who’s been educated in sleep drugs: magnesium isn’t an alternative to treating a nap respiring dysfunction. For those who snore, gasp, or forestall respiring at night time, that’s a distinct dialog fully, and you want to peer an AADSM-trained dentist or sleep doctor or you’ll be able to even get started with a session with a myofunctional therapist. However for the hundreds of thousands of people that don’t get sufficient magnesium — who lie conscious, who wake at 2am, who by no means really feel rested — this mineral is the very first thing I’d take a look at.
Sleep isn’t with reference to power. Sleep is when your frame maintenance. Your mind turns on the glymphatic gadget — clearing beta-amyloid and tau proteins related to Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline. Your mouth restores its protecting mineral stability. Lower your sleep high quality, and the entirety downstream suffers — blood sugar, nervousness, cravings, blood force. I’ve observed it in 1000’s of sufferers.
Right here’s what terrifies me about maximum magnesium dietary supplements.
When I learned how crucial magnesium was once, I began taking a well-liked emblem. Excellent label. Sturdy critiques. I felt excellent about it.
Then I learn the impartial lab effects.
I pay for a club to ConsumerLab — an impartial lab that’s been checking out dietary supplements since 1999. They’re now not backed through any emblem. They purchase merchandise off the shelf, take a look at them for purity, efficiency, and contamination, and post the effects. Bring to mind it like Shopper Studies, however for dietary supplements. Their checking out has flagged more than one standard magnesium merchandise for contamination with lead, cadmium, and arsenic. The very factor I used to be taking to give protection to my well being will have been quietly including to my poisonous load. I finished right away.
And that’s now not the one downside. Maximum dietary supplements include only one type of magnesium. However your frame makes use of magnesium in loads of various processes — your mind wishes a distinct shape than your muscular tissues, which want a other shape than your bones and tooth. Taking only one shape is like hanging gasoline for your automobile however by no means converting the oil, the coolant, or the brake fluid.
There are seven crucial paperwork, and every one goals one thing other. Maximum merchandise provide you with one. Possibly two.
Right here’s what most of the people don’t understand till it’s too past due.
You’ll be able to’t essentially really feel when a magnesium deficiency is going on.
Same old blood assessments don’t even catch it — simplest about 1% of your frame’s magnesium is for your blood serum, and NHANES hasn’t even measured serum magnesium ranges in its nationwide well being survey since 1974. It is advisable be deeply poor and your labs would glance completely commonplace. The scientific gadget actually isn’t on the lookout for it.
By the point you understand the delicate tooth, the mind fog, the jaw ache, the insomnia — it’s conceivable that, through that time, you’ve been working on empty for years. And each day with out sufficient magnesium is an afternoon your tooth, your mind, and your sleep fall a bit additional at the back of.
Right here’s how deep this is going:
A 2017 randomized medical trial (Tarleton et al., PLOS One) discovered that magnesium supplementation produced clinically vital enhancements in each melancholy and nervousness — and the consequences confirmed up in simply two weeks. Whoa.
A dose-response meta-analysis in BMC Medication (Fang et al., 2016) discovered that each and every further 100mg/day of nutritional magnesium was once related to a 22% decrease chance of center failure. A separate meta-analysis in Diabetes Care discovered a equivalent dose-response: each and every 100mg/day increment was once related to a 14% aid in kind 2 diabetes chance throughout 13 cohort research involving over 536,000 other folks.
And a landmark 2018 paper within the Open Center magazine referred to as subclinical magnesium deficiency “a predominant motive force of heart problems and a public well being disaster.” No longer a contributor. A predominant motive force. And that’s a peer-reviewed cardiovascular magazine pronouncing it.
This isn’t one thing you repair later. Later is how other folks finally end up with cracked molars at 55, or early cognitive decline, or a mouth filled with dental paintings that can have been have shyed away from.
What I for my part take — and why I switched.
After the heavy steel scare, I spent months researching. I wanted a magnesium that was once third-party examined for purity, and that contained all seven paperwork so my mind, my muscular tissues, my bones, my tooth, and my worried gadget have been all in fact getting what they wanted.
I discovered one. It’s the one one I’ve come throughout that assessments each and every field — and it handed ConsumerLab’s impartial checking out for purity, efficiency, and heavy metals.
You’ll be able to see precisely what it’s and why I vetted it right here, however I can say this:
Since switching, my tooth are much less delicate. My sleep is deeper. My spouse and I each take it. It’s most likely the only complement that if I have been compelled to drop the entirety else, I’d stay.
See the precise magnesium I take each and every night time.
Just about part folks are poor. Virtually none folks comprehend it. And the results are silent till they’re now not.
— Dr. Mark Burhenne (Dr. B)
P.S. I’ve had sufferers inform me this one alternate — simply getting the proper magnesium — did extra for his or her tooth than years of pricey dental paintings mixed. I want I may just return and inform each and every affected person I’ve ever had. As an alternative, I’m telling you.
Additional Studying & Citations
My earlier deep dives on magnesium:
Research cited on this e-newsletter:
1. Jia et al. (2016). “Diagenesis-inspired response of magnesium ions with floor teeth mineral modifies homes of human tooth.” Acta Biomaterialia, 37, 174–183. PubMed
2. Jia et al. (2020). “Magnesium incorporation into number one dental teeth and its impact on mechanical homes.” Acta Biomaterialia, 120, 190–200. PubMed
3. Alateeq, Okay., Walsh, E.I. & Cherbuin, N. (2023). “Nutritional magnesium consumption is expounded to greater mind volumes and decrease white topic lesions with notable intercourse variations.” Ecu Magazine of Vitamin, 62(5), 2039–2051. PubMed
4. Abbasi, B. et al. (2012). “The impact of magnesium supplementation on number one insomnia in aged: A double-blind placebo-controlled medical trial.” Magazine of Analysis in Scientific Sciences, 17(12), 1161–1169. PubMed
5. Tarleton, E.Okay. et al. (2017). “Position of magnesium supplementation within the remedy of melancholy: A randomized medical trial.” PLOS One, 12(6), e0180067. PubMed
6. Fang, X. et al. (2016). “Nutritional magnesium consumption and the danger of heart problems, kind 2 diabetes, and all-cause mortality: a dose-response meta-analysis of potential cohort research.” BMC Medication, 14, 210. PubMed
7. Dong, J.Y. et al. (2011). “Magnesium consumption and chance of kind 2 diabetes: meta-analysis of potential cohort research.” Diabetes Care, 34(9), 2116–2122. PubMed
8. DiNicolantonio, J.J., O’Keefe, J.H. & Wilson, W. (2018). “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a predominant motive force of heart problems and a public well being disaster.” Open Center, 5(1), e000668. PubMed
