Day 22, past the half-way point! I started Macadamia Nut oil today. It REALLY adds a roasted macadamia nut flavor to the shake. The one I’m drinking now, the flavor is completely overpowered by the oil. I like macadamia nuts but I’m guessing that by the end of this week of doing the oil, I’m not going to want to eat the nuts for a few months, which is a shame. Got my blood tested today, sometime on Wednesday or so I’ll have those results and add them to the spreadsheet.
Let’s talk about Magnesium. Keto Chow 0.9 up to 1.5 used an off-the-shelf Magnesium/Calcium Citrate+D3 powder. Starting with version 1.9 and up through 2.0.2, we’ve been having magnesium citrate mixed in with the vitamin/mineral mix. Magnesium citrate has good bioavailability but has a downfall: in high doses (higher than you get doing Keto Chow 3x a day), it acts as a laxative. People who are sensitive to this effect, or are already on the edge of having “bowel issues” can have problems with the citrate. To fight that, we are switching from citrate to magnesium malate in Keto Chow 2.1. On top of that, I’m increasing the amount of magnesium. Keto Chow 1.9 had 693.3mg a day, 2.0 has 736mg a day, and 2.1 is slated to have 806mg a day. Essentially it’s 2.0 plus the amount of magnesium I was getting in the magnesium malate pills I took before bed. Yes, it’s entirely for my own personal benefit so I don’t have to take an extra pill at night =)
So why Malate? Well, the most common form of magnesium supplements is magnesium oxide. By weight, magnesium oxide is 60% magnesium which means you add 1000mg to your product and you can legitimately claim on the label that it contains 600mg of magnesium. It’s also exceedingly cheap. And… it sucks. Only about 4% of its elemental magnesium is absorbed from magnesium oxide. Let’s take the 736mg of magnesium a day in Keto Chow 2.0 – 4% of that would only be 29.4mg that your body would be able to actually absorb. The citrate version we currently use and the malate version of the future both are readily bioavailable and nearly completely absorbed. If you see a “health” product that uses magnesium oxide, put it down and run away because they plainly don’t care about your health and only want to make the label look good.
Please see this info on absorption of magnesium oxide. According to this article and the sources it sites, the 4% absorption rate is not true!
https://www.algaecal.com/expert-insights/magnesium-oxide-delivers-more-magnesium-with-far-fewer-pills/
I also find that larger doses of magnesium can cause irregular heartbeat for me, so I have to be careful to not take to much. Doing some research, this can be a common side effect if you are getting too much.
Thank you for listening to the community about the Magnesium citrate, I will try the new stuff when it comes out, but I am a little concerned with getting too much magnesium and not being able to use the product.
Their argument is that it may not absorb as much but because it’s more concentrated isn’t relevant unless you’re comparing magnesium supplements by the pill instead of comparing them by mg of elemental magnesium
Since it’s in powdered form, not relevant to Keto Chow. What’s your sweet spot for magnesium without an irregular heartbeat?
You may want to get a nutritionist to review this. The Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the Institute of Medicine set the tolerable upper intake level (UL) for supplemental magnesium at 350 mg/day. The RDA for naturally occurring magnesium is higher, but this level sounds dangerous.
This isn’t supplemental, it’s magnesium in food. That would put it in the RDA category which for the US is 420mg a day. To quote the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations:
So: if you take extra magnesium (and it’s the wrong form of magnesium) you could get the runs. That’s precisely why the formula was switched to magnesium malate.