Magnesium and its Role in the Heart
Magnesium is a micronutrient and an important mineral for your heart. Magnesium controls your blood pressure and binds to enzymes involved in your energy metabolism. Low magnesium levels can harm your heart, impacting accelerating vascular disease and creating arrhythmic problems. Here are some important functions magnesium plays in your heart and body:
Magnesium Keeps the Heart Pumping
Magnesium supports a range of cellular processes, including transferring and storing energy; supporting the metabolism of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Magnesium also protects your cells and controls hormone secretion. There is a lot of magnesium in the cardiac ventricles because it is essential for the heart's ability to pump blood throughout your body.
The cells in your heart and blood arteries contain ion transport channels, which carry ions like sodium, potassium, and calcium in and out of your cells and generate muscular contractions. Magnesium helps keep the ion pump functioning properly to keep the heart beating regularly. This means that a magnesium deficiency can cause irregular cardiac rhythms called arrhythmias.
Magnesium Helps Decrease Blood Pressure
Magnesium can also help lower blood pressure. Increased magnesium and potassium intake, combined with a decrease in sodium in your diet, can reduce blood pressure more effectively and be as effective as antihypertensive medicine in treating hypertension.
If you are using diuretics, you might be losing a lot of magnesium through your urine, resulting in low magnesium levels. Magnesium deficiency can cause calcium to build up in your body and cause your heart and blood vessels to spasm, leading to high blood pressure. Magnesium reduces calcium levels in your cells, which helps relax the heart and blood arteries and lowers your blood pressure. Despite this, magnesium supplementation is not conventionally adopted to treat high blood pressure, and additional research is needed to better understand the role of magnesium in managing blood pressure.
Magnesium Regulates Your Blood Sugar Without Straining the Heart
Magnesium also supports the metabolism of insulin and glucose. It helps your cells utilize insulin more effectively and helps your body release insulin. Magnesium also keeps your blood glucose levels in check by aiding the pancreas in producing insulin and removing glucose from circulation. Additionally, persons with lower magnesium intake have poorer blood sugar management and are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. Magnesium supplementation or increasing magnesium in your diet may help people with diabetes regulate their blood sugar levels.
*Nevertheless, if you have type 2 diabetes, you should consult your healthcare professional before taking magnesium.
Magnesium Helps Prevent Cardiovascular Diseases
Magnesium may also help reduce the risk of heart disease because magnesium deficiency causes inflammation and damage to the walls of your blood vessels, resulting in cholesterol deposits (atherosclerosis) in your coronary blood vessels.
Magnesium may also protect your heart by reducing your body’s ability to form platelets. Platelets occur when blood sticks together to form a clot, as is the case after instances of heart attacks or strokes. Because of this, it is unsurprising that magnesium deficiency has been linked to an increased risk of heart diseases.
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