While the world’s attention is riveted by COVID-19, pervasive magnesium deficiency has been an ongoing health crisis for at least sixty years, causing death, disease, and reduced quality of life. Magnesium plays many important roles in heart health, and a deficiency of this important mineral is a major risk factor for having a sudden, fatal heart attack! As one of the body’s most significant anti-inflammatory compounds, magnesium also helps to prevent the chronic diseases that plague our time, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other “co-morbidities” that increase chances of being hospitalized with and dying from COVID-19. In fact, virtually every known illness can be associated with magnesium deficiency.  Magnesium plays many essential roles in the immune system. It contributes significantly to anti-viral immunity, and has other properties that may make it especially useful for COVID-19. Meanwhile, low magnesium levels can seri…

It was an apocalyptic experience to wake up on the morning of September 9th in San Francisco, California, to a darkened sky with an eerie orange glow. And it became stranger still when by mid-afternoon the sky hadn’t changed, as if the day had never begun.  This was a San Franciscan’s eye view of the effects of the worst fire season the West Coast has experienced ever. The air was darkened for two days by a blanket of smoke that stretched all along the coast and more than 1,000 miles west over the Pacific Ocean as wildfires raged from Washington down to Southern California.  Even those who haven’t been in the direct path of the fires leading to loss of property and life have experienced some of the worst air pollution in the world, comparable, according to a study done in Berkeley, to smoking 25 cigarettes a day.  And it didn’t help to know that the consequent lung irritation and inflammation made us more prone to lung infections, like COVID-19. What c…

Everyone knows that fruits and vegetables are good for us. Most people know we don’t get enough. But fewer people know that the nutritional content of conventionally grown fruits and vegetables has been declining steadily since the introduction of chemical farming (sometimes called industrial agriculture) after World War II.Various studies using government data have documented significant nutrient declines in fruits and vegetables from 1930 to the present—declines up to 99% in one case!—in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, potassium, copper, magnesium, riboflavin, vitamin C, and vitamin A, while data on other nutrients like zinc, vitamin B6 and vitamin E weren’t collected until more recently, so no comparisons could be made.Why is nutrient content declining? Partly it’s due to traditional breeding techniques, in which fruits and vegetables are bred for better appearance, sweetness, faster growth, or ease of transport, often at the expense of nutritional quality. But a much larger re…

Facts don’t cease to exist just because they’re ignored – Aldous HuxleyThe above quote introduces nutritionist Ann Louise Gittleman’s book Zapped, about the invisible pollution that is increasing exponentially all around us — electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Nutrition — what we eat and the supplements we take — can play an important role in protecting ourselves from EMFs’ potentially damaging effects. But first, what are EMFs? Anything that produces energy, including the cells in our own bodies, radiates that energy outwards, creating a field of energy, an EMF, that diminishes exponentially as you move away from its source. Some EMFs are healing and some are harmful. The earth radiates healing energy, which is why “earthing” — standing or sitting barefoot, with the soles of your feet in direct contact with the earth — is a scientifically authenticated healing therapy. Other EMFs can be harmful, depending on their intensity and proximity. These include the radio freq…

Widespread magnesium deficiency has been implicated in a host of chronic diseases, including obesity. How would healthy levels of magnesium in our cells help us to attain and maintain a healthy weight, and how does magnesium deficiency sabotage those goals? Fatigue. The number one complaint patients bring to doctors is “feeling tired.” Being unable to lose weight probably ranks a close second.  The two concerns are related: It’s hard to eat less and exercise more when you’re already feeling tired all the time. Fatigue is one of the first signs of magnesium deficiency. Magnesium and the B vitamins are our main energy nutrients, involved in almost every step of energy creation in the cells’ energy factories, the mitochondria. Nutrient Deficiency. Magnesium and the B's activate enzymes that control digestion, absorption and utilization of all three macronutrients—fats, proteins, and carbohydrates—making the vitamins and minerals they contain available for our bodies to use.…