Tag: joint health

Flex Hx

Flex Hx

Flex Hx Dr. Claire Arcidiacono, ND   Recently I was doing a consult with someone regarding a sprained ankle. When I recommended Flex Hx we soon realized that there’s no blog on the benefits of Flex Hx! So here it is! All about the amazing 

Collagen Known for Joint & Skin Health, Is Also Good for Muscle, Invite Health Podcast, Episode 657

Collagen Known for Joint & Skin Health, Is Also Good for Muscle, Invite Health Podcast, Episode 657

Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. COLLAGEN KNOWN FOR JOINT & SKIN HEALTH, IS ALSO GOOD FOR MUSCLE, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 657 Hosted by Jerry Hickey, PH *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ 

UC-II for your Arthritic Dog, Invite Health Podcast, Episode 654

UC-II for your Arthritic Dog, Invite Health Podcast, Episode 654


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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.

UC-II FOR YOUR ARTHRITIC DOG, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 654

Hosted by Jerry Hickey, PH

*Intro Music*

InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed health care professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that Invite health has to offer at, www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code podcast at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started. † [00:00:34]

*Intro Music*

Jerry Hickey, Ph: [00:00:41] Hi. Good morning. My name’s Jerry Hickey, I’m a licensed pharmacist. I’m a specialist in nutrition, and for years I’ve been using a product called UC-II. I’ll get right to it because I have a little bit of osteoarthritis in my left knee, and it really has stabilized it magnificently. I have zero pain. I’ll give you a little history on my pain. My wife and I were living in Manhattan, and it was a lot of fun. I have to tell you, we used to take these wonderful walks on Saturdays and Sundays. Saturday, I do my radio program, and after that I’d meet my wife down by the radio station and we would walk around the southern part of Manhattan, you know, down by the village and Soho and all that. And it would be miles, and all of a sudden, at one point, very quickly, it seemed to happen, I couldn’t walk that far. I could only like do a mile and I’d have pretty bad knee pain. I mean, even just stepping off the curb to go on to the street or stepping up onto the curb, it hurt. So, we moved for reasons particularly to be near my two sons. We moved out to Long Island, and we moved in close proximity to my two sons, which has been great. And when I bought a house out in a place called Westbury, just walking up the stairs was killing me. Oh, it was terrible, I had to hold on to the banister, walking down the stairs, I had to hold onto the banister to stabilize myself, that’s how bad the pain was. In any event, around the same time I bought the house, this stuff came on the market. It’s called UC-II, and what it is, it’s cartilage from chicken, from the rooster’s coxcomb, it’s standardized cartilage and it supplies a small amount of undenatured type two collagen. And there had been a number of studies on this ingredient for years, there were studies on, and it looked really good. I mean these were like the University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut, the University of California, Davis. So, a lot of dependable academic research institutions were investigating this ingredient and getting good results. And there was also a great deal of interest in the in the veterinary world for this ingredient because it’s extremely safe. It’s 1,000,000% made in America. It’s nontoxic, it’s very safe, and it really works. So, in any event, I started taking this ingredient, and within the first week, I noticed that stepping off the curb, I was walking my two dogs, stepping off the curb, didn’t hurt. By the second weekend to it, I could go to the gym and stand and lift barbells and dumbbells and not have pain. It’s not like I was doing squats or anything, I couldn’t, yeah, I wasn’t set up for that. I never did squats anyway. I don’t I don’t like squats, but, you know, lifting weights was fine and walking, I could walk a mile with my two dogs and have zero pain. So, it was pretty amazing. But it was about the fourth weekend to it, it was actually the 28th day into it and I realized I was running up and down the stairs with zero pain. I was bringing some decorations up to my two sons’ bedrooms, you know, some lamps and stuff. My two sons are older, but they would visit me and stay with me for a while. In fact, one kid moved in with me for like two years, which was fine. I loved it, to be honest with you, he is a good friend. You know, eventually your son’s become your friend. In any event, I noticed that, like, it was my third trip up the stairs, and I was kind of like, running up the stairs without pain. So, it worked for me. † [00:04:28]

[00:04:30] And I started looking at the research on animals because we have a lot of clients and some of them have these older golden retrievers and these big dogs that are a little bit lame. They’re having pain, and it was working on these dogs because I had investigated this product for the dog. So that’s actually the theme of this podcast episode today. UC-II for your arthritic dog and it’s really safe. That’s the title, “UC-II, for your arthritic dog.” In any event, my name is Jerry Hickey. Like I said, I’m a licensed pharmacist and chief scientific officer over here at Invite Health. You can find all of our podcasts for free wherever you listen to podcasts, or just go to, invitehealth.com/podcast. There are hundreds of hundreds of these done by different health professionals. You can also find Invite on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health. Now, all of the information on today’s podcast is explained in the podcast description. So, let’s talk about some of these studies on this ingredient for animals. Now, this first study for animals is actually in the journal Animals. How apropos is that? It’s from February 27th of this year. So, it’s very new, it’s very new. In any event, this is a meta-analysis, a meta-analysis. I’ve explained in previous podcast episodes. They take reliable studies, studies that are well-designed and well-reported and lacking bias, and they put them together because this gives you a lot more people and a lot more researchers. So, it’s a more powerful indication that something works, or it doesn’t work. And if one of these meta-analyses are performed properly, it really tells you something works or not. Now, here’s the thing, usually a meta-analysis takes away from the power of a drug or a diet or an exercise or a nutritional supplement or a vitamin. So, when you get results in a meta-analysis and it’s positive, it really is positive. So, it’s the journal Animals, it’s February 27 of this year. Researchers in Spain collated the data. They found 14 really reliable studies on animals and a type two collagen really reduced pain from osteoarthritis. So let me explain what that is before we go back into the study. Osteoarthritis is that wear and tear, one that most people get like in typically in their knee, but it can also typically occur in the hip. It can occur in any joint, you know, can occur in the shoulder or the fingers, but it’s typically the knee or the hip, that’s the most common arthritis by far, affects 70 or more percent of all arthritis cases are osteoarthritis. So, it improved their lameness, it improved their general state. They could walk further, they could walk faster, they can have fun. They were wagging their tails. It increased their level of physical activity. So, you know, they were a lot easier for them to maybe go for a Frisbee or chase a ball or just get outside the backyard and just go all around and do that rooting and digging that they like to do. It improved their mobility, what you’re looking for. And like I said, it improved their lameness. And here’s the researchers, the veteran veterinary researcher said that this stuff it’s called UC-II, is a valid option and it’s safe. So, it’s a valid option for animals with arthritis. It’s been studied as far as I know, in just three animals that’s been studied in horses and it worked, but of course horses are huge, you have to give them a big dosage. And it worked in dogs, and it worked in cats, and it was very safe. † [00:08:12]

[00:08:13] Now, here’s an interesting study because they’re comparing the UC-II, to a NSAID, an NSAID is an abbreviation, it stands for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. So, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, would include aspirin, Advil and Motrin and Nuprin, which are Ibuprofen, Aleve, which is naproxen sodium, Celebrex, which is celecoxib. So, there’s like 20 or 30 drugs. The problem with most of those drugs, some of them burn holes in your stomach. Many of them can trigger high blood pressure and even strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney damage. They can trigger asthmatic attacks, some of these drugs. They are implicated in hearing problems like tinnitus, ringing in the ears and they’re also implicated in a little bit of toxicity to the eye, increasing the risk of developing cataracts. Now, like my mother has spinal pain and her doctor told her, you can’t use these drugs because they’ll raise your blood pressure. I’m not talking about aspirin, that doesn’t raise your blood pressure. But drugs like Advil and Celebrex, which are commonly prescribed like their candy. So, in this case, they’re comparing the UC-II, undenature type two collagen, to celecoxib, which is a NSAID. And this is in Italy, they use this drug in Italy, in a veterinary setting. So, this story is similar to Advil, Aleve, where it’s more similar to Celebrex, which is celecoxib. So, it’s a 30-day study in 76 dogs with arthritis, osteoarthritis, you know, not the autoimmune arthritis like rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis or lupus arthritis, and not the spinal arthritis. So, it’s just a regular like arthritis they’d get like, you know, in their knees and their mobility in 30 days significantly improved in both groups. So, the drug worked. The UC-II worked. If you added them together, it was a very powerful result. So, if you, if they had arthritis bad enough that they needed a drug, if you added the UC-II on top of the drug, it was very powerful. It was very powerful. So, both of them worked. The results from the UC-II, was similar to the drug, in results and adding UC-II to the drug was better than using either agent alone, using UC-II alone or using a drug alone. So, that’s pretty amazing. At Four Rivers Kennel, is an interesting place, it’s in Walker, Missouri, and Four Rivers Kennel was founded, I think, in the 1990s to research nutrition in dogs because nobody was really doing it in the 1980s and 1990s. They weren’t doing a good enough job. So, to research food and nutrition and vitamins and minerals and stuff in dogs specifically, by the way, in Golden Retrievers, it was specific for golden retrievers, but it’s going to be the same for dogs in general. So, these are researchers in Walker, Missouri, at the Four Rivers Kennel. They published a study in Translational Animal Science on August 27, 2022, so it’s a very recent study. Now the dogs are free to run on about 180 acres. So, these dogs, it’s a rural setting in Missouri, it’s like a big ranch. So, they’re looking at the best food and nutrition, so, here they’re concerned because these dogs can have arthritis and they don’t want to give them drugs. So, they’re looking for a valid option. So, they gave them UC-II, and it improved their pain. These are otherwise healthy dogs, but they’re getting a lot of exercise on these 180 acres. So, some of them are older, they are starting to get a little arthritis. So, they you know, it’s interesting because they did a similar study in humans. People didn’t have arthritis, but when they went to the gym, they had knee pain, but the doctors could not find arthritis. And when they gave them, UC-II going to the gym, the knee pain went away in weeks. So, you know, that was interesting. I’m wondering if it could prevent arthritis. I don’t see why it wouldn’t, because it reduces inflammation in the knee. And that, of course, would help prevent by heading off the damage that can lead to what they can contribute to arthritis. † [00:12:38]

DON’T ACCEPT CHRONIC PAIN AS NORMAL, BIOCURCUMIN AND 5-LOXIN CAN HELP. INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 628>>LISTEN NOW!

[00:12:40] Now, Murray State University in Kentucky has the Breathitt Veterinary center. It’s a very famous veterinary center. They do a lot of research there. So, looking at dogs with arthritis, now, they’ve done a number of studies using UC-II at the Breathitt Veterinary center at Murray State University in Kentucky, because they’re into animal husbandry and everything like that, agriculture. So, they’re looking at pain in dogs with arthritis and they gave them the UC-II, now we have UC-II in a product called Cartilage Hx, it’s a great product. They’re looking at the UC-II alone or along with glucosamine contributing or a placebo, placebo is a fake pill. But it’s interesting that you give a dog placebo. A dog doesn’t know it’s getting medicine. I would think, maybe after time they would know, you know, maybe they could reason to that. Dogs are a lot smarter than we think they are. So, they give them either UC-II alone or they’re giving them the UC-II alone with glucosamine chondroitin, or they’re giving them glucosamine chondroitin alone or they’re giving them a placebo. So, they really did their due diligence, they really designed a great study, it’s over 120 days. Now, UC-II really reduced pain by a third, within the first month, a third reduced pain. And then they look at pain upon manipulation like the veterinarian is moving the limb that was reduced by two thirds, that’s amazing. That’s a really good result. But that was over eight weeks. Lameness improved by almost half by eight weeks, lameness improved by almost half. So, there was a real improvement there. But here’s the thing, it was 120-day study, this is 60 days into the study. The improvement continued to get better, they continued to have less pain and better mobility over the next two months. So, not only had they improved in the first month and improved even more by the second month, but it got better and better and better. So, at the end of the four months, at the end of the 120 days, pain was reduced by 62% without giving a drug. Now pain reduction with manipulation was reduced by 91%, lameness decreased by 80%. UC-II was superior to glucosamine chondroitin by far. I mean, it was like three times better than glucosamine chondroitin. Glucosamine Chondroitin can help with minor, mild pain, mild, moderate pain. The UC-II even helps with severe pain, apparently. So, the UC-II is far superior to glucosamine chondroitin, adding glucosamine chondroitin didn’t really help the UC-II do any better. So, if you’re going to use UC-II, is it smart to add the glucosamine chondroitin? It’s still worthwhile because glucosamine chondroitin gets incorporated into the joint. So, even though it won’t reduce pain further, it is part of the makeup of the joint tissue. So, it’s not a bad idea to give a little bit of glucosamine chondroitin. Now to supplement was extremely safe. Here’s the thing, they stopped a supplement to see what would happen, with a month, within a month, the symptoms came back within a month. They were in pain, they were having problems with mobility, the lameness came back, the pain upon being examined by a veterinarian doctor came back. So, the UC-II, two definitely had a profound effect. † [00:16:27]

ICYMI:CURCUMIN FOR EXERCISE-RELATED MUSCLE PAIN, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 653>>LISTEN NOW!

[00:16:28] Now, I’ve prescribed it to a number of our clients with dogs, with arthritis. Oddly, some of these dogs were smaller. I remember one guy had a Boston terrier. I mean, I never expected a dog that small to get arthritis, but it had it, it really helped these dogs, and it was easier to give them. They would take the UC-II, and just mixing it into their chow. So, they didn’t even have to stick one capsule down their throat because that’s the beauty of UC-II, I mean, I use them myself. I take one capsule in the morning. You could take it either with food or without. It won’t matter, it won’t affect it; it’s going to work. So, if you have a dog or a cat or even a horse, but a horse, you have to give a big dosage to, that’s a whole different thing. There are studies showing it’s safe in these animals and it’s really effective for their lameness and their pain and improving their mobility and their ability to get out there and have a little bit of fun and be a dog or a cat again. So, in any event, I want to thank you for listening today. My name is Jerry Hickey, I’m the nutritional pharmacist, licensed pharmacist and senior scientific officer over here at Invite Health. I want to thank you for listening. Like I said before, all of the invite podcasts you can get for free any place you listen to podcasts or just go to invitehealth.com/podcast. Please leave a review and subscribe, they ask me to say that. I always feel awkward saying that, but yeah, what can I tell you? And I’m sure if you like it, you’re going to subscribe anyway. So, the thing is, but the review would be cool. I’d like to see that. And you can also find Invite on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health. Thanks for listening. Have a great day. Jerry Hickey signing off. † [00:16:28]

*Exit Music*

invite health podcast disclaimer

jerry hickey invite health podcast

Summary on Joint Health

Summary on Joint Health

Written by: Dr.Claire Arcidiacono, ND For further questions or concerns email me at [email protected]† We have reached the end of our conversation on joints. In this blog series I have tried to cover the most common joint dysfunctions that can occur. In addition, I have tried 

Joint Surgery, Part 2 & Supplements That Can Help Post-Surgery.

Joint Surgery, Part 2 & Supplements That Can Help Post-Surgery.

  Written by:  Dr.Claire Arcidiacono, ND For further questions or concerns email me at [email protected] Last week we started a review of different surgical interventions that your doctor may recommend. Today we will complete this topic. We will cover resurfacing surgery, arthrodesis and small joint surgery. 

Magnesium Is The Ignored Mineral For Bone Strength, Invite Health Podcast, Episode 639

Magnesium Is The Ignored Mineral For Bone Strength, Invite Health Podcast, Episode 639


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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.

MAGNESIUM IS THE IGNORED MINERAL FOR BONE STRENGTH, INVITEⓇ HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 639

Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph.

*Intro Music*

InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed health care professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that Invite Health has to offer at invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code podcast at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started.† [00:00:34]

*Intro Music*

Jerry Hickey, Ph: [00:00:41] Magnesium is an incredibly important mineral. Yet most Americans, most of us, do not consume enough magnesium on a daily basis. This has a profound effect on our health, everything from sleep awareness, energy, heart health, magnesium. And everybody starts their magnesium discussion like this, but it’s so important to point this out. Magnesium is involved in over 300 biological reactions. So, it’s literally involved with everything in the body. For instance, when you make energy out of food, when you make energy out of sugars and the Krebs citric acid cycle, that energy is in the form of a molecule called ATP and ATP releases a phosphorus, am I getting boring here? I’ll try not to. This has to be stabilized by the mineral, magnesium or all your energy will just go off in a flash. So, magnesium is like key to everything, your energy, your mental health, your blood pressure, your heart rate, and all your other muscle functions, the rate of all the muscles firing. So, I would say, you know, we could talk about magnesium forever, I’ll just say, and so on and so forth, etc., etc., etc.. However, what is frequently neglected is that magnesium is a major player in bone health, and that’s what we’re going to discuss today. We’re going to go over some studies, we’re going to go over some doses and by the way magnesium in food, it’s in green leafy vegetables like spinach and broccoli and lettuce. It’s in nut, it’s in grains, but it’s not the easiest thing to derive from food, so you’re probably better off getting some level of supplementation, doesn’t have to be a high amount. And there is a sweet spot, it seems, for magnesium supplementation or the amount of magnesium we should consume every day. So, at any event, my name’s Jerry Hickey. I’m a pharmacist, a licensed pharmacist, I’m also the senior scientific officer over here at Invite Health. And I’ve really focused on nutrition throughout my career, ever since the 1970s. Taken many courses, you can find all of our podcasts for free wherever you listen to podcast or just go to invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health. And all of the information on today’s episode is listed in the episode description. So, let’s go over a simple study from Virginia Commonwealth University, that’s in Richmond, Virginia, Sabi University School of Medicine, which is in the Caribbean, the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. And they said with age there’s an imbalance of bone resorption and bone formation, I’ll explain what that is in a minute, and this leads to brittle bones. Calcium and vitamin D are particularly of importance for bone health, but magnesium is also a major player. It plays a number of important roles in building bone health. This is very important with the passage of time as you age. So, there’s all kinds of hormones and vitamins and minerals and factors involved with building bone, bone is living tissue. Bone does a lot of things, it creates a lot of your cells, it creates your red blood cells and your immune cells, you know, your white blood cell and your platelets. And bone sort of converses with each other, for instance, if the bones in your arm, see that your arms are doing more work, the bones in your arms will favor themselves and thicken. Whereas if you’re doing a lot more work with your knees, the bones in your thighs might get thicker. Very interesting. But the bone seems to have a language and it’s also a storehouse for things. So, our bone is built with osteoblasts, and it’s removed by osteoclasts. And every ten years you replace your entire skeleton, which typically is about 10lbs. So every year you’re replacing 10% of your skeleton, that’s a lot. So, these osteoblasts have to take all of the different things, collagen and calcium and phosphorus and magnesium all work together and build bone. There’s a lot of things involved with building bone and there’s a balance. The osteoclasts remove the old bone, otherwise the bone gets brittle anyway. But what happens with age? The osteoblasts fizzle out, they’re the ones that build bone and the osteoclasts go on working and you get an imbalance and you start to get brittle bones. I mean, this is very common in older people. More common than you think. It’s dangerous. † [00:05:30]

[00:05:32] Hip fractures are, could be potentially deadly. So, there are different things that support the osteoblasts. I’ve gone into this a number of times, minerals like strontium, etc. You get strontium in a lot of healthy foods like asparagus and broccoli and spinach a little bit and garlic and onion. So, let’s go on with magnesium, we’re really focusing on magnesium here. The IRSCCS Foundation is a major research foundation among, Italy. I’ve over a number of their studies previously, and they worked with the University of Pavia in Italy. They published their findings in August 2021. Looking at magnesium and bone health, and what they did was an update. They reviewed current research. This, by the way, there’s thousands of studies looking at magnesium and bone health. So, I just you know, I just picked out some, probably not even the best because who has like a month just look at magnesium studies. That’s where AI comes in, by the way. So, this is an update to look at magnesium and bone health. They chose 28 studies, now, nine of the studies looked at what happens if you have low magnesium in the blood, looking at magnesium in the blood is better than asking people what they ate and trying to figure out how much magnesium was in the food,that has a lot of risks to it. That’s kind of like not the best way to get your data. So, they looked at magnesium in the blood, this way, there’s no fooling the researchers. And they found that if the blood level, if the serum level of magnesium is low, it’s strongly related to osteoporosis, up to 40% of the test subjects in their study, especially menopausal women, were very low in magnesium, and low magnesium was also linked with an increased risk of fracture, what you would think it would. Now, they looked at seven other studies that they included in their research, and they found that magnesium as a supplement, consistently connected with better bone health, consistently connected with thicker bone, mineral density, stronger bones, thicker bones, consistently connected with a lower incidence of fractures, a lower risk of fractures. There really is data on magnesium and bone health. You really need to include magnesium as part of your supplementation. I’ve told people this for years. Tufts University, Center for Aging in Boston. Two thirds of your magnesium belong. in your bones. Okay. Well, that’s you know, we know that. But it’s important to note that most of the magnesium in your body is not in your muscles or in your brain or in your heart. It’s in your bones showing how important it is to pull, not at there’s so much in the bone. It’s one, as far as minerals go, it’s one of the lower concentrations. That doesn’t mean it’s not important. It’s extremely important because one of the things it does, it anchors calcium into the bone. Calcium hooks up to something called the bone mineral matrix, organic bone mineral matrix. And it’s the magnesium that kind of makes the connection. † [00:09:00]

FROM BONES TO OSTEOPENIA: THE BENEFITS OF CALCIUM- INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 584>>LISTEN NOW!

[00:09:02] So here’s Takahashi Dental School, Dental Clinic in Japan and dental school in Japan. And they say that there is a connection between jawbone related bone loss and general loss of bone throughout your body. So as the body goes with bone loss, so does the jaw. They go on to say magnesium is strongly related. Not only does it help build bone throughout your body, but it also builds strong bone in your jaw, and it builds strong teeth. And they said this is really important because you need magnesium supplementation after a dental implanting procedure to prevent the loss of a tooth. Well, that, it’s anchoring the teeth. So, here’s the journal Nutrients, that’s one of my go to journals. March 7th, 2023, at the University of Palermo. Palermo does a lot of research on bone health by the way. Magnesium is a major component of bone; they did a systematic review and meta-analysis looking at blood levels of magnesium and fracture risk and fracture incidence. So, they wanted to not ask people, what did you eat for breakfast for the past ten years to try and figure out how much magnesium they were getting. You know what I mean? Not questioning them about the food state for breakfast, lunch and dinner and snack. They went right into the blood, that’s more foolproof. And this is thousands of people, it’s 120,000 participants or just shy of 120,000 participants. So, a systematic review means they collated all the worthwhile studies that are lacking bias, etc., and that are well reported and well-designed and well-constructed. So, they got good studies looking at magnesium in the blood, that included almost 120,000 participants. Lower blood levels of magnesium really connected with an increased risk of fracture, a 58% relative risk increase, a 58% increased your relative risk of developing a fracture, it’s a strong association. That’s a strong association. It’s a strong association. They said it’s a strong association. So, magnesium, from what I’ve read, is about 1% of bone, now, that could be off. You know, sometimes the studies are not 1,000,000% accurate, but it’s about 1% of bone. But it’s really important because it hooks calcium into the bone. The calcium can’t escape if you have enough magnesium. If you lack magnesium, the bone crystals of calcium expand, and the bone becomes really easy to break. It becomes very frail, but magnesium does more than hooking calcium into your bone. It also is involved with other nutrients, the activation of other nutrients. For instance, you need magnesium to activate melatonin, melatonin is a nighttime hormone. Now, melatonin is released by immune cells, it’s important for the immune system to kill cancer cells, to kill viruses, you know, like the flu. And melatonin is also important for healthy digestion. And of course, melatonin has something to do with our circadian rhythm, night versus day. And that’s important because at night you cleanse your brain, you detoxify your brain. At night, you rebuild your brain and your memory components of the brain. But at night you also build bone, and there’s a strong tie in between melatonin and bone manufacture. You do your bone building at night when you’re sleeping. So if you lack magnesium, your melatonin is much less effective and there’s less melatonin. So one thing magnesium does besides hooking calcium into the organic matrix of the bone, it’s involved with melatonin function, and melatonin is involved with building bone. † [00:13:04]

[00:13:06] The other thing, magnesium is involved with activating vitamin D. Now, typically in the old days, there was an interaction between the sun on your skin and you made a precursor to vitamin D that was stored in your liver and that was slowly released on went to the kidneys and it was activated by hormones. You need magnesium to activate the vitamin D, if you’re lacking magnesium, Vitamin D is less effective. And we know vitamin D is involved with brain health. We know vitamin D to a degree is involved with heart health. It’s definitely involved with all your other muscles, it’s involved with your eye balls, I mean, it’s involved with just about everything. Strong teeth, strong muscle, but it’s also involved with the       immune system. Of course, Vitamin D is involved with building bone, and how is vitamin D involved with building bone? Well, vitamin D controls the absorption of calcium and phosphorus from both food and supplements. Calcium and phosphorus are both major components in your bone. So, without vitamin D, you’re not absorbing calcium and phosphorus, nor do you retain the Calcium & phosphorus that’s in the bloodstream, you’ll lose them in your urine. So, you need vitamin D activity to absorb both calcium and phosphorus and to maintain blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. Now, it’s important to mention this at this point, vitamin D is not what chaperons calcium. It’s not what pushes calcium into the bone, it just makes it available. It’s truly vitamin K that chaperons calcium and pushes it into the bone. So, if you’re doing a lot of vitamin D, you really should be in a lot of Vitamin K unless there’s an issue. So, discuss that with your doctor. Now, one of the reasons why vitamin D is less effective when you, when you lack magnesium is because your parathyroid hormone is not functioning well. So, it’s hard to work with these minerals. So, how much magnesium do you need? Well, some studies show that consuming above 350 milligrams of magnesium daily reduces the incidence of dying from heart disease and heart attacks and strokes from bone fractures, from diabetes and even from cancer. So, here’s some bone related studies indicating the dosage of magnesium that you basically would need on a daily basis. This is the Neuroscience Institute, the aging branch in Padova, Italy, and the physiotherapy division of the National Health Service in London. So, it’s in the British Journal of Nutrition, January 2017. It’s a large eight yearlong study looking at magnesium as a supplement and magnesium from foods, they’re looking at magnesium from all sources, it’s just shy of 4000 participants. So that’s a well powered study, almost 4000 participants over eight years. Higher incidence of magnesium really reduced fracture risk, it reduced fracture risk in men by 53% and women magnesium reduced fracture risk by 62%. Now, the normal recommended amount, reduced fracture risk in women by 27%. So, a higher dosage than what’s recommended reduced fracture risk in women by 62%, this was a strong protective effect. And the best dosage for women, the best amount per day was 400 milligrams a day for women. Here’s the problem, less than 30% of the people in the study consumed the RDA of magnesium, never mind the higher dosage of magnesium. So, it really is an issue, it really is an issue. † [00:16:44]

ICYMI:HOW TO STOP MUSCLE MASS LOSS AS YOU AGE, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 629>>LISTEN NOW!

[00:16:44] And here’s one last study as the European Journal of Epidemiology, It’s the University of Bristol in England, they led the study, the University of Eastern Finland and the internal medicine department, Central Finland Hospital. So, it’s an English Finnish study. It’s 2245 men between the age of 42 to 61, when they entered the study. So, almost 2300 men entered the study between the age of 42 to 61. They were followed for up to 26 years, and they were looking at the blood level of magnesium, the serum blood level of magnesium, which again, is more bulletproof than asking people what they ate, it’s more dependable. Those with the lowest magnesium intake had a 210% increased risk of any fracture. A 210% increased risk of any fracture. People with the lowest intake of magnesium, men with the lowest intake of magnesium over a 26 year period, including fractures of the ankle, the wrist, the spine, the hip. None of the men with a higher intake of magnesium had a fracture over the 26 years, over the 26-year time period, none of the men, none, zero, 0% of the men with higher magnesium intake had a fracture, and that’s saying a lot. Low magnesium led to fractures, really increased the risk of fractures. Don’t forget, men release testosterone, and testosterone itself helps build thick bones. So, they found that men with low magnesium, listen to this, not only did they have a 210% increased risk of any fracture, they had up to a 256% increased risk of a hip fracture. A 256% increased risk of a hip fracture. Hip fractures are particularly deadly in men. Now, here’s the interesting thing, supplements seem to be more dependable, more effective in reducing fracture risk. Well, yeah, that would be true because, you know, you’re getting it if you take a supplement. Magnesium is one of those supplements I really want people to take. Every evening with my dinner, I take a calcium- magnesium tablet. Now I’m getting the other bone building nutrients throughout the day. I get a lot of vitamin D with my breakfast because I’m taking supplements of vitamin D, I take vitamin D3, which is the most active form. I’m getting 3000 units every morning with my breakfast. And I can take it in the morning because vitamin D is stored, so it lasts all day, lasts for days. I’m getting silica in my vegetables. Silica is important for mineral, for building bone. I get collagen as a supplement after I exercise. It’s one of the things I take after exercise. And at night with my dinner, I’m getting calcium and magnesium. I depend on my food for phosphorus, it’s easy to get phosphorus from food. I don’t worry about phosphorus. And I depend on my vegetables for strontium because you don’t need a lot of strontium to build bone. So, in the morning I’m getting my vitamin D, I get a lot of green leafy vegetables every day, that takes care of my vitamin K, that takes care of my silica, that takes care of my strontium. I get plenty of phosphorus in things like lettuce and, you know, fish and beans and things, so I’m not worried about that. And then with dinner I get my calcium-magnesium, so I hope that’s clear. But magnesium, my recommendation, get some magnesium into your life as a supplement, doesn’t have to be a huge amount. Could be 100 milligrams. I’m getting in supplementation daily, 150 milligrams, so I probably get about 400 milligrams a day. You know, it’s going to vary from day to day depending on the source of the food. So, I want to thank you for listening to today’s episode. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to a podcast or just go to invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also find Invite on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health. Oh, and by the way, they ask if I could say, please subscribe and please leave a review, that’s helpful. I want to thank you for listening. And this is Jerry Hickey signing off, and I hope to see you next time on another episode of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. † [00:16:44]

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