[HN Gopher] Magnesium Self-Experiments
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Magnesium Self-Experiments
Author : yamrzou
Score : 99 points
Date : 2025-03-09 05:44 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gwern.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (gwern.net)
| ggm wrote:
| Increasingly hard to get Mg tablets without Vitamin B and so
| increasingly easy to get excess B12. Australian formulations of
| magnesium sold by Swisse don't have B. The same branding in HK
| does. I wrote to them about it, interesting response: "check the
| therapeutic goods administration site for canonical ingredients
| we don't commit to labelling the jar" they do list the neutral
| filler and Mg they just don't say "no B12"
|
| B is typically included for synergistic uptake reasons I believe.
|
| Excess B12 is really bad. Neuropathy. Considering you take Mg to
| get rid of muscle cramps (pain, conducted by nerves), a bit
| ironic. It's increasingly common in Australia now.
|
| Excess Mg is unlikely. I think the body chucks it out in Urine
| pretty rapidly. I still take it, the cramps after sport return
| within a few months when I stop. I have a fruit and veg rich
| diet, I get plenty of natural Mg and K which is also good for
| muscle cramps. Age related insufficiency I suspect (63)
| malabsorption comes with age.
| chinathrow wrote:
| My doc said there is no scientific proof that Mg works against
| cramps. Is that true?
| ggm wrote:
| I'd always believe a doctor over anonymous internet
| experiences. If your doctor thinks it's not helpful, follow
| their advice. I found my cramps stopped, but anecdata is not
| evidence.
| askvictor wrote:
| While _on the whole_ I would side with doctors over random
| people on the Internet, I've had a number of cases where
| the doctor has been outright wrong, whether misdiagnosis,
| or not being up to date with current research.
| mantas wrote:
| But it works for me and I know more anecdata cases.
|
| Maybe it depends on technical cause of what seems to be
| cramps. And maybe it helps indirectly by helping some other
| process in the body. But in ny experience there's direct
| correlation between magnesium intake and cramps and nail
| health.
|
| I've a feeling genetics may be involved since my kid also has
| similar tendencies. And doctor we went to for his night
| cramps did suggest magnesium which worked. So whether there's
| research or not, doctors do suggest it and it does seem to
| help at least in some cases.
| haltcatchfire wrote:
| As always with supplements, a deficiency might cause the
| issue (cramps in this case) and the supplement gets you back
| to normal levels, preventing cramps. If you're experiencing
| cramps but don't have a magnesium deficiency, taking
| magnesium supplements won't make the cramps go away.
| oweiler wrote:
| When I started running I had horrible cramps and the mg made
| them much less severe.
|
| Running for a year now, it doesn't seem to make a difference.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| From experience it does work in cases where through intensive
| training and very high 'sweating' both from cardio training
| and saunas you temd to lose a lot of minerals.
| ddorian43 wrote:
| Go train hard in heat/summer until you get cramps. Then get
| electolytes to fix it in a couple of minutes.
|
| Source: I can reproduce this on demand.
| sschueller wrote:
| When I have a cramp in my calf and I take mg in powder form
| it goes away within a minute. I am also no longer able to
| trigger a cramp which I can before taking mg. I don't think a
| placebo would work that quick and that well.
| borgdefenser wrote:
| I mean you should take magnesium if you are deficient on a
| blood test. If you take too much magnesium you will just get
| diarrhea.
|
| The non-blood test way would be to take magnesium until you
| get diarrhea and then take less but that is obviously not a
| pleasant experience.
|
| I take magnesium because it is really obvious when I track
| micro nutrients that I don't get enough in my diet. It mostly
| depends though on how much spinach I am eating.
| freedom_dev wrote:
| Excess B12 is also very easily excreted in urine being a water-
| soluble vitamin so it's really hard to "overdose" on
| ggm wrote:
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-08/vitamin-b6-toxicity-p.
| ..
|
| I got my Bs mixed up it's Mg + B6
| viraptor wrote:
| It's still hard to get a high enough dose to dangerous
| level from other supplements. Bad b6 effects typically
| start over 500mg/day. Usual pills of just b6 are 100mg in
| countries that don't limit it otherwise. The reviews that
| I've read normally described the issues as going away
| within days of stopping.
|
| I wish there was better research on this, because so far
| only weird isolated cases make the news.
| dhedberg wrote:
| > Excess B12 is really bad. Neuropathy.
|
| Do you have any source for this? I can find some "it-might-be-
| bad" studies through a quick googling, but in general the idea
| seem to be that excess B12 is thought to be unproblematic
| ("it's just peed out").
| ggm wrote:
| B6 not B12. My bad.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Can confirm, overdosing on Vitamin B6 is bad. Lots of very
| scary symptoms.
|
| I accidentally poisoned myself with B6 from Magnesium
| tablets over the course of a year:
| https://davids.town/vitamin-b6-overdose (my levels were 38x
| the healthy range).
|
| tl;dr: Always check your Magnesium for what else the tablet
| includes. If it contains Pyridoxine hydrochloride (i.e.
| Vitamin B6) or another Pyridoxine compound, find one that
| doesn't. Since then, Swisse is the only brand I've found
| that consistently sells "pure" Magnesium tablets here in
| Australia.
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| Definitely, excess of B6 is bad! https://www.sciencedirec
| t.com/science/article/pii/S216183132...
| mft_ wrote:
| Maybe you should edit your original post?
| ggm wrote:
| Nope. Locked
| manmal wrote:
| Maybe you mean B6, which is associated with small fiber
| neuropathy.
|
| B12 has to jump through a number of hoops before it's even
| converted into a usable form [1].
|
| I'm sure you're meaning well, but B12 deficiency is a wide
| spread problem [2], and it's questionable that excess is worse
| than deficiency.
|
| 1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19832808/#&gid=article-
| figur...
|
| 2: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7792587/
|
| EDIT: After posting, I saw your other comments. Maybe you can
| update parent.
| Jarmsy wrote:
| And one reason for taking B12 is actually to prevent
| neuropathy.
| giantg2 wrote:
| How about Epsom salt? I've never known that to have B added.
| justinator wrote:
| Don't eat epsom salt.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Technically you can (or as a suppository). The great part
| is that you don't need to.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > Excess B12 is really bad. Neuropathy.
|
| How much really is dangerously excess? How do methylcobalamin
| vs cyanocobalamin compare in this regard? I noticed B12
| supplements usually exceed the RDA by some orders of magnitude.
|
| > Increasingly hard to get Mg tablets without Vitamin B
|
| Same problem with iron supplements. Not particularly easy to
| find iron without folic acid. Folic acid can be very harmful
| for people with methylation problems (an extremely widespread
| genetic thing) who should supplement methylfolate instead.
| Whoever feels stimulated and harder to sleep after taking a
| folic acid pill - beware.
| mint2 wrote:
| There's a fair number of brands selling mg alone and fe
| alone. Maybe it's hard outside the US? Or maybe places like
| target and CVS don't carry them - those places do have
| limited options.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Whatever you desire:
|
| https://purebulk.com/search?type=product&q=magnesium
|
| Or grab these next time in Europe. 0.50 Euros effervescent
| tablets https://www.rossmann.de/de/gesundheit-altapharma-
| brausetable...
|
| I never heard about the B12 problem. But effervescent tablets
| without artificial sweetener are unheard off.
| NotGMan wrote:
| I always had cramps no matter how much magnesium I took. It
| wasn't until I went low carb that cramps dissapeared, even
| without taking magnesium.
| wolfi1 wrote:
| Are you a Type II- diabetic? Night cramps seem to appear in
| diabetics when their metabolism is not well adjusted. Did you
| let check your A1C?
| NotGMan wrote:
| Not diabetic. Wore GCM multiple times. Did A1C and insulin
| tests. My body just doens't like carbs.
|
| My cramps weren't night cramps, but sport/exercise cramps.
| mint2 wrote:
| Fun fact - Low magnesium can contribute to type II diabetes.
| It's been found certain people not responding to improved
| diet and medication have the A1C drop after starting mg. Of
| course, if low Mg isn't a factor then supplementation will do
| squat.
| scns wrote:
| Cramps can come from Calcium and Potassium too.
| rapsey wrote:
| I struggled with sleep for years and years. If I exercised the
| insomnia would be the worst. Lately I've figured out that
| magnesium and B6 (p5p form) are the missing piece I have needed.
| I've been taking magnesium for a long time, but B6 finally
| allowed me to actually experience improved sleep after exercise.
| mettamage wrote:
| Neat!
|
| For me: I need 0.3 mg melatonin almost every day to control my
| sleep and do a bunch of other things. The onset is between 1 to
| 3 hours. In practice it means I need to be okay with an early
| wake-up if it kicks in within 1 hour.
|
| When I feel jittery/trembly I need magnesium as my jitters stop
| when I take it.
| piazz wrote:
| > Do a bunch of other things
|
| Curious about this! Currently trying to figure out a good
| 0.3mg melatonin dosing regimine for myself.
| wanderer2323 wrote:
| Hav you read
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-
| th... ?
| terribleperson wrote:
| Be very careful about that B6 dosage. It's possible to overdose
| on b6 at surprisingly low doses. It doesn't usually cause
| permanent damage, but anecdotal reports suggest it can take
| months to a year to recover from b6 neuropathy.
| roenxi wrote:
| Those charts aren't very clear; given that GGPlot is already on
| the scene it'd probably pay dividends to bin the data in some
| form. I'd be starting with geom_boxplot grouped by week myself.
| Trying to interpret that sort of wild squiggling in the 2nd plot
| is not the path to happiness.
| _0ffh wrote:
| Another thing why magnesium oxide could not be the optimal
| compound for you: It's a laxative. That might be good to know
| before you start daily supplementation. Personally, I have
| bisglycinate.
| lifty wrote:
| I've tried probably most forms of Magnesium and they all upset
| my digestion, unless I take a small dose.
| derektank wrote:
| I've been advised that Magnesium supplementation improves the
| efficacy of ibuprofen and acetaminophen in treating tension
| headaches by my physician.
| mattlondon wrote:
| This is great and all but how can you objectively measure
| something like "mood" or "productivity"?
|
| There are a lot of variables, even in your day to day work
| activities (e.g. you never debug & implement a fix for the _exact
| same_ bug twice...one bug might be a satisfying and enjoyable
| activity, another might be a frustrating, difficult, and tedious
| pain in the ass)
|
| I've done similar trials with magnesium glcyinate and personally
| not noticed any difference. But then I have not found any way to
| accurately measure differences between what a "good day" is Vs a
| "bad day". Even without supplementing, it feels like dice roll at
| the best of times
| vasco wrote:
| > There are a lot of variables, even in your day to day work
| activities
|
| I consistently find the only thing I can correlate reliably is
| sleep quality assessment upon waking up. If I feel great and
| rested I know my performance during the day will be better at
| pretty much everything.
| seer wrote:
| I haven't seen any cognitive / mood difference for me when
| taking magnesium supplements in any form.
|
| But then I went to one of those sensory deprivation chambers,
| where they use magnesium salts to change the water's buoyancy.
|
| I felt the most content and happy in my life for a week after.
| It was really bizarre - I would "just not care" about pressures
| at work, failing personal relationships, any stress really.
|
| And I remained effective, just with a higher EQ because I
| wouldn't overthink things.
|
| Tried it some more times with similar effect. So now when I end
| up in a situation where I build up stress and can't seem to get
| to a chill state - just go for a deprivation tank and align
| myself back, though I try not to get into a situation where I
| need one altogether.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I don't know but we can measure stress reliably by HRV. It
| correlates extremely well with fatigue in general. For me
| personally, I think it correlates with mood and productivity
| directly, or at least the preconditions for them.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| The same guy concluded that LSD microdosing is without any
| effects so I'm ready to dismiss his ability to reach any
| conclusion worth listening to.
|
| But he do excel at making a site a pain in the ass to navigate
| and bulking up the volume of text without adding anything
| useful to it.
|
| It reeks of some effective altruist flavored breed of
| pomposity.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Maybe it has no effect?
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11311906/
| Amekedl wrote:
| Refer to Magnesium-based Lifeform from Disco Elysium, it is very
| accurate.
| duskwuff wrote:
| _Some people say magnesium doesn't really do anything and you
| just need to quit. What do we tell them?_
| strstr wrote:
| _We tell them: HELL NO. You're about to become a magnesium-
| based lifeform. The age of the primitive carbon-man is done._
| nurettin wrote:
| These "self experiments" all feel like an elaborate ruse to
| validate their substance abuse.
| teddyh wrote:
| At least 90% of all "bio hackers" right there.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Magnesium -- cheap & plain-as-possible magnesium pills -- are a
| great laxative. I suspect that this has follow-on psychological
| effects. All the expensive pills are just to _avoid_ the laxative
| effect. No further benefit. So if you think a good dump
| contributes to your wellbeing, consider the plain stuff.
| beagle3 wrote:
| There is no such thing as "plain". You can't eat pure
| magnesium. mg oxide is cheap, but apparently mostly laxative.
| Mg citrate is part laxative but also absorbed. Mg glycinate is
| more expensive but avoids the laxative effect.
|
| For the muscle relaxant effect (other than perhaps bowel
| muscles), mg oxide is hardly useful.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| > For the muscle relaxant effect (other than perhaps bowel
| muscles), mg oxide is hardly useful.
|
| This is what I'm questioning. Most of these variants are
| claiming subtler psychological effects -- when the basic
| stuff has a very direct effect that I think is positive.
|
| I always just buy the magnesium pills that just say
| "magnesium."
| mint2 wrote:
| Well please read things more carefully in the future.
|
| No one sells pills of pure magnesium - that would be eating
| metal shavings or metal beads.
|
| It is ALWAYS a magnesium ion paired with an anion of some
| sort. Is that what you mean? Ones with only magnesium salt
| or oxide - I.e citrate, carbonate etc
| xattt wrote:
| > avoid the laxative effect
|
| Why not consider that it might alter the gut flora?
| cyrillite wrote:
| Ah. I just checked a formulation for my old supplements v my
| new ones. I see increased magnesium. This was helpful
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > All the expensive pills are just to avoid the laxative
| effect. No further benefit.
|
| Different substances may have seriously different subjective
| (e.g. on mood, sleep) effect in at least some people (e.g. me).
| I may be a good idea to try bisglycinate, orotate, threanate to
| check whether some of them act the way you like.
| colordrops wrote:
| Theonate gives scary NDE style dreams/out of body
| experiences. It is supposedly a nanoparticle formulation that
| crosses the blood brain barrier. Makes me wonder about
| safety.
| justinator wrote:
| When I started Mag, I had the most incredible psychotic
| dreams -- didn't matter the type for me.
|
| They've gone away unfortunately.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > Theonate gives scary NDE style dreams
|
| Not to me, gives me a full night of deep uninterrupted
| sleep instead.
|
| > out of body experiences
|
| I would pay thousands of dollars for a pill which would
| give me an out of body experience. To me it seems among the
| most important things to have experienced before you die.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Is anyone aware of an app that can facilitate these types of
| experiments ?
|
| Ideal features: Notification to self report
| things such as mood, quality of sleep. Tracking of custom
| activities/actions (whether you worked out, drunk, or whatever)
| Data export in csv :)
| ventedmouse wrote:
| Bevel health might fit that bill https://www.bevel.health/ It's
| an app that tracks your health parameters, automatically giving
| you insights along the way
|
| iOS only and requires an Apple Watch, but the deep of tracking
| coupled with the ease of use is amazing. It gives you a strain,
| recovery and sleep score that is very accurate. It syncs with
| your Apple Watch so you can see in depth markers such as HRV
| and total sleep time, with some metrics that the standard
| health app doesn't show. It automatically tracks a bunch of
| health markers. For example, It keeps track of how much zone 2
| cardio I did, the amount of steps I did, the amount of daylight
| I had in a day, the noise of my bedroom, and a bunch of other
| measurements. You can also add custom measurements. I added one
| for taking my sleep supplements as a custom one, and I can see
| on the days I took it my objective sleep parameters are
| improved. It gives you a percentage score for each activity or
| action and its impact on your sleep or recovery. For example, I
| see if I have a late meal, it negatively impacts my sleep by
| 17%.
|
| It's not the most scientific app out there, but the simplicity
| of its design coupled with its sleek interface has made me
| incorporate some good habits.
|
| Oh god I just noticed how much this sounds like an ad, but it's
| one of my favorite purchases this year!
| elric wrote:
| Some more anecdata: magnesium greatly reduces annoying muscle
| twitches for me. I get them quite frequently when I don't take
| magnesium for a while. Magnesium citrate is easily available
| here, without added vitamin b6. No side effects from what I've
| observed over the years.
| jbotz wrote:
| Also muscle cramps. I like to stretch out all my muscles when I
| first wake up while still in bed and when I don't supplement
| magnesium this has sometimes triggered cramps in leg muscles.
| When supplementing magnesium this never happen, and the
| stretched muscles feel better, more relaxed.
| jnellis wrote:
| I find this to be true as well. I have nerve damage/pressure
| from bad back. If I miss a dose before bed, I almost
| invariably get a calf cramp in the early morning hours before
| waking. Very annoying, only way to get rid of it is get out
| of bed and stand up on it. I think flooding the body with the
| magnesium before bed, before it has a chance to maybe get rid
| of excess perhaps, because taking it too far from bedtime
| I'll still have twitches and cramps.
| K0balt wrote:
| Also lowers blood pressure for me.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Always love to see a Gwern article on the front page. I threw
| some cash his way for changing my life over a decade ago with his
| page on spaced repetition, and more recently for his page on
| using pure nicotine to form other habits.
| codethief wrote:
| > There are no published human trials as of October 2015
|
| This has changed:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9786204/
|
| Notably, though, their results indicate effects on cognition and
| memory, which the OP's experiments don't seem to address.
| ANarrativeApe wrote:
| My understanding is that the human body stores magnesium, said
| stores sufficient for approximately 30 days. As such, daily
| magnesium is far less important that the 30 day moving average.
| zingababba wrote:
| I have similar experiences to gwern with mag, surprisingly easy
| to overdose leading to a less than optimal state. After 25 years
| of messing with supplements I've settled on just thiamine and b12
| with any regularity, and only inject-able at that.
| kvhdude wrote:
| my own anecdotal experience with magnesium : i was generally
| prone to leg cramps even when young that usually subsides when i
| take salty water. i had developed hyperthroidism in late 90s that
| was treated eventually with radio-iodide. subsequently i went
| into hypothyroid state. soon after was a violent cramps episode
| which became regular that even if i took few hundred steps my
| legs would start cramping up. A steep descent into quality of
| life had me try many many tests as the initial suspicion was some
| kind of clot. Quite painful nerve conduction velocity tests were
| done. I was the subject of academic curiosity at stanford
| hospital. I was on codeine and other pain medications. After a
| year of this, one day happened to talk to a regular doctor (no
| specialization), who treats patients from asian subcontinent. He
| said that i may have magnesium deficiency which was apparently
| common for my ethnic background. Since by that time i had tried
| everything, this was an easy choice. Just a couple of weeks in
| with cal-mag citrate (400mg/day), felt something different in my
| legs and the whole nigthmare just lifted. I was able to return to
| hikes etc and would only occasionally need magnesium. It has been
| 2 decades since, and i dont take magnesium anymore and do
| strenous workouts and never again triggered any cramps episode.
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