Dr. Steve Chaney, Author at Health Tips From The Professor

SI Joint Pain Relief

December 15, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

You Can Enjoy Pain Free Living From Home

Author: Julie Donnelly, LMT –The Pain Relief Expert

Editor: Dr. Steve Chaney

I received a call from a distressed client about her son’s unbearable SI joint pain that refuses to hold a chiropractic adjustment. Her son has dealt with the pain for several years. His pain is beginning to turn his life into a bad dream since it’s prohibiting him from playing the sports he enjoys and he doesn’t see an end in sight. Maybe you can relate.

What Causes SI Joint Pain?

The sacroiliac joint is the point where the sacrum (white area) and the ilium (red area) join together (circled in yellow).

When the muscles that surround the joint are either too tight or too loose, or if you have an accident, the joint can be pulled out of alignment.

This misalignment will cause pain in the immediate area, and also cause symptoms that are similar to low back pain and/or sciatica.

Imagine the overlapping area (circled in yellow) moving in a manner that separates the two bones…ouch! You can imagine how this not only strains the sacroiliac joint, but also causes a misalignment at the hip and pubic joint.

This can cause low back pain, SI joint pain, hip pain or groin pain. The pain can also refer down the leg and even into the foot.

Why Chiropractic Adjustments May Not Hold

We love chiropractors and the care they provide. Spinal health is essential for longevity and vitality.

Some adjustments may not hold, whether it’s an adjustment for SI joint pain, sciatica, back pain, shoulder pain, or anything else, because the muscles that pull the bones out of alignment in the first place aren’t being released prior to the adjustment. (When releasing a muscle you are releasing tiny muscle fiber knots that cause the muscle to shorten and pull on the bone.)

Think of this analogy, imagine you had a length of rope with a stick tied in the middle. As you pull one side of the rope to tug the stick in that direction in order to bring the stick back to the middle you have to first release the tug (tension) on the rope.

This is similar to what happens when adjustments are unable to hold. The tight muscle is pulling on the joint, the chiropractor pushes (adjusts) the joint back into place and then the tight muscle pulls it right back out again. This can go on and on until the muscle knots are released.

Get SI Joint Pain Relief with this Muscle Release Technique

STEP 1: Place a Trigger Point Treatment Ball (or a firm tennis ball) directly on your SI joint.

Ease your body down onto the ball gently. It’s important to stay in the “hurts so good” range; it may feel uncomfortable but not a sharp pain. If you feel a sharp pain, move the ball to a spot nearby, but not directly on the joint.

Move the ball around the entire area to release the tension (muscle knots) in all of the muscles. Stay on any tender points for about 30 seconds.

STEP 2: Once you feel you have released the tender areas (trigger points), place the ball directly on your SI joint. Bring your same-side leg up, resting your lower leg on the thigh of your opposite leg. (The same movement as crossing your leg in a chair.) The intention here is to add an additional stretch to the muscles surrounding your SI joint.

This muscle release technique may take a few times before the muscles completely relax and the SI joint is no longer being pulled out of alignment.

Now the next time you see your chiropractor you’ll get an adjustment that lasts! You may even find that this technique allows the joint to move back into alignment on its own.

Wishing you well,

Julie Donnelly

About The Author

Julie Donnelly is a Deep Muscle Massage Therapist with 20 years of experience specializing in the treatment of chronic joint pain and sports injuries. She has worked extensively with elite athletes and patients who have been unsuccessful at finding relief through the more conventional therapies.

She has been widely published, both on – and off – line, in magazines, newsletters, and newspapers around the country. She is also often chosen to speak at national conventions, medical schools, and health facilities nationwide.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

The Fake Chocolate Study

December 8, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

How To Game The Peer Review Process

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

Peer review is supposed to assure that clinical studies are well designed, well executed, and correctly interpreted before they are accepted for publication. That is why I frequently advise you, my readers, to look for clinical studies on their nutritional products that are published in peer reviewed scientific journals as a criteria for choosing a supplement company that you can trust.

But, can the system be gamed? Sadly, the answer is yes. There are journals that only pay lip service to the peer review process. Earlier this year an investigative reporter set out to prove just how easy it is to game the peer review process. It is a fascinating story of how a journalist created the fake chocolate study.

Creating The Fake Chocolate Study Hoax

The fake chocolate study was a hoax put together by John Bohannon, an investigative journalist and correspondent to Science (a very well respected scientific journal) to test the peer review system. The study was real, but it was seriously flawed. For example, it had only 16 subjects, there was no effort made to determine what the subjects were eating other than chocolate, and the conclusions were not supported by the data. In short, it was a very bad study—one that would have been rejected by any reputable journal.

For the purposes of the test he called himself Dr. Johannes Bohannon from the “Institute of Diet and Health”, a nonexistent entity that consisted of nothing more than a fake website he set up. He then wrote up the study and titled it “Chocolate with High Cocoa Content as a Weight Loss Accelerator” with the conclusion (not supported by the data) that “Long-term weight loss, however, seems to occur easier and more successfully by adding chocolate. The effect of chocolate, the so-called ‘weight loss turbo’, seems to go hand in hand with personal well-being, which was significantly higher than in the control groups.”

Journals Take The Bait

In March 2015 he submitted the article to 20 online journals. Several accepted it within 24 hours. He chose to publish it in the “International Archives of Medicine.” His paper was published online without any revisions a mere two weeks later. [Note: You should not assume the fact that several out of just 20 journals accepted his paper as in indication that a significant percentage of journals accept sub-standard papers without serious peer review. He had, in fact, done previous research for Science magazine identifying those journals most likely to accept flawed studies. It was those types of journals he sent his study to.]

John Bohannon was later quoted as saying “Editors of reputable journals reject [these kinds of studies] out of hand without even sending them to peer reviewers. But there are plenty of journals that care more about money than reputation.” [It costs $650 to have an article published in the International Archives of Medicine.]

The Media Fans The Flames

If this study had just been published in an obscure journal and had been ignored, that would have been bad enough. But the story gets even worse. He then created a press release that he sent to news outlets. The press release made some pretty outrageous statements and even contained a link to an unrelated music video. However, the study made news headlines in more than 20 countries in half a dozen languages. For example, headlines from the Daily Express in England blared: “Chocolate Accelerates Weight Loss: Research Claims it Lowers Cholesterol and Aids Sleep.”

John Bohannon’s take was: “The key is to exploit journalist’s incredible laziness. If you lay out the information just right, you can shape the story that emerges in the media almost like you were writing those stories yourself. In fact, that’s literally what you are doing, since many reporters just copied and pasted our text.”

For the complete story of how John Bohannon pulled off this hoax, read his blog post about the “fake study.”

The Bottom Line

An investigative reporter for Science magazine demonstrated recently just how easy it is to get a fake study published in a peer-reviewed journal.

He created a completely bogus study about chocolate aiding weight loss.

He submitted it to several journals that he had previously identified as having substandard peer review processes.

Several journals accepted it within 24 hours without any peer review process. One published it two weeks later without any revisions.

The story of a new “study” showing that chocolate aids weight loss was picked up by the new media and made the headlines in more than 20 countries in half a dozen languages.

The vast majority of journals have a very exacting peer review process, which means that most published clinical studies have been thoroughly reviewed and edited prior to publication. For the most part the peer review process works exactly as it is supposed to.

However, this hoax shows just how easy it would be for an unethical supplement company to subvert the peer review process and publish bogus studies to support their product claims. That is why when you are choosing a supplement company it is important to choose one with a reputation for scientific integrity.

This hoax also shows just how easy it is for bogus information to be picked up by the media and make it into the headlines. You simply cannot believe everything you read in the press, see on the TV and view online. That is why I created “Health Tips From The Professor.” I wanted to create a place where you can go for accurate information.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Heart Disease Risk and Multivitamins

December 1, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

It’s so confusing. One week vitamins are going to reduce your heart disease risk and cancer risk. The next week they are worthless. They might even kill you. So when you saw the recent headlines suggesting that multivitamin-mineral supplement use might decrease heart disease risk in women, you probably weren’t sure what to think.

More to the point, you may be thinking “Why is it so hard to get this right? Why can’t scientists decide once and for all whether vitamins are beneficial or not?”

Perhaps, the best way to understand the significance of the present study is to look at the strengths and limitations of previous studies. Then we can start to gain perspective on why it is so difficult to come to a definitive conclusion about this very important question.

How Good Is The Evidence That Multivitamin Use Doesn’t Reduce Heart Disease Risk?

Medical authorities are fond of telling you, with a great deal of confidence, that studies have conclusively proven multivitamin use does not decrease heart disease risk. However, in fact, that conclusion is based on only a few studies, and those studies have their limitations.

For example, the Physician’s Health Study II (Sesso et al, JAMA, 308: 1751-1760, 2012) reported that use of a multivitamin-mineral supplement for 11 years did not decrease cardiovascular incidence or mortality. It was a double-blind, placebo controlled clinical study. That’s the best kind of study, so it would be tempting to consider the case closed.

However, this study looked at a very small segment of the population. The participants were all male, primarily non-Hispanic whites, well to do, highly educated and health conscious. It also turns out that the participants that were in the poorest health and had the poorest health habits tended to drop out of the study and were not included in the final data analysis.

That means that the vast majority of participants in the study were at low risk of heart disease and were eating relatively healthy diets. Those are the people who would be least likely to benefit from supplementation. In short, this study proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the people least likely to benefit from supplementation did, in fact, not benefit from supplementation.

The studies that medical authorities quote as proving their case for women have all looked at antioxidant supplements and cardiovascular disease. There are three double-blind, placebo controlled studies that have all come to the conclusion that antioxidant supplements do not decrease cardiovascular risk in women. Once again, it might be tempting to consider the case closed.

However, in two of those studies (Lee et al, JAMA, 294: 56-65, 2005; Cook et al, Archives of Internal Medicine, 167: 1610-1618, 2007) when they looked at the subset of women who were at high risk of cardiovascular disease (either because of age or pre-existing disease), antioxidant supplements significantly decreased the risk of cardiovascular events and cardiovascular deaths. In short, these studies showed that those people most likely to benefit from supplementation, did, in fact, benefit from supplementation.

Finally, medical authorities have chosen to completely ignore a recent study reporting that multivitamin use significantly decreased heart attack risk in women, especially if they had been using the multivitamins for 5 years or more (Rautiainen et al, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 92: 1251-1256, 2010). In short, previous studies have not conclusively proven much of anything except that it is really hard to get definitive answers to this kind of question.

Does Multivitamin Use Decrease Cardiovascular Disease Risk In Women?

The current study (Bailey et al, Journal of Nutrition, 145: 572-580, 2015) compared multivitamin use in 8678 adults(65% women) 40 years or older, from the USDA’s NHANES III database and compared it with cardiovascular death reports in the National Death Index 18 years later.

At the time of the NHANES III study, 45% of the adults surveyed had used some kind of supplement within the past 30 days. When the researchers broke the data down further:

21% were using multivitamin-mineral supplements (3 or more vitamins and 1 or more minerals)

14% were using multivitamin supplements (3 or more vitamins, no minerals).

Among multivitamin-mineral and multivitamin supplement users, only 46% had been using them for 3 years or more.

When they compared supplement usage with cardiovascular deaths 18 years later, the results were as follows:

When they asked if multivitamin-mineral or multivitamin use at the beginning of the study affected cardiovascular mortality 18 years later, the answer was a clear no.

When they looked at women, use of a multivitamin-mineral supplement for 3 years or more was associated with a 35% decreased risk of cardiovascular mortality.

However, they did not find any cardiovascular benefit from long term use of a multivitamin supplement alone for women. From this, they concluded that the beneficial effects of the multivitamin-mineral supplement came from one of the minerals, most likely magnesium or calcium.

There was a slight hint that multivitamin use might be beneficial for men, but the number of cardiovascular deaths in that group was too small for the results to be statistically significant.

What Does This Study Mean?

This study suggests that long term use of a multivitamin-mineral supplement may decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease deaths in women. Whether long term multivitamin use also reduces risk of cardiovascular disease in men is an open question. This study is consistent with another recent study looking at multivitamin use in women (Rautiainen et al, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 92: 1251-1256, 2010). However, these studies are just a piece of the puzzle. It will take time and more studies before we will really be able to definitively say whether or not multivitamin use can decrease the risk of heart disease, or any other disease.

How Can You Reduce Your Heart Disease Risk?

The surest way to reduce your risk of heart disease is to develop a heart healthy lifestyle.

Lose weight and/or maintain ideal body weight. Overweight and obesity dramatically increase all of the major risk factors for heart disease – LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, diabetes, hypertension and inflammation.

Exercise for more than 30 minutes – 3 times or more/week. Regular exercise reduces the risk of heart disease by 30-40%.

Follow a diet low in saturated fat and trans-fat (substitute monounsaturated fats like olive oil and omega-3 fats); low in sugars and artificial sweeteners; and high in fiber, whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and fish.

Work with your physician to control predisposing diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.

What about supplementation? What role does it play in a heart healthy lifestyle? At present it’s pretty clear that the scientific community cannot definitively prove whether supplementation reduces the risk of heart disease or not. All the available evidence suggests that supplementation is most likely to prove beneficial for those who are at highest risk for heart disease and/or are most likely to be deficient in key nutrients – either because of poor diet or genetic variations that increase nutrient requirements.

In the best of all possible worlds we would know who was at high risk for heart disease and who was deficient in key nutrients. We would know who would benefit from supplements and who would not, but we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds.

Most people don’t know they are at risk for heart disease until it is too late. For far too many people the first symptom of heart disease is sudden death.
Genetics can greatly increase the need for key nutrients, and most people are completely unaware of those genetic predispositions until it is too late. In the future, we may be able to design genetic tests to determine individual nutritional requirements with precision, but we are decades away from that Utopian age at present.

Finally, many people are either blissfully unaware how unhealthy their diet is, or they just don’t want to do anything about it.

For all of the reasons above, I recommend a balanced supplementation program as part of a heart healthy lifestyle. The supplements most likely to be beneficial are a multivitamin-mineral supplement, antioxidants, omega-3s, and B vitamins. I have covered the evidence for the role of each of these nutrients in preserving heart health in previous issues of “Health Tips From the Professor”. Of course, I do not recommend supplementation as an alternative to a heart healthy lifestyle. Taking a multivitamin along with your Big Mac is probably not going to do much for your heart health.

The Bottom Line

A recent study reported that women who used a multivitamin – mineral supplement for 3 years or more decreased their risk of dying from heart disease over the next 18 years by 35%. The men in the study may have received some benefit from multivitamin – mineral supplementation, but the numbers were not large enough to be statistically significant.

This study is fully consistent with the results of a previous study with women. However, when we look at all of the available studies it is not possible to definitively conclude whether supplementation decreases the risk of heart disease or not.

All of the available evidence suggests that supplementation is most likely to be beneficial for those people who are at highest risk of heart disease and/or are most likely to be deficient in key nutrients.

In the best of all possible worlds we would know who was at high risk for heart disease and who was deficient in key nutrients. We would know who would benefit from supplements and who would not, but we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds.

Most people don’t know they are at risk for heart disease until it is too late. For far too many people the first symptom of heart disease is sudden death.
Genetics can greatly increase the need for key nutrients, and most people are completely unaware of those genetic predispositions until it is too late. In the future, we may be able to design genetic tests to determine individual nutritional requirements with precision, but we are decades away from that Utopian age at present.

Finally many people are either blissfully unaware how unhealthy their diet is, or they just don’t want to do anything about it.

For the reasons above, I recommend a balanced supplementation program as part of a heart healthy lifestyle. The supplements most likely to be beneficial are a multivitamin-mineral supplement, antioxidants, omega-3s, and B vitamins.

Of course,I do not recommend supplementation as an alternative to a heart healthy lifestyle. Taking a multivitamin along with your Big Mac is probably not going to do much for your heart health.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Healthy Thanksgiving

November 24, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

The Holidays Don’t Have To Be Unhealthy

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

It’s time for my annual “Healthy Thanksgiving” blog. While “Healthy Thanksgiving” doesn’t quite have the appeal of the more familiar “Happy Thanksgiving” greeting, I used it here to make the point that Thanksgiving dinner (and many other holiday meals) doesn’t have to be an unhealthy affair.

After all, there is a lot to like about the ingredients in Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey can be a healthy, low- fat meat, if prepared correctly. Sweet potatoes, yams, winter squash and pumpkin are all loaded with vitamin A and other important nutrients. And cranberries are a nutrition powerhouse.

Healthy Thanksgiving

Here are some tips to make your Thanksgiving meal one that contributes to your health:

1) Skip the basting. Choose a plain bird and cook in a bag to seal in the moisture. Remove the skin before serving.

2) Refrigerate the turkey juices and skim off the hardened fat before making gravy and use a gravy cup that pours from the bottom to minimize fat.

3) Use ingredients like whole wheat bread, vegetables, fruits (cranberries, raisins, dates or apples), nuts and your favorite spices for the stuffing and bake it in the oven rather than in the turkey.

4) Serve your sweet potatoes or yams baked rather than candied and let your guests add butter to taste.

5) Use skim milk or buttermilk rather than whole milk and skip the butter for your mashed potatoes.

6) Give your meal gourmet appeal by cooking your green vegetables with garlic, nuts and herbs rather than creamy or fat-laden sauces.

7) Don’t serve the meal on your largest plates. By using smaller plates you ensure smaller portion size and even that second helping isn’t quite so damaging.

8) Use the Shaklee 180 meal replacement products for one or more meals the day before and/or after Thanksgiving so that your total caloric intake over the three day period is not excessive.

By now you have the idea. There are lots of little things that you can do to make your Thanksgiving dinner one that your waist and your heart will thank you for. Bon Appetit and have a Happy, Healthy Thanksgiving!

The Bottom Line

If you make healthy food choices and choose your portion sizes wisely, you can make this a Healthy Thanksgiving as well as a Happy Thanksgiving.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Bulging Disc Treatment You Can Do At Home

November 17, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Author: Julie Donnelly, LMT –The Pain Relief Expert

Editor: Dr. Steve Chaney

This past week I taught an ultra-cyclist how to relieve a bulging disc that was causing him a great deal of pain and preventing him from riding the distances he loves.

The problem is aggravated by the aerodynamic position a cyclist is in while riding.

A bulging disc can happen to anyone though, especially if one sits a lot. As we sit we do the same movements, only we contract the muscles and then hold them contracted for a long period of time as we sit

What Causes A Bulging Disc?

It’s easy to see why an ultra-cyclist would have a bulging disc with the extended riding times in the bent over aerodynamic position.

In the aerodynamic position the muscle of your anterior lumbar; the psoas, is held shortened. Also, the muscle on the inside curve of your pelvis, the iliacus, shortens each time the leg is brought up toward the body when pedaling.

This position is great for riding, but when you stop and stand the tight muscles pull your lumbar vertebrae and your pelvis forward and down. At first you may walk bent over, unable to stand up straight. As your muscles relax you’ll begin to straighten, but many times it may take a while before you can fully stand upright and even then you may feel low back pain.

What Happens To The Vertebra?

When a vertebra is pulled downward and toward the vertebra beneath it, it puts pressure on the disc between the two vertebrae. That pushes the gel-like substance inside the disc to press out the side.

A good analogy is to consider what happens if you step on one side of a jelly donut — the jelly pushes out the opposite side!

A bulging disc is when the gel pushes out the side but doesn’t break the outer lining of the disc. A herniated disc is when the membrane cracks and the gel now squeezes out of the disc.

If the bulging disc, or herniated disc, presses into a nerve or your spinal curve, treatment is necessary to reverse the situation. This is definitely a time when prevention is worth a pound of cure!

A Bulging Disc Treatment and Stretch That Works!

The Treatment:

Start by releasing the tension in your thigh muscles. It sounds weird to release the muscles in your thighs to stop a bulging disc problem, but it’s important.

Using your forearm (as shown) press down deeply and slide your arm toward your knee. Place extra focus, 30-60 seconds, on each tender spot (trigger point) you feel as you slide down your thigh.

Do this treatment several times on each leg. This muscle release technique allows your pelvis to rotate back into proper position.

The Stretch:

Stand up straight, as shown, place one of your lower legs on to a chair. Keep your body as straight as possible. Without moving your pelvis at all, lean back with your mid-back.

Visualize your abdominal muscles stretching — be sure not to move your pelvis.

You are now stretching both your psoas and iliacus muscles. Repeat stretch using other leg.

You may feel a twinge of pain in your low back as the muscles stretch and pull on your lumbar. This is normal. It should not be a sharp pain.

An Alternative Stretch:

And as an alternative stretch, if you are able to use the floor, the Sphinx pose is a perfect stretch for the psoas and iliacus. Be sure to keep your pelvis on the floor.

Releasing the tight muscles of your back allow your vertebrae to separate naturally. Whether you sit for hours at a time, or you ride for hours, this bulging disc treatment will give you relief and will prevent further disc injury.

Wishing you well,

Julie Donnelly

About The Author

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Are Food Supplements Safe?

November 10, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

If you saw the recent headlines proclaiming that dietary supplements were responsible for 23,000 emergency room visits and 2,100 hospitalizations every year, you are probably wondering are food supplements safe to use at all. The study behind these headlines (Geller et al, New England Journal of Medicine, 373: 1531-1540, 2015) was based on an extrapolation from 63 hospitals to every hospital in the United States.

Some experts consider this to be an overestimation since it is almost 8 times higher than the 3,200 cases/year in the official FDA’s Serious Adverse Event Reporting database. However, for the purposes of this article I will accept the 23,000 numbers.

Let me start by putting the 23,000 number into perspective.

It represents about 0.015% of the 150 million people in the US who use supplements.

It represents about 1% of the emergency room admissions caused by side effects of properly prescribed medications.

In short, the headlines are over-dramatizing the dangers of dietary supplements. Dietary supplements are actually quite safe. However, even one emergency room visit due to a dietary supplement is too many – especially if it were to happen to you or a loved one. Consequently, I will analyze the study in more detail so that I can show you how to recognize and avoid those few supplements that are truly dangerous.

Are Supplements Dangerous?

Here is a breakdown of the data:

13% of the ER visits were due to allergic reactions. These were seldom serious enough to require hospitalization. This is also a type of problem that is probably unavoidable. Since many food supplements use natural ingredients, some degree of food allergies are to be expected.

13% of the ER visits were due to swallowing problems, primarily in people over the age of 65. The preventative measure here is also pretty simple. If you or a loved one has difficulty swallowing, choose pills that are small and slick, chewable, powder or liquid supplements.

20% of the ER visits were due to adverse effects caused by unsupervised ingestion of the supplements by children. The preventative measure here is pretty simple. Keep your supplements out of reach of small children – especially if they are chewable or have attractive colors. While the supplements may be perfectly safe when taken as recommended, the unsupervised ingestion of a whole bottle of almost any supplement by a small child is problematic.

41% of the ER visits were due to weight loss products (25.5%), energy products (10%), sexual enhancement products (3.4%) and bodybuilding products (2.2%). The most common adverse effect for these products were heart palpitations, chest pain, and irregular heartbeat. These are the kinds of supplements you really need to be most careful about.

Why Are Dangerous Supplements Even On The Market?

Let’s start with the obvious question: Why are weight loss, energy, sexual enhancement and bodybuilding products the ones most likely to be dangerous? To quote Pogo (now I’m really dating myself): “We have met the enemy, and he is us”

Weight Loss Products: We can listen all day long to experts tell us that we need to make lifestyle changes, and we should aim for no more than one or two pounds of weight loss per week. However, for most of us that advice goes in one ear and out the other. We want to lose weight fast, and we want it to be easy.

Energy Products: Many of us are just plain exhausted because our diets are terrible; we are under stress; and we are burning the candle at both ends. We don’t want to eat better and change our lifestyle. We want high octane energy, and we want it now.

Body Building Products: The story is similar, especially for males in the 20-34 age range. We want big muscles, and we don’t want to wait for the years of workouts it will take to build that kind of physique naturally. We want it now.

Sexual Enhancement Products: ER admissions for sexual enhancement products were 100% male. What does that say about us guys? I won’t even go there.

Most supplement manufacturers are ethical and don’t make supplements that could harm us. However, there are a few unscrupulous manufacturers who are only too happy to exploit our human weaknesses if they can make a buck in the process. They will give us exactly what we want, even if it kills us in the process.

I’ve warned about these unscrupulous manufacturers in the past. The easiest way to create products that will burn off weight effortlessly, build muscle rapidly, and give you energy are to add chemically synthesized stimulants in the amphetamine family. For example, I’ve warned you about products containing stimulants such as DMAA and DEPEA in Are Dietary Supplements Safe and BMPEA in Are Sports Supplements Safe. They all work, but they also cause heart palpitations, chest pain, and irregular heartbeat. They can land you in the emergency room, and sometimes they can kill you.

In addition to stimulants, some weight loss products use diuretics, and some energy products use dangerous levels of caffeine, both of which can cause problems. Sexual enhancement products often use herbal ingredients like yohimbe bark that can be quite dangerous

Don’t Count On The FDA To Protect You

Unfortunately, you can’t count on the FDA to protect you. For example, in the case of the DMAA scandal, the FDA did not act until the day before a big expose was to air on 60 Minutes about the deaths caused by DMAA. They were shamed into taking strong action and removing DMAA from the shelves of retailers.

Case closed, you might think, but the truth is a bit scarier. That action was back in 2013. Since then, the FDA has ignored DMAA-containing products. The Human Performance Resource Center, an initiative of the Department of Defense, recently listed 39 products containing DMAA that are readily available, either online or from retail stores. Even though the FDA has classified DMAA as an illegal ingredient, it is still readily available, and they don’t act.

This is just one of many examples I could cite. It’s not clear whether the FDA is unwilling to protect us, or if it is overwhelmed. However, it is clear that if we want to avoid dangerous supplements, it is up to us.

How Can You Protect Yourself From Dangerous Supplements?

If the FDA isn’t going to protect you, what can you do to protect yourself from dangerous supplements? There are threesimple things that you can do to protect yourself;

#1: Use common sense.

Don’t even consider those weight loss supplements that promise you’ll lose 5-10 pounds/week, or that they will make the fat melt away effortlessly.

Walk away from those bodybuilding supplements that promise to make your muscles “explode” or give you “insane energy”.

Put those energy supplements that promise a jolt of energy back on the shelf.

As for sexual enhancement products, consult your doctor before you reach for a magic pill. Your problems in the bedroom may be caused by a treatable medical condition.

#2: Make the Commitment. A holistic lifestyle change that includes weight control, exercise, diet and supplementation may be more work, but it is so much safer and more beneficial in the long run.

#3: Choose wisely. Look for a supplement company with integrity.

A company that is committed to only making products that are both safe and effective.

A company that does clinical studies to make sure their products are safe and effective and publishes those studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Are food supplements safe?

The Bottom Line

A recent study reported that 23,000 emergency visits and 2,100 hospital admissions each year were caused by dietary supplements. Some experts consider this to be an overestimate. It is an extrapolation from 63 hospitals to every hospital in the United States, and it is approximately 8-fold higher than the FDAs Adverse Events database.

While the headlines sound scary, when you put the data into perspective it is clear that dietary supplements are actually quite safe. Even if we accept the 23,000 ER visits/year as accurate, this represents:

015% of the supplement users in the US.

Approximately 1% of the annual ER admissions due to side effects of properly prescribed medications.

The main value of this study is that it allows us to identify what the dangers are and what strategies can help us avoid those dangers.

13% of the ER visits were due to allergic reactions. This is probably unavoidable. Since many food supplements use natural ingredients, some degree of food allergies are to be expected.

13% of the ER visits were due to swallowing problems, primarily in people over the age of 65. If you or a loved one has difficulty swallowing, the solution is pretty simple. Choose pills that are small and slick, chewable, powder or liquid supplements.

20% of the ER visits were due to adverse effects caused by unsupervised ingestion of the supplements by children. The preventative measure here is also pretty simple. Keep your supplements out of reach of small children.

41% of the ER visits were due to weight loss products (25.5%), energy products (10%), sexual enhancement products (3.4%) and bodybuilding products (2.2%). These are the kinds of supplements you really need to be most careful about. Some supplements in this category are truly dangerous.

If we ask why these dangerous supplements exist, the answers are pretty simple.

Many Americans are looking for quick and easy solutions. They want a magic pill or powder.

A few unscrupulous supplement companies are only too happy to give them exactly what they want, even if it kills them in the process.

Unfortunately, the FDA is not doing a good enough job of protecting us from the truly dangerous supplements on the market, so we need to protect ourselves.

To protect ourselves from the dangerous supplements on the market we need to take 3 simple steps:

Use common sense. Don’t fall for the advertising hype promising quick and easy solutions.

Commit to true lifestyle change. Adopt a holistic lifestyle that includes weight control, diet, exercise, and supplementation.

Choose your supplement manufacturer wisely. Choose one with integrity – one that is committed to making supplements that are both safe and effective.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Omega-3 and ADHD in Children

November 3, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

Sometimes I write articles pointing out the fallacies in the headlines you’ve been reading. Other times I write articles because major studies have provided a definitive test of a current paradigm. And sometimes I write articles about small studies that have the potential to change existing paradigms. This week’s article falls in the latter category. This week’s article is on omega-3 and ADHD in children. More precisely, I’m going to review a study looking at the role of the omega-3s DHA and EPA in reducing ADHD symptoms.

Amid growing concern about the side effects and overuse of the stimulant medications used to treat ADHD symptoms in children, many parents have been looking for natural approaches for controlling ADHD symptoms. One of the most popular natural approaches has been omega-3 supplements, primarily the long chain omega-3s, DHA and EPA.

However, not everyone agrees that DHA and EPA are effective for reducing ADHD symptoms. Here is a brief summary of what we know:

Children with ADHD and learning difficulties generally have lower tissue levels of DHA and EPA than children without those deficits.

Animal studies show that DHA-deficient diets decrease neuron size and are associated with hyperactive and compulsive behavior.

Some clinical studies have reported a significant decrease in ADHD symptoms when children were given omega-3 supplements, while other studies found no effect of omega-3 supplementation on ADHD symptoms. This has led to considerable confusion as to the value of omega-3 supplementation in children with ADHD.

However, recent studies have led to a certain amount of clarity about omega-3 and ADHD in children. In particular:

Two recent meta-analyses of all high quality published studies have concluded that omega-3 supplements have a beneficial effect on ADHD symptoms, but the effect is relatively small (Bloch and Qawasmi, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 50: 991-1000, 2011; Sonuga-Burke et al. American Journal of Psychiatry, 170: 275-289, 2013).

One recent study showed that when omega-3 supplementation was combined with a stimulant medication, it improved the effectiveness of the medication, which allowed physicians to decrease the amount of medication they prescribed (Barragan et al, Journal of Attention Disorders, doi: 1177/1087054713518239, 2014).

Previous studies have shown that omega-3 supplementation is most effective in the children who are the most deficient in DHA and EPA at the beginning of the study. This is no surprise.

However,what you may not know is that many otherwise healthy children in this country have at least some degree of DHA and EPA deficiency. That’s because major food sources of EPA and DHA, such as salmon and sardines, are not most kid’s favorite foods.

Do Omega-3s Improve Attention Span In Children?

The most recent study (Bos et al, Neuropsychopharmacolgy, 40: 2298-2306, 2015) was a double blind, placebo controlled study looking at the effectiveness of omega-3 supplementation in reducing ADHD symptoms in boys between 8 and 14 years old. It differed significantly from most previous studies in that:

It included a matched group of boys who had not been diagnosed with ADHD.

It used a 1:1 ratio of DHA to EPA, which resulted in a greater intake of DHA than in many of the previous studies.

The study included 40 boys, aged 8-14, who had been diagnosed with ADHD and 39 matched controls who did not have ADHD. Both groups were either given margarine containing 650 mg/day of both DHA and EPA or a placebo margarine containing an equal amount of monounsaturated fatty acids for 16 weeks. Compliance with the study was measured in terms of the amount of margarine consumed and the levels of DHA and EPA found in cells obtained by a cheek swab. ADHD symptoms (particularly attention span, rule-breaking behavior and aggression) were assessed on the basis of standardized parent-rated child behavior assessments. The results of the study were:

At the start of the study, the children with ADHD scored higher on all measures of ADHD symptoms. No surprise here.

The children with the lowest omega-3 levels at the beginning of the study scored highest on all measures of ADHD symptoms. This is also not surprising given the results of previous studies.
Omega-3 supplementation increased attention span in boys with ADHD, and the improvement in attention span correlated with an increase in omega-3 status. No improvement was seen in other symptoms of ADHD (rule-breaking behavior and aggression).

Since different studies tend to use different symptom assessments to measure the severity of ADHD, this may explain why some of the previous studies on omega-3s and ADHD symptoms have come up empty. The authors also suggested that some previous studies may have come up empty because the omega-3 supplements they used were low in DHA.

What Is The Significance Of This Study?

Because this study included a control group of boys without ADHD, it offers a whole new perspective on the importance of omega-3s for children. For example, this study showed:

Omega-3 supplementation improved attention span equally well in boys with and without ADHD. This is perhaps not surprising. If you have ever had a child in the 8 to 14 year old range, you know their attention span could stand a bit of improvement.

However, when you think about it, this study represents a potential paradigm shift in how we think about omega-3s and childhood behavior. The real significance of this studyis that it suggests that omega-3 supplementation may be beneficial for any child with poor attention span, not just for children with ADHD. This interpretation would be fully consistent with previous studies showing that omega-3 supplementation improves cognitive function and reading skills in children.

The Bottom Line

Previous studies have suggested that the long chain omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA are modestly effective at improving ADHD symptoms in children, and that they are most effective in children with the lowest omega-3 status at the beginning of the studies.

The current study showed that supplementation with DHA and EPA improved attention span in boys aged 8-14 with ADHD, but did not improve other ADHD symptoms such a rule-breaking behavior and aggression.

What does this mean to you if you have a child with ADHD?

If the ADHD symptoms are mild and mostly relate to attention span or learning skills, omega-3 supplementation alone may be enough to make a difference. Based on this study you might want to choose an omega-3 supplement that is rich in DHA.

If the ADHD symptoms are severe, you will probably need to include omega-3 supplementation as part of a more holistic natural approach for controlling the symptoms.

Finally, if a holistic natural approach is just too difficult to manage, the good news is that recent studies suggest that omega-3 supplementation makes ADHD medications more effective, which means your child’s physician may be able to reduce the dose of medication if you include omega-3 supplementation along with the medication.

This study was unique in that it also included a control group of 8-14 year old boys without ADHD and found that omega-3 supplementation was equally effective at improving attention span in children without ADHD.

This is a single study, but if it is replicated by future studies it suggests that we may need to change our paradigm. What we have been thinking about omega-3 supplementation for children may be all wrong. Perhaps we should stop thinking of it as a supplement that might help with ADHD symptoms and start thinking of it as a supplement that might help children improve their attention span and mental focus whether they have been diagnosed with ADHD or not. This would certainly be consistent with previous studies showing that omega-3 supplementation improves cognitive function and reading skills in children.

One final thought:

This study was performed with boys because they are more prone to ADHD symptoms than girls. However, based on numerous previous studies it is safe to assume that it is likely to apply equally well to girls with and without ADHD.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Vitamin D and Multiple Sclerosis | Preventive Care?

October 27, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

A new study (Mokry et al, PLOS Medicine, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001866, August 25, 2015) suggests that people who are genetically prone to low vitamin D levels are at increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). To understand the importance of this study and what it means for us, we need to first review what is already known about vitamin D and multiple sclerosis.

MS is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the myelin sheath that coats our nerves. Conceptually, that’s the equivalent of a fraying cord on a lamp. Eventually, the cord is going to start shorting out and the lamp won’t work very well. On a very basic level MS is similar. As our myelin sheath is damaged over time, our nervous system starts working less well.

The earliest evidence that vitamin D status might be associated with MS was the observation that the prevalence of MS was highest for people who lived in northern regions with little exposure to sunlight.

Numerous studies since then have shown that MS patients generally have lower 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels in their blood.

These studies clearly show an association between low vitamin D status and MS, but association does not prove causation. There are two limitations of association studies that significantly reduce their predictive value – reverse causation and confounding factors.Those are both somewhat highfalutin scientific terms, so let me put them in plain English – and in terms that are relevant to our discussion of vitamin D status and MS.

Reverse causation simple means that the MS might have caused low vitamin D status. For example, individuals with MS might spend less time outdoors because of their physical limitations. That would result in less sun exposure, which would decrease their blood levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D.

A confounding factor would be something else that increased the risk for MS and happened to be associated with low vitamin D status. Suppose, for example, that exercise decreased the risk of MS. People who spend most of their time inside in front of a TV or computer screen would have low levels of exercise and low sun exposure. If it was the lack of exercise rather than the low vitamin D status that actually predisposed to MS, lack of exercise would be a confounding factor for any clinical study comparing vitamin D status with risk of developing MS.

What Can Genetics Tell Us About The Relationship Between Vitamin D and Multiple Sclerosis?

The authors of this study had previously identified mutations in 4 genes that decrease blood levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D (the most commonly used measure of vitamin D status). In this study(Mokry et al, PLOS Medicine, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001866, August 25, 2015)they analyzed the frequency of those genetic mutations in 14,498 MS cases compared with 24,091 healthy controls. Their study showed:

Genetic mutations that decrease 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels are associated with a significant increase in the risk of developing MS.

Based on the relationship of those mutations with 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels, they calculated that every 50% increase in 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels was associated with a 50% decreased risk of developing MS.

This was a very large, well designed study. It has some limitations of its own, but because it used a genetic approach it largely avoids the concern about reverse causation and confounding factors. In short, this study strongly supports the conclusion from previous studies that low vitamin D status significantly increases the risk of developing MS.

The authors concluded “The identification of vitamin D as a causal susceptibility factor for MS may have important public health implications, since vitamin D insufficiency is common, and vitamin D supplementation is both relatively safe and cost effective.”

Is Vitamin D Supplementation Effective In Preventing And Treating MS?

The authors of the study also concluded “These findings provide the rationale for further investigating the therapeutic benefits of vitamin D supplementation in preventing the onset and progression of MS.”

While more studies are still needed, the Nurses’ Health Study (Munger et al, Neurology, 62: 60-65, 2004) provides pretty convincing evidence that vitamin D supplementation can prevent the onset of MS. That study followed 187,563 nurses for at least 4 years, during which time 173 of them developed MS. The study showed that supplementation with 400 IU/day of vitamin D reduced the risk of developing MS by 40%.

The efficacy of vitamin D supplementation in preventing the progression of MS is much less well established. Several studies have shown that low vitamin D status is associated with higher levels MS relapse and more rapid progression of MS symptoms.However, studies of vitamin D supplementation conducted to date have been too small and too short in duration to be definitive.

What Is The Significance Of This Study?

On one hand MS is a very rare disease, affecting around 0.1% of the adult population. On the other hand, it is a debilitating disease. If something as simple as assuring adequate vitamin D status can reduce the risk of developing MS by 40-50%, it is an important public health measure, especially since 40% of the US population has insufficient blood levels of vitamin D (Looker et al, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 88: 1519-1527, 2008).

What Does This Study Mean For You?

What does this study mean for you and me? We already know that adequate vitamin D status is essential for building strong bones, and there is pretty good evidence that adequate vitamin D status is important for a strong immune system. Now we can add autoimmune diseases to the list. It is pretty clear that adequate vitamin D status is important for preventing MS. It may help prevent other autoimmune diseases as well.

One interesting wrinkle for MS is that it may be vitally important to assure adequate vitamin D in our younger years. Studies looking at people who grow up in northern latitudes and then move south and vice versa suggest that the risk of developing MS is much more strongly associated with sun exposure during the first 10-15 years of life than with sun exposure later in life.

It is, therefore, not just important that we assure adequate vitamin D status for ourselves. It may be even more important that we assure that our kids and grandkids have adequate vitamin D status.

The problem is that in today’s world we are told to slather industrial strength sunscreen on ourselves from head to foot before we leave the house and very few foods in nature provide significant amounts of vitamin D, so most of us rely primarily on vitamin D fortified dairy products and supplements to assure adequate intake of vitamin D. Click here for the latest RDA recommendations for vitamin D intake.

Some people do appear to need greater than RDA levels of vitamin D because they don’t metabolize vitamin D efficiently. They can have adequate intake of vitamin D, but their blood levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D are low. I recommend that you ask your doctor to check your 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels at your next physical. If they are low, work out a vitamin D supplementation regimen with your doctor to bring your 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels into the optimal range.

The Bottom Line

A recent study showed that genetic mutations which decrease 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels are associated with a significantly increased risk of developing MS. Based on the relationship of those mutations with 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels, the investigators calculated that every 50% increase in 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels was associated with a 50% decreased risk of developing MS. This study strongly supports the conclusion from previous studies that low vitamin D status significantly increases the risk of developing MS.

An earlier Nurses’ Health Study has shown that supplementation with 400 IU/day of vitamin D decreases the risk of developing MS by 40%.

The authors of the most recent study concluded “The identification of vitamin D as a causal susceptibility factor for MS may have important public health implications, since vitamin D insufficiency is common, and vitamin D supplementation is both relatively safe and cost effective.” I agree.

While MS is a very rare disease, it can be devastating. This alone, is a good enough reason to be sure that you maintain adequate vitamin D status.

There is evidence that vitamin D status in our childhood years may be more important than our vitamin D status in later years for determining our risk of developing MS. It is, therefore, not just important that we assure adequate vitamin D status for ourselves. It may be even more important that we assure that our kids and grandkids have adequate vitamin D status.

While these and other studies demonstrate the health benefits of maintaining adequate vitamin D status, many Americans don’t do a good job of it. Government surveys show that 40% of Americans are deficient in vitamin D. That’s because we are continually being advised to slather on industrial strength sunscreen before we leave the house, and most naturally occurring foods are relatively poor sources of vitamin D.

While the evidence that vitamin D supplementation is effective for preventing MS is strong, evidence that vitamin D supplementation can slow the progression of MS is inconclusive at present. More and better studies are needed before we will have a definitive answer to this question.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Natural Treatment for Hip Pain

October 20, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Author: Julie Donnelly, LMT –The Pain Relief Expert

Editor: Dr. Steve Chaney

Do You Love Sports?

Do You Exercise Frequently?

Do You Have Aches & Pains?

Wish there was a natural treatment for hip pain? Exercising and playing sports is a “pluses and minuses” situation because it’s great to build muscle and burn fat, but it can also cause joint pain.

And athletes are especially vulnerable for hip pain.

Today I taught a serious triathlete an at-home hip pain treatment. Up until now he has been side-lined because of chronic hip pain. He’s an excellent runner and a top cyclist, but both of these sports have caused hip pain so extreme that he had to seek treatment.

The Cause of Hip Pain

The hip has powerful muscles attached to it so you can stand, sit, bend, maintain balance and move your body in an infinite number of ways. Each muscle needs to work perfectly with the other supporting muscles. As one contracts the opposing muscle needs to lengthen.

For example, sitting for extended periods of time is a key cause of pain all the way from your low back to your knees! In order for you to be able to sit various muscles contract including your psoas and iliacus muscles (front of pelvis), meanwhile your quadratus lumborum (low back) and rectus femoris (front of thigh) must lengthen.

As you stand those muscles switch roles – unless one or more of them have shortened because of a phenomenon called “muscle memory”. When this happens the tight muscle pulls on the bone causing tightness in the pelvis which leads low back pain, groin pain, sciatica or pain in the front of your hip.

Pain on the outside of your hip happens because these muscles are rotating your pelvis forward and down, and this rotation causes the muscles on the outside of your hip to torque. This torquing causes spasms (muscles knots or trigger points) to form in your hip muscles and the pull refers pain to your entire hip area.

If you play a sport that involves kicking your leg out to the side, such as soccer or ice skating, you are repetitively straining your hip muscles, specifically your tensor fascia lata, gluteus minimus and gluteus medius. These muscles apply tension on the outside of the pelvis and on the top of the thigh bone making your entire hip hurt!

A Natural Treatment for Hip Pain

To release the muscles on the outside of your hip, take the Trigger Point Therapy Ball and place it directly on the side-seam of your pants, between your hip bone and your thigh bone. This is the location of your tensor fascia lata muscle, which is a key muscle when treating for hip pain.

Lie down on the ball (as pictured). You may need to ease into it if your muscle is very tight. The goal is to be able to lie on the ball without feeling pain.

This could take a few minutes if your muscle is in spasm.

Once you are able to lie on the ball without pain, begin to move your body so the ball moves down to the insertion point (top of your thigh bone).

Then move so the ball rolls along your entire pelvis and sacrum.

As you move along feel for any tender spots. Each tender spot is a trigger point (muscle knot or spasm) that is causing your hip pain.

When you feel a trigger point allow your body to rest there for 30-60 seconds for a full muscle release.

Need More Help?

There are so many muscles involved in hip pain that I suggest you watch the Focused Flexibility Training Foundation video. The Foundation video is a comprehensive demonstration of muscle release techniques from head-to-toe.

After you release the knots in your muscles it is now the best time to stretch. In the Focused Flexibility Training system the two lower body sessions effectively stretch the muscles of your hip

Wishing you well,

Julie Donnelly

About The Author

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Magnesium Supplements Benefits | Reduce Diabetes Risk?

October 13, 2015 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

I came across an article the other day suggesting that one of the magnesium supplements benefits might be improved blood sugar control in pre-diabetics with low blood levels of magnesium (Guerrero-Romero et al, Diabetes & Metabolism, 41: 202-207, 2015). Considering that…

A 2014 CDC report stated that 1/3 of adult Americans are pre-diabetic, and…
Most people with pre-diabetes will go on to develop type 2 diabetes in 10 years or less, and…
Diabetes is the 7^th leading cause of death in this country, and…
60% of Americans don’t get enough magnesium in their diets…

…this could be a really big deal! Because of this I scrutinized the paper very carefully and reviewed the literature on magnesium intake and the incidence of type 2 diabetes.

Do Magnesium Supplements Improve Blood Sugar Control?

This was a relatively small study (116 adults, age 30-65), but it was well designed. All of the subjects had mild impairments in blood sugar control (i.e. were pre-diabetic), and all of them had low blood magnesium levels (≤1.8 mg/dL). This is a significant improvement over most previous studies of magnesium supplementation and blood sugar control because blood magnesium levels were not determined in many of those studies.

The study was double-blind, placebo controlled.Subjects received either 382 mg of magnesium or a placebo each day for 16 weeks, at which time blood sugar control and blood magnesium levels were re-measured. All subjects were put on a weight maintenance diet consisting of 55% healthy carbohydrates, 25% healthy fats, and 20% healthy proteins and told to exercise for at least 30 minutes three times per week.

Adherence to the diet and exercise regimen was 91% in both the supplement and placebo groups. Adherence to magnesium supplementation was 85% as measured by an increase in blood magnesium levels.

At the end of 16 weeks:

Improvement in blood sugar control was observed in 50% of the people in the magnesium group compared to 7% in the placebo group. This was significantly different.

Triglyceride levels were significantly decreased while HDL and blood magnesium levels were significantly increased in the magnesium group compared to the placebo group.

Side effects of magnesium supplementation were mild abdominal pain (7.6%) and diarrhea (6.0%).

The authors concluded:

“Our present results demonstrate the efficacy and safety of magnesium supplementation in the reduction of plasma glucose levels and in the improvement of glycemic status [blood sugar control] of pre-diabetic individuals who have low serum magnesium levels.”

“Our results support the hypothesis that, as a complement to lifestyle intervention programs, people with pre-diabetes and low blood levels of magnesium also should take magnesium supplements to decrease plasma glucose levels and potentially decrease the transition rate from pre-diabetes to diabetes.”

Magnesium and Blood Sugar Control

While the results of the recent study were impressive, it was a single, relatively small study, so I did a thorough review of the literature to put this study in perspective. This is what I found:

A major study that followed 2,582 participants enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study for 7 years (Hruby et al., Diabetes Care, 37: 419-427, 2014) concluded that those who consumed the most magnesium (400 mg/day) had a 50% reduction in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who consumed the least (240 mg/day).

Several other studies comparing magnesium intake to diabetes risk have come to similar conclusions.

A meta-analysis of 13 studies with 536,318 people (Dong et al, Diabetes Care, 34: 2116-2122, 2011) concluded that the risk of diabetes was decreased by 14% for every 100 mg of magnesium consumed.

Most, but not all, intervention studies like the one described above have shown that magnesium supplementation reduced blood glucose levels and improved blood sugar control.

However, most of these studies did not measure blood magnesium levels. This is a significant drawback because if the majority of subjects in a particular study had adequate blood magnesium levels at the beginning of the study, one would not expect additional magnesium to improve blood sugar control.

A study of 4257 participants in the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (Ford &Mokdad, Journal of Nutrition, 133: 2879-2882, 2003) concluded that around 60% of the adult US population was getting sub-optimal levels of magnesium from their diet.

The RDAs for magnesium range from 310-420 mg/day depending on age and gender, while intakes of magnesium ranged from 144-326 mg/day depending on age, gender and ethnicity. Those taking supplements had significantly greater magnesium intake than non-supplement users.

However, dietary recall studies almost always overestimate the percentage of the population that is deficient in any particular nutrient. Blood nutrient levels are usually considered a better indicator of nutrient deficiency, and some experts estimate that 20-30% of the US population may have blood levels of magnesium that are less than optimal.

Unfortunately, in the case of magnesium it is unclear whether even blood levels are an adequate indicator of nutrient status. That’s because only 1% of your body’s magnesium is found in the blood. The rest is locked up in your tissues where it is much more difficult to determine whether your magnesium status is adequate or not.

The Bottom Line

A recent study showed that magnesium supplementation improves blood sugar control in pre-diabetics with low blood magnesium levels. The authors concluded that magnesium supplementation along with lifestyle change may be effective in slowing the progression from pre-diabetes to type 2 diabetes.

This study is consistent with a number of previous studies suggesting that increased magnesium intake is associated with decreased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

This study is also consistent with the principle that supplementation works best in situations where there is a demonstrated need for a particular nutrient, in this case magnesium (the study participants were selected in part on the basis of low blood levels of magnesium).

Other studies have shown that around 60% of the population is getting inadequate magnesium from their diet.Dietary recall studies probably overestimate the percentage of the population that is magnesium deficient, but most experts agree that a significant percentage of the US population likely have less than optimal magnesium status.

You probably don’t need mega-doses of magnesium to support good blood sugar control. The clinical study described above used 382 mg/day of magnesium, but most dietary recall studies suggest that dietary intake of magnesium in this country is only 100-200 mg/day below RDA recommendations.

Assuring an adequate intake of magnesium is only one component of a holistic approach for reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Other important components are weight control, exercise, and a healthy diet that restricts sugars and starches.

Good dietary sources of magnesium include leafy green vegetables (5-6 servings = RDA), nuts (5-6 servings = RDA), orwhole wheat bread or brown rice (8-9 servings = RDA).

Supplementation with ≥300 mg of magnesium can cause gas, bloating and diarrhea in sensitive individuals. If you are supplementing with magnesium, I recommend a sustained release supplement.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.