subject: Why Does Your Body Need Magnesium? [print this page] An adult human body contains about 25 grams of magnesium. The main part of it is stored in the bones and muscles, brain, heart, liver and kidneys. Daily magnesium maintenance for women is slightly lower than for men (300 and 350 mg respectively). Human body should consume about 6 mg of magnesium per kilogram of a body weight during the day. The dose of this element increases to 13-15 mg / kg body weight during the periods of growth, pregnancy and breast feeding. So, daily magnesium maintenance is 925 mg for pregnant women, and it equals to 1250 mg for nursing mothers. Human body also requires an increased magnesium intake in elderly and senile age, because a person has decreased magnium suction in this period of life.
Biological role of magnesium.
In order to understand, why human body needs magnesium, it is necessary to consider its role in various physiological processes.
First of all, magnesium is needed for normal set of reactions associated with energy metabolism. A body energy battery is adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The ATP breakage provides a body with the great amount of energy, and magnesium ions are essential for this reaction.
Apart from that, magnesium is a cell growth physiological regulator. Also, magnesium is needed for the proteins synthesis, certain harmful substances removal from a body, the normal functioning of the nervous system. Magnesium alleviates premenstrual symptom manifestation in women bodies, increases the levels of "good" and lowers the levels of "bad" cholesterol in blood, prevents the kidney stones formation. Magnesium is essential for a body processes regulation, phosphorus metabolism, neuromuscular excitability, the intestinal wall muscles contractions stimulation. The normal functioning of cardiac muscle contraction and relaxation gets maintained with the help of magnesium.
Magnesium has a vasodilating action, which in turn leads to a blood pressure decrease. It is established that in the regions with the low magnesium content drinking water, people much more often suffer from hypertension. Magnesium is essential in a body as long as it provides the opposite to calcium action, which causes smooth muscles to contract around blood vessels. Magnesium relaxes these muscle fibers and promotes blood flow.
As long as a human body needs magnesium to regulate many processes, the importance of magnesium metabolism for many diseases development becomes obvious.
