DFH changed magnesium glycinate???

Hi Everyone,

I just reordered Designs for Health Magnesium Glycinate from my nutritonist. When I got home, I noticed it is now called Magnesium Buffered Chelate. The label states that it is "TRAACS Magneisum Biglycinate Chelate Buffered from magnesium biglycinate chelate and magnesium oxide". It doesn't say how much magnesium oxide is in it, so I'm not sure how significant this change is. In the past, I've not been able to take magnesium oxide or citrate because it causes loose stools. Has anyone tried this new version? What are your thoughts on it?

I went to iHerb to check out other products. I used to take BlueBonnet Magnesium Glycinate, and now I see that it also contains mangesium oxide. I then looked at Doctor's Best which contains magnesium glycinate and magnesium lysinate. I don't know whether the lysinate would be better than the oxide??? It is supposed to be an albion product and is very inexpensive, but the tablets are large and hard to swallow, according to some reviewers, which would be a problem for me. It is also only 100mg per tablet, which would mean swallowing many pills during the day.

So considering the current changes, what is the best magnesium glycinate to take?

Thanks much,
Nancy M.

Nancy - check out these recent posts on the 'buffered' topic.

First... this one for background [www.afibbers.org]

Then this one - Magnesium What's in Your Supplement?
[www.afibbers.org]

Bill K found a source of a powder with only 8% magnesium oxide buffered... (supplied by Albion) and info at their website indicates they are making changes to offer a pure Albion magnesium glycinate chelated product w/o MgO.
[www.seekinghealth.com]

I hope Bill chimes in here and adds his comments about what he's learned.

DFH now has bulk powdered magnesium glycinate that is labeled as not being buffered:
Magnesium (TRAACS® as Magnesium Bisglycinate Chelate) 300 mg

Hope this helps.

Jackie

Nancy and Jackie,

I just got off the phone with the product specialist from Seeking Health who told me of the changes to the Mag Glycerinate products and the labeling issues . Albion was sued a few months ago along with BlueBonnet for mis-labeling their Mag Glyc and is now requiring all their customers to change labels to indicate the Mag Oxide content. She told me the products that are "buffered" are about 20% Mag Oxide. the Seeking Health Mag Glycerinate is buffered so they now admit a 20% mag Oxide content. Companies that sell Mag Glycinate/lysinate from Albion that is not buffered she says also has some Mag Oxide in it but at much lower amounts, perhaps 2-8%, so perhaps we can expect some label changes from those sellers also. Currently Dr Best claims there is no Mag Oxide left over after their manufacture of Mag Glycerinate and it will be interesting to see if they change their label. Either Albion, or perhaps the court in the lawsuit, is requiring a July 1 deadline for the new labels.

Perhaps the good news is that most of the sellers of Mag Glycinate are now trying to reformulate their products without Mag Oxide or with much lower levels of Mag Oxide so we will have better products to choose from in a few months.

Bill

Thank you, Bill for taking the time to help clarify this label obfuscation for us. Hopefully, and after the litigation dust settles, we will be able to rely on labels to tell us the oxide content. It will be interesting to see the results and hopefully, we all will get the results we expect from a more pure product.

Be well,
Jackie

Jackie and others,

I sent an email to Dr Best to ask them if they have any Mag Oxide in their High Absorption Mag. Their response, "...High Absorption Magnesium originally comes from magnesium oxide. Elemental magnesium is separated out of the magnesium oxide and chelated with the amino acids lysine and glycine. There are no left-over residues of the magnesium oxide in the finished product. It is 100% chelated magnesium lysine-glycinate."

Bill

Thanks much, Jackie and Bill. I read the "buffered" posts, Jackie, and they were very helpful.

I looked at the Seeking Health Mag Gly Powder website and discovered that it contains citric acid. In the past, I have not been able to take products that contain citric acid. I'm not sure if that is still the case as I haven't been tested for it in the last few months, but I'll stay away from it for now. I tried to do a search on DFH Mag Bisglycinate Chelate Powder but couldn't find anything about it. Since Tom C and Nancy had problems with Doctor's Best, I think I will stay away from that as well.

It sounds like it might be best just to stick with the new DFH Buffered Mag Gly for now as it isn't really any different from what I've been taking this past year in the DFH Mag Gly Chelate product, only the label has changed. I'm taking 450mg of DFH Mag Gly and 200mg of mag malate (in DFH Complete Mineral Complex). I drink WW throughout the day and use it in my cooking too. I had been taking 2 oz of concentrated WW throughout the day as well for several months, but when I started taking DFH Stellar C, my stools got too loose. I've stopped the Stellar C, so maybe I'll try going back to the concentrated WW.

As you've stated, hopefully DFH and BlueBonnet will change their formulas and eliminate the mag oxide soon.

As a side note, I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of my ablation surgery next month, and have had no afib events. I still have a HR of about 85 bpm, which drives me nuts, and some short runs of PACs from time to time, but I am so thankful the afib is gone!! Think I'll send Dr. Hongo a "thank you" card next month. He did a great job!!

Many blessings to you both,
Nancy M (Windstar)

I can't imagine that 8% to 10% of MaG oxide in an otherwise 90% pure Chelated Mag Glycinate or Glycine/Lysine combo having much of a noticeable impact from the oxide content alone. At most, I suspect it might reduce absorption by some fraction of that 8% to 10% level total Mag Oxide content.

I've never heard of an allergy to mag oxide, but I suppose that might be possible. Though hypochondria or an overly active imagination at some point could also become involved with otherwise very hard to imagine apparent associations I guess.

Nevertheless, its definitely important to have proper and honest supplement labeling, for sure, so we know just what we are ingesting.

Good to know about the powder form of Albion chelated Mag with lower levels of oxide.

Shannon

Shannon - I believe the point Bill and I along with others are making here is not that 8 or 10% oxide is an interference, it's that until recently, labeling didn't indicate an inclusion of MgO at all... in the amino acid chelated Albion labeled products... until the bottlers started adding the word, "buffered" to the label and in the description included the magnesium oxide buffered statement.

That led to the discussion that a chelated product is designed not to need a buffer at all...so why are the bottlers including that? We all suspect it is to add a cheap ingredient which could allude to a higher magnesium count but in reality, the actual bio-available magnesium would be 'less than advertised.' If it's only 8 or 10%, that would be a relatively minor amount. However, what is now coming out is that the percentages were often 20% and that's a fairly significant amount when one considers the total intended dosage ...minus the 20% that is a useless addition.

Moreover, it's the principle of the thing... which is apparently why the litigation over labeling discrepancies.

In any event, Bill has sorted out in his post that the Doctor's best is "100% chelated magnesium lysine-glycinate."

Jackie

Shannon ,

I agree with Jackie, it is the principle of thing that is important here. We need to be able to trust the labels on the supplements we buy. This is an unregulated industry and we consumers need manufactures with integrity. Many sellers of magniesium glycinate did not disclose the magnesium oxide in their product. The woman I spoke with at Seeking Health said they did not know themselves that what they were getting from Albion contained so much Mag Oxide. They assumed their might be trace amounts since the chelate is made from Mag Oxide, but did not realize that more mag oxide was added to "buffer" the Mag content. The lawsuit against Albion and Bluebonnet contends the non-disclosure was to boost profits as mag glycinate demands a higher price than mag oxide.

The 8% is a bad number it is more like 20% and that is a base number, some manufacturers may have used more, we simply do not know if they do not tell us.

As much as I hate lawsuits this is an example of some real good coming from one. We will soon be able to buy better chelate compounds because manufactures like Seeking Health want to sell the better product and are now researching how to do it.

billk

Thanks for your research on this, Bill. I already use many Seeking Health products and am glad to hear they are interested in making a more pure mag gly. Should we all phone the company and encourage them in this?

Nancy M

Nancy,

The woman I spoke with is named Sarissa and I think she is involved with product development. I think she is pretty convinced that they need to get the new product going but another couple of calls may be helpful to make it a priority. She says there is a lead time of a couple of months at least to do new formulations, print labels and packaging, etc.

What I most appreciate about their current product is that it is in the form of a finely granulated powder. A scoop of the powder equals 200 mg of elemental mag. One scoop dissolves almost instantly in 2-3 oz of water. Because there is no capsule or binders, as in a tablet, I think it is more readily absorbable. Until the new product is ready I have returned to Dr Best's but as several have indicated on this board the tablet is hard to swallow, and I wonder, if it breaks down completely before it passes through my system We know the big problem with Mag is absorption so anything that enhances absorption is a plus. I am now grinding up the Dr Best into a powder with a mortar and pestle but the binders, etc. are still present.

If anyone has better ideas on how we can increase intake and absorption of Mag I am all ears.

Bill

Bill, I am a bit confused. Why are you taking Doctor's Best tablets and grinding them up if you can take the Seeking Health powder instead? Is it because the Seeking Health powder contains mag oxide and the Doctor's Best supposedly doesn't? Can we really believe what Doctor's Best is saying? The fact that the other Nancy and Tom C had heart palpitations when taking Doctor's Best concerns me.

Thanks.

Nancy M

Nancy M - the heart palps most likely were not because of the oxide, itself, but because Tom and Nancy were low on overall magnesium intake... thinking that the dosing (as labeled) offered them sufficient magnesium intake.

However, as we know, magnesium requirements vary from day to day and taking a set amount isn't always going to optimize the IC stores and produce the results we expect. Dosing requirements typically vary for the best repletion. Then if a percentage of that dose was the oxide form which is not apt to be very absorbable, they were low in daily amounts of usable magnesium.

The Doctor's Best are formed capsules... held together with binding agents... which should have nothing to do with disturbing the tight bond of the true Albion amino acid chelate. I've never been able to understand why Dr.'s Best persisted in making such a large, hard capsule when it would be so much more acceptable to use capsules.... probably a cost issue but capsules would eliminate the addition of the propylene glycol coating which is not something I want to ingest because of my MCS.

The labeled ingredients: Other Ingredients: Cellulose, croscarmellose, sodium, magnesium stearate (vegetable source), stearic acid, hypromellose and propylene glycol (coating).
** Amino acid chelate supplied by Albion Advanced Nutrition.

Jackie

Jackie,

Like you, I want to stay away from propylene glycol. I don't need any more chemical sensitivities than I already have!! I will just stay with DFH Mag Gly for now, hoping that they will soon improve their formula.

Blessings,
Nancy M

Bill,

As I've previously posted <[www.afibbers.org] I take a lot of mag. I've noticed that my bowel tolerence is correlated with stress. That is higher stress equals higher bowel tolerence. Also, even thought my diet is includes huge amounts of raw veggies, I can flip between loose stools and constipation fairly quickly. A couple of tablespoons of psyllium husks/day allows more mag and evens the bowel tolerence issue out.

Year ago, I recall PeggyM posting that her tolerence was only 100 mg mag/day (as glycinate). Adding the probiotic, Saccharomyces Boulardii <[en.wikipedia.org] allowed her to increase her intake to 200-400mg/day (from memory, not sure exactly what the number was at this point, but it was a very significant increase).

George

George - Since stress depletes magnesium rapidly, it's logical that you have that response to higher dosing. I'm the same way.

BTW - a great food source of magnesium not often mentioned ... also good fiber and protein...(1/3 cup = 9 g protein)
Raw Pumpkin Seeds (pepitas)... 100 g or about 3 ounces = 535 mg magnesium. Tasty, too.

Jackie

Hi Nancy, Glad to hear that your Hongo ablation working well at the 12 month mark.

Thanks, Researcher. It is great to be afib free!! I'm so happy to be able to make plans and not have afib interfere with them.

As to the pepitas, I used to eat them all the time, and then I found out that they are high in phytic acid (like nuts) unless you eat them between meals or soak and then rehydrate them. But I have gotten too lazy to do this, so I stopped eating them. Here is a website on nuts and phytic acid that might be helpful. It lists many different type of foods high in phytic acid.

[www.marksdailyapple.com]

This next website explains that the real problem with nuts and seeds is not so much the phytic acid, since we generally eat only small amounts of nuts per day, but is withtheir high levels of enzyme inhibitors. It gives detailed explanations on how to soak and rehydrate various kinds of nuts and seeds. Since I haven't eaten any nuts for over a month now, my digestion has improved greatly, so I can attest to this from personal experience.

[www.thenourishinggourmet.com]

It seems that everything we want to eat to be healthy (pepitas have lots of health benefits!) also comes with a price--more work to prepare them properly. I already soak my breakfast grains the night before to neutralize the phytic acid, but I just haven't gotten into the habit of doing this with my nuts and seeds. I guess it's like making WW; it's not really hard to do and only takes a few minutes, but people are busy and just don't want to make the time to do it! I've emailed the WW recipe and explanation for drinking it to lots of my friends and so far none have tried making it. Oh well!!

Blessings,
Nancy M

Nancy - well too bad you don't tolerate them. There positives and negatives .... this report indicates the positive effects of phytic acid... [www.livestrong.com] antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and then lowering blood glucose... although the downside is the anti-nutrient binding. Probably as in all things, moderation is the key unless you have known incompatibilities such as yours.

This link continues with more of the downside to phytates in food.
[www.livestrong.com]

Be well,

Jackie

Thanks, Jackie. I read the two articles and was surprised to find that phytic acid has so many health benefits. I think I'll stop soaking my breakfast grains for awhile and see what happens. I don't take my magnesium until lunch and after anyway, so it shouldn't prevent the digestion of that mineral. If it reduces calcium and iron, then that's great! For now, my body doesn't want nuts because of the mold issue, but when I eat them in the future, I think I'll use them as a snack between meals.

Blessings,
Nancy

I reached out to Seeking Health today to see when their pure magnesium glycinate powder will be available as discussed in this thread. They said the product is enroute from their manfacturer and should be available on their site in 1-2 weeks! Thanks for the head's up on this product, Bill.

Travis