Comment · Fri, November 29, 2013 · Ceretropic
Chelated Magnesium
Original post in this thread
physicsdood · 9 points
Interested in starting to take some magnesium, and heard chelated magnesium is the way to go for bioavailability. I went to whole foods and picked up a bottle of chelated magnesium, but now looking at the ingredients, it says it's 200mg of magnesium (as magnesium oxide and magnesium aspartate). Everything I'm reading online now says that magnesium oxide is not chelated magnesium. So, is "chelated" unrelated to the specific form of magnesium (i.e. you can have chelated magnesium oxide), or is the whole foods bottle just labeled incorrectly?
What they were answering
silverhydra · 2 points
Where is there conclusive evidence that L-threonate elevates brain magnesium levels more than glycinate?
I don't have conclusive evidence beyond a single rat study which confirmed a 15% increase (beyond basal) with oral supplementation.
That being said, I am reading into the above comment and it sounds like you are saying that there is conclusive evidence for glycinate at increasing brain levels of magnesium? I have never seen a study not in deficiency settings, so do you have a link to anything that confirms an increase in neural concentrations outside of magnesium deficiency? (Because all forms of magnesium can elevate brain levels if you were deficient in the first place)
Also, there was a human study on L-threonate that should have already concluded by now ... If this much more expensive form turned out to be more effective in humans, why are they not publishing the results?
I find it hard to follow that train of thought when there are terms of uncertainty thrown in there (should, if, etc.), but I'm not going to deny the possibility that the null results are being hid.
I would be more than happy to defer to glycinate if it had a larger body of evidence to back it up, but to date I have seen none within the above experimental conditions outlined.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
Sorry for the confusion. I am most definitely not saying that glycinate has conclusive evidence to support it. I am merely saying that there is not sufficient evidence to state the following about L-threonate:
It gets absorbed nearly perfectly and can influence the brain in a depressive/protective manner
There is a single rat study showing that it can increase brain concentrations 15%. The human study that was being run by the company that holds the patent to L-threonate, Magceutics, was supposed to conclude early last year. However, there is no mention of the results, and they have ignored my emails asking them about it. This makes me suspicious.
Do I have proof that their results were less than stellar? No, I do not. However, it just seems odd to me that they were so eager and excited to get the results, then went silent on the matter. To justify the much higher costs of L-threonate, I would need some real studies on the matter. Even so, I was curious and did purchase some a while back. I noticed no significant difference between them. Not that my anecdotes mean much. It's just the massive price difference should be justified somehow, and I have yet to find a reason.