Comment · Wed, August 28, 2019
Absorption of calcium and magnesium taken simultaneously?
Original post in this thread
sligfy · 6 points
I know that calcium and magnesium compete for absorption and that it's best to spread them out.
However, it's still super convenient to put a bunch of magnesium in my dairy-based smoothie. So I consume magnesium and calcium together in every sip. The amount of magnesium in my smoothies is roughly equal to the amount of calcium.
Is it reasonable to assume that I absorb approx half of the magnesium that I would if I took without calcium?
What they were answering
quantboy7 · 1 points
Thanks a lot for the explanation! So this would imply there is no competition with calcium absorption when taking magnesium threonate.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
Well there should be less competition with calcium for the ion channels if the magnesium form does not dissociate. That's because it will favor the dipeptide transporters. Some will still use the ion channels, though. So it would not be correct in saying there is absolutely no competition. It will just be much less than the dipeptide transporters.
Actually, now that I think about it, magnesium L-threonate might not actually use the dipeptide transporters... This could actually be a breakthrough! Magnesium glycinate uses mainly the dipeptide transporters because the chelate is an amino acid. So the body would absorb it like other amino acids. However, threonic acid is not strictly an amino acid. It's a sugar acid. So what if it is being absorbed by the glucose transporters instead of the dipeptide transporters? That would make sense! If that is the case, that may be why L-threonate has been found to reach the brain better. It's treating it like a sugar instead of an amino acid!
If my assumptions on this are correct, that might mean that taking magnesium L-threonate with food could lower its absorption, as the sugars in the meal might compete. However, it also would mean that glycinate and threonate don't compete with each other for absorption. This realization could be pretty cool! I am going to have my team do some more research on this. This may also be the mechanism our new MicroMAG is using for absorption, as it is a liposome encased by a sucrester. So the sucrose ester might be allowing it to absorb through the glucose transporters like threonate does. We might be able to make a really cool optimized magnesium based on this info!