The heart. In biological terms, it is the central organ that directly or indirectly sustains every biochemical life function known to man. In literal terms, even the word heart has become a euphemism for anything that is foremost and fundamental, and it is often seen as our emotional core. Needless to say, any problems with the heart are serious indeed.
Magnesium Taurate is a combination of the mineral magnesium and the amino acid taurine, and is designed to help ensure heart health. This is, however, not a simple admixture but rather a true chelate. This means that the magnesium and the taurine are combined in the form of a heterocyclic ring and are connected by coordinate bonds.
By supplementing with this unique amino-acid/essential mineral combination, the body's ability to avoid potentially debilitating deficiencies, stabilize cell membranes, and inhibit the over-excitability of the central nervous system is synergistically enhanced.
Magnesium
Magnesium (whose mineral table designation is Mg) is another mineral that is in startling short supply in modern society, and it is vital for heart health and maintaining low blood pressure. A 1977-78 study by the US Department of Agriculture found that the only 25% of people surveyed had a magnesium intake that was at or greater than RDA, meaning that 75% of the population was deficient. This is especially disturbing when one considers the fact that the RDA is based more on bureaucratic convention than scientific fact and it's amounts are almost always significantly lower than what scientific research suggests. The reasons for the deficiency are all too familiar: too much processed food, depleted soil minerals, and stress.
As an electrolyte, magnesium is a substance that dissociates in a solution to form ions. In the body, it helps to keep nerves and muscles active, regulate water levels, and maintain acid-base balance. More importantly, however, it helps maintain healthy blood pressure and minimizes the negative effects of heart ailments.
Too little magnesium directly affects your heart health, causing your blood pressure to elevate and dramatically raising your chances of a heart attack and/or stroke. Magnesium also helps the heart muscles work together and the nerves that initiate the heartbeat to maintain their regular function. Trials have shown that even those with frequent arrhythmia found a significant drop in the likelihood of abnormal rhythms after supplementing with magnesium and potassium for three weeks. Magnesium given by injection has also been shown to aid recovery from heart attack. Epidemiological studies even show that areas with 'hard' drinking water (water which is high in minerals including magnesium) have lower mortality rates from heart attacks.
Magnesium also has an important role in protecting the genome. It helps to stabilize DNA, since its positive charge balances the negative charge on DNA. It is also required as a cofactor by many of the enzymes that are involved in DNA repair. Furthermore, magnesium has been suggested to help protect against oxidative stress, a main cause of genetic damage, and against systemic inflammation, both of which can lead of cancer.
A study of 1139 patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer and 1210 healthy controls had their intake of dietary magnesium and their DNA repair capacity (DRC) assessed. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, the study found an inverse association between magnesium intake and the risk of lung cancer. This decreased risk ranged from 17 to 53%. DRC was also correlated with magnesium intake. Low dietary magnesium and suboptimal DRC were associated with a substantial increase in lung cancer risk. Therefore, magnesium's protective roles in maintaining the structure of the cell and genome may reduce the risk of cancer.
Taurine
The most abundant free amino acid to be found in the blood of all mammals, taurine is also concentrated within the heart where it regulates the beating.
An increasing volume of research is showing taurine's effects on the cardiovascular system -and some of the results are astounding. The importance of taurine has not always been a central point of interest for scientists, probably because it has always been considered a "non-essential" amino acid, meaning the body can synthesize it internally. However, more recent revelations about its importance have been so numerous that scientists have been moving to re-classify it as "conditionally essential". It is now known to stabilize membranes, lower blood pressure, and stabilize heart rate (antiarrhythmic). Repeatedly, taurine has been shown to minimize the damaging effects of congestive heart failure.
Taurine's benefits aren't limited to the cardiovascular system either. It's ability to stabilize membranes is bolstered by its antioxidant and antitoxin effects as well, since it protects the cellular membranes from toxic compounds such as oxidants, bile acids, and xenobiotics. These same protective effects help defend the heart from free radical damage as well.
A Cardiovascular Combo
Recent studies have revealed that magnesium and taurine share a number of interchangeable and potentiating roles in human physiology. Studies have demonstrated that magnesium plays an important role in the metabolic regulation of taurine levels. Concurrently, taurine can fulfill magnesium's biochemical functions in both overt and subclinical magnesium-deficient states. The four central areas where taurine and magnesium share common biological ground are: the ability to elicit overall improvements in cardiology, the potentiating effect on insulin sensitivity, the inhibitory effects on neuromuscular excitability, and the dependency on vitamin B6.
The anti-arrhythmic, cardioprotective, antihypertensive, and inotropic properties of taurine are remarkably similar to magnesium. Taurine modulates cytosolic heart calcium content and binding, thus influencing contractiveness. Both magnesium and taurine appear to act as physiologic calcium antagonists and thus may protect the heart against potential difficulties caused by an overload of cytosolic heart calcium levels. Taurine and magnesium also evoke direct effects on arterial vasoconstriction and both protect against the stresses which induce hypertension. Among these direct effects include the mutual ability to inhibit the central action of angiotensin II. Both taurine and magnesium may also share a number of antithrombotic effects.
Both taurine and magnesium enhance the actions of insulin without stimulating the release of insulin itself from the pancreas. They instead enhance insulin sensitivity via the stimulation of glycogenesis, glycolysis and oxygen utilization.
Both magnesium and taurine are relatively stable compounds that are both found in the central nervous system and in the peripheral tissue surrounding it. Both possess anticonvulsive capabilities, and the mechanisms of action that they both share for this capability includes their mutual effectiveness against the effects of hypoxia.
Taurine and magnesium each share a conspicuously dependent relationship with vitamin B6. Studies have repeatedly shown that seriously lowered vitamin B6 levels have a depletive effect on both magnesium and taurine pools. This mutual dependency on B6 is one of the indicators that scientists have used to examine the parallel relationship between taurine and magnesium.
Heart problems are rampant in North America and much of the world. Magnesium Taurate has the potential, backed up by extensive research, to help deal with heart problems and minimize the havoc they cause in people's bodies and lives. Don't let your heart go undernourished or unprotected. Let Magnesium Taurate help your heart regulate itself and bring you improved heart health.
References
McCarty MF. Magnesium taurate for the prevention and treatment of pre-eclampsia/eclampsia. Med Hypotheses. 1996 Oct;47(4):269-72.
Finckenbeg P, et al. Magnesium supplementation prevents angiotensin II-induced myocardial damage and CTGF overexpression. J Hypertens 2005 Feb;23(2):375-80.
Mahabir S, Wei Q, Barrera SL, Dong YQ, Etzel CJ, Spitz MR and Forman MR. Dietary magnesium and DNA repair capacity as risk factors for lung cancer. Carcinogenesis 2008;29(5):949-956.
McCarty MF. Complementary Vascular-Protective Actions of Magnesium and Taurine: A Rationale for Magnesium Taurate. Medical Hypotheses (1996) 46. 89-100.
Schaffer SW, Lombardini JB, Azuma J. Interaction between the actions of taurine and angiotensin II. Amino Acids. 2000;18(4):305-18.
