Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Asthma Natural Treatment - Including Magnesium In Your Diet


One major concern for many people suffering from asthma is that they're too dependent on drugs. These drugs often have damaging side effects and/or they don't work as well as people would like them to. Therefore, more and more people with asthma are turning to natural asthma treatments. One such asthma treatment is using nutrition to help alleviate or to even cure asthma symptoms.

One very important part of your diet has to be including foods that contain magnesium. You can also take magnesium supplements to help your asthma.

What is Magnesium?

Magnesium is the fourth most abundant nutrient in the human body. It is very important to all of our health. More importantly, more doctors are recognizing that this is an most important nutrient in fighting asthma.

How Does Magnesium Work?

Nearly seventy years ago, this was first found to naturally dilate the bronchial tubes. This means that magnesium actually helps open your bronchial tubes. Since an asthma attack involves your bronchial tubes closing-up, opening these tubes obviously directly affects and helps with asthma attacks.

Magnesium works so well that it is one of the things given to people in the hospital when people are suffering a major asthma attack. The magnesium is given in the form of magnesium sulfate and is administered through an IV (given directly through a needle that's placed into a vein).

What Foods are High in Magnesium?

Just eating certain foods that contain a high amount can help you too. Some foods that taste great and are rich in magnesium include: almonds, cashews, halibut (fish), spinach, kiwi fruits, and sunflower seeds.

Of course there are many other foods that contain high amounts of magnesium as well.

The one precaution you need to take is to be sure that you aren't allergic to another ingredient in a food that's high in magnesium. If you are, then obviously that food will do far more harm than good. So make sure the foods you choose won't cause your asthma to get worse through an allergic reaction before you begin eating it the first time.

Can Magnesium be Taken as a Supplement?

Taking magnesium orally (as a supplement) is a good idea but you should always consult your physician first. Also, because it has to go through the digestive process, it can be rendered less effective so you may need to take more than what the label says and what you think you are consuming.

Magnesium is found at different levels depending on what type of supplement you choose to take. For example, magnesium oxide contains 60% magnesium while magnesium lactate only contains 12%. Technically speaking, the higher the content the better it will work. However, there are exceptions due to bioavailability and solubility which affect how a supplement is absorbed by the body and how effective they are.

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