WHAT TO REMEMBER :
- The absorption of magnesium depends on the carrier involved: not all types of magnesium are equal.
- The salts in the marine mix are composed of low-quality carriers.
- The name "organic" or "natural" does not guarantee a better product.
The name "organic" or "natural" does not guarantee a better product. It will not have escaped you, marine magnesium is everywhere! Pharmacies, parapharmacies, organic stores or specialists... Few products can claim to have conquered such a place in our shelves. With its name "nature", we could almost believe that by sticking our ear to the bottle, the soft sound of the waves will rock our nights... But is this commercial success really a reflection of its effectiveness ? As usual, we are uncovering the preconceived ideas of our industry, and it is undoubtedly one of the most persistent !
What does marine magnesium consist of ?
Let's do it! Let's do it! We attack directly in the hard... By studying the composition of marine magnesium, we will quickly understand that it is a product of poor quality. As a reminder, magnesium is an ion that needs to be grafted to a transporter to be stabilized and passed from the intestine into the blood plasma. It is the absorption that makes the quality of a magnesium salt and not its content. So what are the famous natural salts in the marine mix ?
- Magnesium oxide represents 80 to 90% of marine magnesium. According to specialists, this carrier is the least efficient of all (see magnesium infography). Its inorganic profile prevents it from being recognized as a nutrient by the body and often leads to digestive disorders (1).
- Magnesium carbonate is also found there. This salt is also inorganic (2). In short, not very qualitative.
- Then comes magnesium sulphate. But here the digestive disorders are there.
- Finally, magnesium chloride is a fairly qualitative carrier due to its high absorption. But let us remember that this salt is acidifying and that it does not compose more than 2% of the famous marine mix.
At this stage, you can already hear much less wave noise... It is clear that marine magnesium agglomerates everything that is not done so well in terms of transporters. Bad point therefore...
"Yes, but it's natural... So that's good, you understand ?"
Faced with the surge of "natural" and "organic", the manna was far too beautiful not to arouse some vocations ! And it is true that the places of production have something to dream about: the Irish Sea with Marigot Ltd., the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea (consortium of Israeli actors), the Pacific Sea with Cargill, we can already feel the spray tickling our nostrils...
But the industry goes further and tries to buy a virtue through scientific studies. Two of them keep coming back into the debates :
- An Israeli clinical study in 2012 which would tend to show that oxide absorbs better than citrate (3),
- A meta-analysis (synthesis of several clinical studies) conducted in 2001 by Ranade and which concludes with an oxide absorption of 23% (4) ! Ha, it's okay, we're reassured and it's natural !
In real life
With all due respect to the beach-goers, the scientific literature seeking to legitimize marine magnesium is a little thin. We will not list here all the clinical studies advocating the advantages of the so-called second generation salts, the famous chelates (see table). Let us simply mention the meta-analysis conducted by Rylander in 2014 (very recent therefore) and which is now a reference (5). Its results are unquestionable: the oxide is lower than chelates, despite its high magnesium content.
Now let's talk about currency. The table above shows the wholesale prices of some magnesium salts. We can see that the oxide is 3 times cheaper than the marine mix. Is this justified? No, because this mix, as we have seen, is more than 80% oxide and its production method by evaporation of sea water is very simple. It should also be noted that much higher chelates such as malate or citrate are only slightly more expensive. It goes without saying that this pricing policy practiced by wholesalers artificially increases the consumer price.
The opinion of our team
Poor absorption, high price and licked denomination, you will have understood it, you do not risk to see a marine magnesium NUTRI & CO !
(1) http://www.magnesiumges.de/jdownloads/Literatur/Driessens/driessens_1993_on_formulas_for_daily_oral_magnesium.pdf
(2) Le carbonate de magnésium pourrait se changer en chloride de magnésium dans l’estomac. Si ce second sel est bien plus absorbable, personne n’a encore pu établir dans quelle proportion le carbonate se transformait en chlorure.
Littérature scientifique pro mix marin :
(3) http://www.navehpharma.co.il/images/products/PDF/Magnox520/magnesium-research.pdf
(4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11550076
Littérature scientifique pro chelates :
(5) http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1016.7408&rep=rep1&type=pdf
