The Benefits of Magnesium Intake

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The Benefits of Magnesium Intake
Vexation without representation
Government "of the people?" I hope not...
I spend a lot of time and spill a lot of ink railing about the government, I admit it.
It's for good reason, though. Every year, the Fools on the Hill waste billions of dollars of YOUR money while they pass endless stacks of nonsensical laws and regulations that are drafted not in your best interests, but solely to increase the flow of cash into their coffers. And while this is hardly a revelation, it bears repeating every so often so we don't forget who's really putting up the roadblocks that prevent us from living the lives and enjoying the rights our Founding Fathers envisioned.
Just the other day, I came across something in a years-old stack of papers that really served to hammer home the point that our government has lost touch with us - that they are no longer a government "of the people." It was a printed copy of an un-attributed e-mail that was making the rounds among us dissenters about the personal lives of the members of Congress, circa 2000. Here's what I mean:
According to the dispatch, of the 535 elected officials sitting on the 106th Congress...
117 had bankrupted at least 2 businesses
71 had credit issues so severe they couldn't get a charge card
21 were in the midst of lawsuits against them
19 had been accused of kiting checks
8 had been arrested for shoplifting
7 had been arrested for fraud
14 had been arrested on drug-related charges
3 had been arrested for assault
29 had been accused of spousal abuse
84 had been stopped for drunk driving IN 1998 ALONE!
If these statements are true (and I have no reason to think they aren't), it means that if this is a representative sample of our citizenry, 21% of us have been bankrupt twice, 13% of us aren't creditworthy in the least, and nearly 16% of us get pulled over for driving drunk every year. See what I mean about the folks we elect not being like us? To look at it another way, would you WORK for a company whose board of directors acted like this?
Now, in all fairness, I haven't verified this information. I'm just too busy, and I wouldn't know where to start anyway. But let's face it - based on the high jinks we see them pulling every day up on The Hill, would such a sordid history of rampant financial irresponsibility and arrogant disregard for the law among our Congress-persons really surprise us?
It doesn't surprise me at all. What DOES surprise me is the fact that the mass media doesn't seem to uniformly report on their foibles and legal troubles either before they're elected or after. With the exception of the credit info, everything on the list above should be public record for journalists or anyone else to see, if only they'd look.
But no, they're too busy looking the other way all the time...
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Ahead of the curve, once again
Perhaps we'd all remember a little more of our elected officials' shenanigans (at least the precious few we actually HEAR about) if we were getting enough of one of my favorite minerals: Magnesium. At least, that's the gist of some exciting new research out of MIT.
Now, I've always been a big fan of magnesium for overall health - it's a great boon to bones and bodily tissues of all types, plus it helps release stored energy from your muscles. I've also recommended it for a myriad of more specific medical issues, like osteoporosis. I've also long known of magnesium's powerful effects on the brain. As far back as the 1970s, I used magnesium in emergency medicine to help limit brain damage in stroke victims - a practice which has since been validated by scientific studies.
But a new study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has discovered that magnesium also helps to regulate brain receptors that play a crucial role in learning and memorization, according to a recent HealthDayNews article. The research shows that a deficiency of the mineral contributes to an impaired ability to learn and memorize, while an abundance of magnesium may actually boost cognitive function.
Apparently, the mineral enhances the plasticity (changeability) of synapses, the neural connections between brain cells. This action makes it a powerful ally in the war against cognitive decline and memory degeneration, the study's authors conclude.
It's currently estimated that more than half of Americans don't get enough magnesium...
That number must include every member of Congress and all of the mainstream media - it seems like none of them can remember what they're really supposed to be doing.
Always representing - and always remembering, too,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
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