I’m going to let you know one thing most dentists gained’t.
For 40 years, I watched sufferers do every little thing proper — brush twice a day, floss, lower the sugar — and nonetheless lose enamel. Nonetheless grind their tooth at evening. Nonetheless get up exhausted. Nonetheless come again with extra sensitivity, extra recession, extra harm.
However, in lots of instances, the issue wasn’t their toothbrush or floss.
It was a mineral deficiency that just about no person assessments for — and that in accordance with NHANES information, 48% of American adults have proper now with out figuring out it.
Magnesium.
I do know. You’ve in all probability heard of it. You may even already take it.
However what I’m about to share modified the best way I observe dentistry, and it’d change the best way you concentrate on your tooth, your sleep, and your mind.
Your tooth might not be capable to restore themselves with out it.
Magnesium is a part of your enamel. A 2016 examine in Acta Biomaterialia discovered that magnesium ions react with tooth enamel by means of a course of referred to as dissolution and re-precipitation — actually restructuring the crystal lattice on the floor — and the consequence was tougher, extra resilient tooth. A follow-up examine in Acta Biomaterialia (2020) confirmed it: roughly a 20% enhance in nanohardness.
However right here’s the place it will get scary…
When your magnesium is low, your saliva loses the power to deposit calcium and phosphate again into your enamel. That course of — remineralization — is how your tooth repair tiny cracks and harm each single day. With out sufficient magnesium, that restore system can gradual to a crawl — or stall completely. You possibly can have the perfect brushing routine on the planet, and your enamel should be shedding floor.
Take into consideration that. Your physique has a built-in tooth restore system. And most of the people might have by chance turned it off.
Your mind is shrinking. Magnesium might gradual it down.
A 2023 examine within the European Journal of Diet (Alateeq et al.) tracked over 6,000 adults ages 40–73 and measured magnesium consumption towards mind quantity on MRI. The discovering stopped me chilly: individuals consuming increased magnesium had brains that appeared roughly one 12 months youthful by age 55. Bigger complete quantity. Fewer white matter lesions. Higher-preserved areas for studying and reminiscence.
One 12 months youthful. From a mineral that prices pennies a day.
Girls noticed even higher neuroprotective advantages within the Alateeq examine — and the reason being alarming. Between 30 and 40% of menopausal ladies have scientific hypomagnesemia (low magnesium) with out figuring out it. Estrogen helps regulate magnesium retention, so when estrogen drops throughout perimenopause and menopause, magnesium plummets with it. And magnesium is what permits your physique to truly use vitamin D — so if you happen to’re supplementing vitamin D (as most girls over 40 are advised to), it could not even be working with out satisfactory magnesium. It’s a cascading failure that just about no person is connecting the dots on.
Wow! Bigger brains. Fewer lesions. Measurably youthful construction. And this wasn’t a small examine — it was over 6,000 individuals tracked with MRI. The researchers even discovered that the neuroprotective advantages of upper magnesium had been higher for girls than males throughout each measure they checked out.
If you happen to’re frightened about staying sharp as you age — about reminiscence, about focus, about your mind simply… working — this one mineral might matter greater than nearly something I’ve seen in 40 years of studying analysis.
This might be why you’re grinding your tooth at 3am.
A double-blind, placebo-controlled scientific trial revealed within the Journal of Analysis in Medical Sciences (Abbasi et al., 2012) gave topics 500mg of magnesium every day for 8 weeks. The outcomes: statistically vital will increase in sleep time, sleep effectivity, and melatonin ranges — and vital decreases in cortisol (the stress hormone) and sleep onset latency. They fell asleep quicker. They stayed asleep longer. Their stress hormones dropped.
When my sufferers began sleeping higher, one thing sudden occurred: they stopped grinding and clenching at evening.
The jaw relaxed. The enamel stopped cracking. The sensitivity dropped.
I take magnesium each evening, 1–2 hours earlier than mattress. If I skip a dose — particularly when touring or in a brand new time zone — I discover.
Now — vital caveat from a dentist who’s been skilled in sleep medication: magnesium shouldn’t be an alternative to treating a sleep respiratory dysfunction. If you happen to snore, gasp, or cease respiratory at evening, that’s a unique dialog completely, and you might want to see an AADSM-trained dentist or sleep doctor or you may even begin with a session with a myofunctional therapist. However for the tens of millions of people that don’t get sufficient magnesium — who lie awake, who wake at 2am, who by no means really feel rested — this mineral is the very first thing I’d have a look at.
Sleep isn’t nearly power. Sleep is when your physique repairs. Your mind prompts the glymphatic system — clearing beta-amyloid and tau proteins linked to Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline. Your mouth restores its protecting mineral stability. Reduce your sleep high quality, and every little thing downstream suffers — blood sugar, anxiousness, cravings, blood stress. I’ve seen it in hundreds of sufferers.
Right here’s what terrifies me about most magnesium dietary supplements.
After I noticed how essential magnesium was, I began taking a well-liked model. Good label. Sturdy opinions. I felt good about it.
Then I learn the impartial lab outcomes.
I pay for a membership to ConsumerLab — an impartial lab that’s been testing dietary supplements since 1999. They’re not sponsored by any model. They purchase merchandise off the shelf, take a look at them for purity, efficiency, and contamination, and publish the outcomes. Consider it like Client Stories, however for dietary supplements. Their testing has flagged a number of in style magnesium merchandise for contamination with lead, cadmium, and arsenic. The very factor I used to be taking to guard my well being might have been quietly including to my poisonous load. I ended instantly.
And that’s not the one drawback. Most dietary supplements comprise only one type of magnesium. However your physique makes use of magnesium in lots of of various processes — your mind wants a unique kind than your muscle tissue, which want a unique kind than your bones and tooth. Taking only one kind is like placing gasoline in your automobile however by no means altering the oil, the coolant, or the brake fluid.
There are seven essential types, and each targets one thing totally different. Most merchandise offer you one. Perhaps two.
Right here’s what most individuals don’t understand till it’s too late.
You’ll be able to’t essentially really feel when a magnesium deficiency is occurring.
Commonplace blood assessments don’t even catch it — solely about 1% of your physique’s magnesium is in your blood serum, and NHANES hasn’t even measured serum magnesium ranges in its nationwide well being survey since 1974. You possibly can be deeply poor and your labs would look completely regular. The medical system actually isn’t on the lookout for it.
By the point you discover the delicate tooth, the mind fog, the jaw ache, the insomnia — it’s attainable that, by that time, you’ve been operating on empty for years. And day-after-day with out sufficient magnesium is a day your tooth, your mind, and your sleep fall slightly additional behind.
Right here’s how deep this goes:
A 2017 randomized scientific trial (Tarleton et al., PLOS One) discovered that magnesium supplementation produced clinically vital enhancements in each melancholy and anxiousness — and the consequences confirmed up in simply two weeks. Whoa.
A dose-response meta-analysis in BMC Drugs (Fang et al., 2016) discovered that each extra 100mg/day of dietary magnesium was related to a 22% decrease threat of coronary heart failure. A separate meta-analysis in Diabetes Care discovered an analogous dose-response: each 100mg/day increment was linked to a 14% discount in kind 2 diabetes threat throughout 13 cohort research involving over 536,000 individuals.
And a landmark 2018 paper within the Open Coronary heart journal referred to as subclinical magnesium deficiency “a principal driver of heart problems and a public well being disaster.” Not a contributor. A principal driver. And that’s a peer-reviewed cardiovascular journal saying it.
This isn’t one thing you repair later. Later is how individuals find yourself with cracked molars at 55, or early cognitive decline, or a mouth filled with dental work that might have been prevented.
What I personally take — and why I switched.
After the heavy steel scare, I spent months researching. I wanted a magnesium that was third-party examined for purity, and that contained all seven types so my mind, my muscle tissue, my bones, my tooth, and my nervous system had been all really getting what they wanted.
I discovered one. It’s the one one I’ve come throughout that checks each field — and it handed ConsumerLab’s impartial testing for purity, efficiency, and heavy metals.
You’ll be able to see precisely what it’s and why I vetted it right here, however I’ll say this:
Since switching, my tooth are much less delicate. My sleep is deeper. My spouse and I each take it. It’s maybe the one complement that if I had been pressured to drop every little thing else, I’d preserve.
See the precise magnesium I take each evening.
Almost half of us are poor. Nearly none of us understand it. And the results are silent till they’re not.
— Dr. Mark Burhenne (Dr. B)
P.S. I’ve had sufferers inform me this one change — simply getting the fitting magnesium — did extra for his or her tooth than years of high-priced dental work mixed. I want I might return and inform each affected person I’ve ever had. As a substitute, I’m telling you.
Additional Studying & Citations
My earlier deep dives on magnesium:
Research cited on this publication:
1. Jia et al. (2016). “Diagenesis-inspired response of magnesium ions with floor enamel mineral modifies properties of human tooth.” Acta Biomaterialia, 37, 174–183. PubMed
2. Jia et al. (2020). “Magnesium incorporation into major dental enamel and its impact on mechanical properties.” Acta Biomaterialia, 120, 190–200. PubMed
3. Alateeq, Okay., Walsh, E.I. & Cherbuin, N. (2023). “Dietary magnesium consumption is said to bigger mind volumes and decrease white matter lesions with notable intercourse variations.” European Journal of Diet, 62(5), 2039–2051. PubMed
4. Abbasi, B. et al. (2012). “The impact of magnesium supplementation on major insomnia in aged: A double-blind placebo-controlled scientific trial.” Journal of Analysis in Medical Sciences, 17(12), 1161–1169. PubMed
5. Tarleton, E.Okay. et al. (2017). “Function of magnesium supplementation within the therapy of melancholy: A randomized scientific trial.” PLOS One, 12(6), e0180067. PubMed
6. Fang, X. et al. (2016). “Dietary magnesium consumption and the danger of heart problems, kind 2 diabetes, and all-cause mortality: a dose-response meta-analysis of potential cohort research.” BMC Drugs, 14, 210. PubMed
7. Dong, J.Y. et al. (2011). “Magnesium consumption and threat of kind 2 diabetes: meta-analysis of potential cohort research.” Diabetes Care, 34(9), 2116–2122. PubMed
8. DiNicolantonio, J.J., O’Keefe, J.H. & Wilson, W. (2018). “Subclinical magnesium deficiency: a principal driver of heart problems and a public well being disaster.” Open Coronary heart, 5(1), e000668. PubMed