Magnesium is absolutely essential for good heart health. In fact, it’s so important that some nutritional experts believe that magnesium deficiency should be viewed as the strongest indicator for heart disease — even more significant than traditional risk factors such as high cholesterol level, high blood pressure, and high intake of saturated fat.

Of course, all of these factors are important, so you need to take them all into consideration when devising a heart-healthy lifestyle. But I agree that more attention needs to be paid to magnesium.

One of the most striking benefits of magnesium is its ability to correct heartbeat irregularities, also called arrhythmia.

Heartbeat irregularities are a common reason people end up in my office. Often, these palpitations are not indications of serious problems, but it can be very disturbing for people to experience fluttering, pounding, skipping, or racing beats.

Women are often troubled by heartbeat irregularities around the time of menopause, probably due to the fluctuating hormone levels.

Ellen, 52, was one of these patients. She came to me complaining of a skipping and fluttering heartbeat that was keeping her up at night. Her primary care physician had put her on a beta blocker. But the medication made her feel sluggish. I gave Ellen an EKG test, which determined that she did have a heartbeat irregularity, but it wasn’t serious enough to require cardiac medication.

Instead, I recommended she take supplemental magnesium. Within a month, the skipping and fluttering vanished.

Certain medications can actually drain the body of magnesium. Rob, 63, had a long-standing problem with high blood pressure. Because of this, he was taking high blood pressure medication along with a diuretic, or water pill.

Diuretics can cause magnesium depletion. As a result, Rob developed an irregular heartbeat in addition to his high blood pressure. To counteract the diuretic, I prescribed him supplemental magnesium, and within a month his heartbeat irregularity disappeared.

And because magnesium helps lower high blood pressure, his hypertension was also better controlled.