Clinical experience and research in nerve pain conditions such as pancreatic cancer have shown that magnesium can be an effective treatment for pain. Although it is clear why magnesium can decrease muscle pain (it makes muscles relax), why it would help nerve pain was less clear.

A new study on rats to be printed in The Journal of Physiology confirms our clinical experience that magnesium decreases nerve pain — while also pointing to how it works.

A major mechanism of pain is the excessive stimulation of a brain chemical called "NMDA." The few medications that help decrease and balance this pain-carrying neurotransmitter have the downside of causing significant side effects.

Magnesium seems to settle down NMDA without the toxicity. The upside of magnesium is that is very inexpensive (pennies a dose). The downside is that it hasn’t yet made it through the FDA approval process.

The authors of the study suggest that magnesium deficiency can be a major amplifier of pain. Because of food processing, most people are magnesium deficient. If you have pain, a dose of 250 to 500 mg of magnesium a day can start to decrease these deficiencies as well as the pain, after just several weeks — while also leaving you feeling more energetic and decreasing your risk of heart disease!

If you have kidney problems, do not use without your physician's OK.