Subject: Magnesium FAQ

From: [email-masked] (Paul Mason)
Date: 13 Jan 1995 22:13:29 GMT

You  wrote:

>"The RDA for Mg can easily be met through other sources, as my good 
health attests."

That is dead wrong.    Mg is generally lost through processing, and most 
foods today are processed, as a walk through any food store will attest. 
  Americans get 300 mg/day, and the RDA is 350 and the RDI is 400.    
And Mg is LOST by athletic stress, type A stress, emotional stress, and 
alcohol intake.   And if Mg is consumed with fat, it forms Mg soaps in 
the stomach and passes through unused, even if you have intracellular 
deficiency;  under those conditions, as little as 1% of the Mg is 
retained despite the deficiency.

You are unlikely to be as healthy as you think.   "Perfectly healthy" 
athletes are known to drop dead from arrythmias caused by Mg deficiency. 

> Why should the responsibility fall on the shoulders of the soft drink 
industry, and not on the >individuals themselves?

1.   The soft drink industry takes healthful hard water and 
demineralizes it to make it unhealthful.

2.   The soft drink industry, FDA, and AMA all convinced consumers that 
deionized water was just fine, which was a lie.   

3.   The obligation of the soft drink industry to consumers is the same 
as General Motors obligation to not sell Pintos or pickups that burst 
into flame on impact.   General Motors argued that consumers should have 
the right to buy unsafe vehicles if they wish to.   But that supposes 
that consumers have infinite time and resources to test the vehicles (or 
soft drinks) and have sufficient information to make "informed 
decisions".   That is disingenuous, and is the same argument made by 
sellers of snake oil a century ago.   

4.     According to the trade magazines, Beverage Industry, Beverage 
World, and Food R&D, a great many bottlers are planning to offer  
"neutraceuticals" in beverages as soon as the FDA issues guidelines.    
If  Cola A advertises that their products contain healthful magnesium, 
and Cola B's do not, and advertise that 45-78 year old male consumers 
who drink only Cola B stand a 1-in-1200 chance of dying from Mg 
deficiency each year, (which is true), Cola B  won't last long.

I assume that you are under 45, so you have somewhat better odds than 
1-in-1200 of dying from Mg deficiency in 1995.    You do "consume lots 
of soda", so your chances of dying from Mg deficiency in 1995 may be 
more on the order of 1-in-5000, depending on your age.   If it were a 
raffle for a car with only 5,000 tickets, the odds would seem pretty 
good!

Paul Mason