Can Taking Magnesium Help Improve Your Gut Health and Digestion?

When you hear about magnesium, you might think of stress or sleep. However, this vital mineral is also important for gut health and digestion. Because your gut is linked to all aspects of health, magnesium can help unlock new ways to support your overall health through supporting the gut.

In this article, we’ll explore research on how magnesium affects gut health, and its potential benefits for digestive function.

Magnesium’s Impact on Gut Health and Digestion

From the gut-brain connection to its influence on sleep and gut movement, magnesium’s impact extends across several crucial functions. Let’s explore these areas to see how magnesium contributes to a balanced gut and healthy digestive system.

Gut-Brain Axis vs Stress Response through the Gut

You’ve probably heard of the gut-brain axis—the complex communication network linking your digestive system and brain. This connection underscores how gut health can influence not just your mood but also your overall well-being. However, the relationship between gut health and stress extends far beyond mood changes, affecting various aspects of your digestive health.

Stress can manifest as gut symptoms like indigestion, stomach discomfort, and irregularity. This bidirectional relationship highlights the profound impact of mental and emotional stress on digestive health and vice versa.

You know the physical side, likely more intimately than you would like to discuss openly, but what about the science behind it? Researchers reviewed studies to understand better, and here’s what they found out.

Stress can rapidly change your gut bacteria composition, potentially crowding out good bacteria and promoting the bad ones. It can also increase gut permeability, allowing bacteria and undigested food particles to pass through the gut barrier, triggering further stress on your body.

Those of us who are stress eaters might be compounding the problem by making some not-so-wise but oh-so-comforting food choices high in delicious fats and sugar. 

Supplementing with magnesium might offer support during stressful times to help balance your mood but also to support your gut-brain axis and a healthy gut. 

A review of studies explored the role of magnesium in the gut-brain axis and found that magnesium plays a multifaceted role in supporting gut health.

In animals, beneficial gut bacteria, such as Bifidobacterium, begin to decrease within four days of magnesium deficiency. By six weeks, there is a significant reduction in the overall diversity of gut bacteria. This decline in gut health is associated with increased stress perception and lower mood, suggesting that low magnesium levels can negatively impact the gut-brain axis.

In addition to its possible influence on gut bacteria, researchers noted magnesium’s role in neurotransmission. Magnesium helps regulate neuron activity by influencing two key types of receptors in the brain: NMDA and GABA receptors. NMDA receptors are involved in learning and memory and control how neurons communicate with each other.

GABA receptors, on the other hand, help calm the brain by reducing neuron activity. Adequate magnesium levels are essential for balancing these processes, preventing overstimulation of neurons, and thereby helping to manage stress levels.

Magnesium not only aids in maintaining a healthy gut-brain axis, but it also supports overall gut health by supporting a healthy stress response and gut bacteria. 

Promotes Healthy Sleep

When you don’t get enough sleep, your digestive health can suffer. Studies show that people who struggle with sleep are more likely to experience digestive problems, such as bloating and acid reflux.

To learn more about this connection, read our dedicated article on sleep and digestion.

Circadian rhythm links sleep with digestion, so disruptions in one can impact the other. Supporting your sleep with magnesium may lead to better digestion. 

Magnesium supports healthy sleep by promoting relaxation, balancing stress hormones, and enhancing deep sleep cycles. Its role in regulating neurotransmitters like GABA helps calm the nervous system, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep.

For a deeper dive into how magnesium improves sleep quality and the best forms to use, check out our blog post.

Gut Motility and Irregularity

You may associate particular types of magnesium, like magnesium citrate and oxide, with the distinct and strong ability to get things moving. While not all forms of magnesium have such pronounced effects, magnesium can help move things along, especially if you tend to get constipated.

One reason for this is its osmotic effects. This is how it works: Magnesium compounds, like magnesium oxide, help move water into the intestines. They turn into forms like magnesium bicarbonate and magnesium carbonate in the digestive tract. These forms pull water into the intestines, making the stool softer and easier to pass.

The increased water content in the intestines also stimulates peristalsis, the wave-like muscle contractions that move stool through the digestive tract. 

Magnesium also helps maintain electrolyte balance in the gut, which is crucial for normal bowel function. Imbalances in electrolytes can lead to diarrhea if the gut fails to reabsorb fluids effectively, causing excessive fluid loss. Conversely, low potassium levels can slow intestinal muscle contractions, resulting in you being backed up.  

Additionally, while excessive sodium and water can cause diarrhea, inadequate levels can reduce stool water content, making it harder to pass and contributing to irregularity. Proper magnesium levels are essential for maintaining this balance and supporting normal bowel function.

The most commonly used forms of magnesium for getting things moving are magnesium hydroxide, magnesium sulfate, magnesium citrate, and magnesium oxide.  

Impacts Gut Flora Diversity

Being magnesium deficient comes with multiple health risks, and one of those could be a decrease in gut flora diversity. Gut flora diversity is important for gut health and digestion because a wide variety of beneficial bacteria help maintain a balanced ecosystem in the gut. 

Different bacteria specialize in breaking down various types of food, improving nutrient absorption. A diverse gut microbiome also supports a healthy immune response by competing with harmful bacteria, reducing the likelihood of infections, and supporting a healthy inflammatory response.

Additionally, diverse bacteria help produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which help maintain gut integrity and prevent issues like leaky gut. 

Let’s get back to why magnesium is so important. The earlier study we discussed showed that magnesium deficiency quickly leads to decreased gut flora diversity and continues to decline over time.

Building on these findings, let’s turn to an animal study that investigated the impact of magnesium supplementation on gut flora. Rats were divided into three groups, each receiving a different magnesium diet: control (1000 mg/kg), low (60 mg/kg), and high (6000 mg/kg) for two weeks.

Those consuming 60 mg and 1000 mg had greater gut flora diversity compared to the high magnesium group. The high magnesium group also experienced diarrhea, which likely contributed to decreased diversity.

While it’s unclear exactly how these studies translate to humans, they suggest that magnesium status is important. Finding the right dosage is critical to addressing deficiencies without going overboard, which could lead to diarrhea and decreased gut flora diversity.

To address magnesium deficiency, start by talking to your health practitioner and test for magnesium deficiency. Then, work together to determine the optimal supplement dosage to correct it.

Balanced Inflammatory Response

We’ve discussed how maintaining optimal magnesium status may contribute to more diverse gut flora, which helps support gut integrity and healthy inflammatory response. Now, let’s take it a little further. 

Immune responses in the gut, such as to foods or certain common gut bacteria, can disrupt digestion, damage the gut lining, and lead to long-term digestive problems. 

A placebo-controlled study explored the effects of magnesium and probiotic supplementation on intestinal barrier function. Participants took 500 mg magnesium chloride combined with 18 billion CFUs (Colony Forming Units) of probiotics Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Bifidobacterium animalis for nine weeks.

Those taking the magnesium and probiotic combo experienced a reduction in serum C-reactive protein levels, indicating a more balanced inflammatory response.

Yes, this study combined probiotics and magnesium, so it’s not entirely clear if one is more responsible for the beneficial effects, but why take just one if you can reap the health benefits of the combination?

An animal study provides additional insights. Mice were divided into groups and fed either a control diet with 500 mg/kg of magnesium or a magnesium-deficient diet with 70 mg/kg for four or 21 days.  Researchers took tissue samples and monitored serum magnesium levels and immune markers.

After four days, the magnesium-deficient mice showed a heightened immune response, reduced beneficial gut bacteria, and signs of increased intestinal permeability. For those mice on the 21 day diet, those eating the higher magnesium control diet exhibited an increase in bifidobacteria content compared to the control group, associated with restoring the intestinal barrier and improving inflammatory response.

The study suggests that magnesium deficiency can alter gut microbiota and trigger a heightened immune response, while supplementing with magnesium might help mitigate that response. 

What’s The Best Magnesium for Gut Health and Digestion?

When choosing the best magnesium for gut health and digestion, several factors must be considered, including absorption, bioavailability, and how it interacts with the digestive system. 

Magnesium absorption can be tricky, as intestinal absorption is often limited, typically around 25% in healthy individuals. However, absorption can reach up to 80% in people with magnesium deficiencies. The form of magnesium plays a key role in improving its bioavailability and effectiveness.

If you’re looking for something to get things moving, opt for a less well-absorbed form of magnesium, such as magnesium citrate or magnesium carbonate. 

For systemic effects and to help balance your stress response, focus on more bioavailable forms of magnesium like magnesium glycinate or sucrosomial magnesium. These have milder effects on the digestive system. 

Unless you’re looking for a quick fix to move things along, we recommend taking a full-spectrum magnesium supplement like Magnesium Breakthrough. It offers the full spectrum of all seven types of magnesium, specially formulated to reach every tissue in your body to provide maximum health benefits and address deficiencies. 

Conclusion

Magnesium plays an important role in supporting gut health and digestion, from easing irregularity to promoting a balanced gut microbiome. To optimize its benefits, first, have your magnesium levels assessed by a healthcare professional to address any deficiencies. Then, choose the appropriate form of magnesium based on your specific needs—whether it’s for better motility, stress support, or overall health. 
A full-spectrum magnesium supplement, such as Magnesium Breakthrough, may help correct deficiencies to support your digestive system and overall well-being.