It’s not every day that we learn something about an ancient mineral that has been supporting our health for a millennia.

In 2016, University of Edinburgh researchers uncovered new information about the essential mineral magnesium. Scientists have long known that magnesium is a critical mineral, which we can get through the diet and high-quality supplements. Your doctor may have recommended a magnesium supplement for its ability to relax the body and promote a more restful sleep. Magnesium works as a regulator that supports hundreds of chemical processes in the body; high magnesium intake may reduce diabetes risk by up to 23 percent and heart disease risk by 30 percent.

Yet even with the multifunctional role that magnesium plays in human health, with magnesium deficiency affecting an estimated 80 percent of the Western population, Edinburgh researchers have just learned something new. Magnesium not only helps to control cell function with the potential to prevent disease, but it can manage how cells “keep time” with a direct impact on our internal body clock. It is magnesium that supports the natural cycle in the body that regulates day and night, linked to the daily circadian rhythms that influence sleeping and waking, body temperature, hormone release and metabolism.

Researchers made this pivotal discovery as they observed three different types of biological organisms: human cells, fungi and algae. The researchers found that magnesium levels in the cells rose and fell within a predictable daily cycle that contributed to the 24-hour clock. Subsequently, this regulation of the 24-hour clock also had a direct impact on cell metabolism, or how efficiently cells converted nutrients into energy. Concerning the importance of this finding, lead study author Dr Gerben van Oojen explained, ‘Internal clocks are fundamental to all living things’.

A RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK

In order to keep this clock tightly wound and running on time, our body needs magnesium each day without question. We can get some magnesium from food, though our crops are sorely mineral-depleted because of commercial agricultural practices that continue to threaten our food supply. Adding in a daily magnesium supplement that is easy for the body to absorb makes perfect sense to support the natural ebb and flow of all bodily functions.

Compared to tablets and powders that lose the majority of their mineral value in the digestive tract, transdermal magnesium delivery through the skin is the most efficient daily solution. A simple spray, a rub of a lotion or a gel, or a soak in a bath of magnesium flakes is enough to give your body the daily dose it is missing – directly through the skin and into the bloodstream. Transdermal magnesium therapy, aka topical magnesium application that saturates skin tissue to allow magnesium to travel at high dosages to tissues and cells, has long been hailed as the most rapid and effective form of magnesium delivery. Transdermal magnesium is made even more powerful by the support of its partner nutrient MSM, an organosulfur compound naturally found in all vertebrates that helps to improve magnesium absorption dramatically. MSM brings with proven antioxidant, detoxification and joint- and skin- strengthening benefits.

Time is on our side, when our body has enough magnesium to keep its internal clock ticking. Magnesium is the conductor that keeps the trains on schedule, keeps the clock wound, so that the body remains aligned and in balance each day. A well balanced internal clock has the potential to influence most, if not all, aspects of health and disease.