Magnesium for depression

Magnesium for depression

Questions:
Dear Dr. McLeod,
I have a history of atypical depression and I have read your book with great interest. There is so much information about nutritional supplementation and depression that it a little overwhelming. For example, I’ve also read about magnesium supplementation for treatment-resistant depression. What is your view about the importance of magnesium, or have you recommended a chromium-only approach to your clients? Thanks for sharing your work with the general public.
D. C.

Answer: My short answer is: I don’t have any solid evidence that magnesium helps with mood. But some trace metals, of which magnesium is one, do have effects on mood, so it would not surprise me to learn that magnesium does as well. We know, for example, that the trace metal, lithium, is clinically efficacious in the treatment of mania, depression, and there is some evidence that it prevents suicide. (See Dr. Frederick Goodwin’s book Manic Depressiove Illness.) And, I accidentally discovered that the transitional metal, chromium, exerts mood effects.

I am positive that lithium and chromium help mood. I suspect that magnesium might help mood as well, but at this time I’m only guessing about magnesium. I hope future research will shed some light on this topic.

Thank you for contacting me with this most interesting question.

Malcolm McLeod, MD

Can I substitute chromium for lithium?

Can I substitute chromium for lithium?

Hi Dr McLeod

Dear Dr. McLeod,
Dear Dr McLeod

I am based in the UK and am trying to locate a specialist in the UK with knowledge of conventional medicine and the merits of chromium. Basically I am on lithium and I want to work with somebody who understands conventional medicine and has an awareness of chromium with a view in the medium term to considering substituting one for the other – do you know anybody in the UK with this expertise?

I realise this may not be the type of question that you are happy to answer through the blog. If it was more appropriate, I would be happy to phone you regarding this and pay for a telephone consultation.

Look forward to hearing form you.

Best wishes
PS: I am well and have been well for over 4 years

ANSWER
I’m sure there are many people in the UK who meets your criteria, but I don’t know them personally.

As to your second question – whether to substitute chromium for lithium – there is not enough data to answer your question. I do have one patient, himself a physician, who stopped lithium and started chromium with great results. He has been on chromium alone for a decade and his mood has been stable.

If you should decide to substitute chromium for lithium, or add chromium to ongoing lithium therapy, please do so only under the close supervision and guidance of a psychiatrist, who would be able to pick up any early symptoms of depression or mania.

Please let me know what you decide to do and the results. Yours is a most important question and one I’ve thought about many times, and would like more information on this topic.

Kind regards,

Malcolm N. McLeod, MD

Why do some people become chromium deficient?

Why do some people become chromium deficient?

Below in Italics is an e-mail I received:

Dear Dr. McLeod,

I wonder what causes the imbalance/deficiency in chromium in the first place. Most of us eat a relatively similar diet. Some people eat more healthily than others. But, as you mention in your book, it would be difficult to eat enough food with enough chromium in it to overcome such deficiencies as those that cause depression. But some people apparently manage to do just that.

I’m wondering if the body somehow rids itself of chromium under certain circumstances. And if so, what are those circumstances? Are they liver or kidney difficulties? In other words why do some people who probably eat a generally similar diet not have these deficiencies?

This all really interests me and I thank you so much for your answer to my question.

Best wishes and many, many thanks again,

Wendy

Here is my answer:

Dear Wendy.

Thank you for asking another excellent question. Chromium deficiency can occur due to inadequate intake and loss. There include advancing age, soil deficiency, removal of chromium during food processing, diets high in sugar, diets low in meat, stomach and intestinal disorders that interfere with absorption, antacids, drugs that decrease stomach acidity, corticsteroids, profuse sweating, and stress. I’ll go into these in a little more detail.

Advancing age. A large study demonstrated “highly significant age-related decreases in chromium levels in 51,665 hair, sweat, and serum samples obtained from 40,872 patients…”

Soil deficiency. Exhaustive farming may have removed chromium from the soil.

Processing of foods. White bread and white sugar contain very little chromium. The process of making these foods removes chromium.

Diets high in sugar cause chromium excretion in urine.

Disorders of the stomach and intestines may reduce absorption of chromium.

Vegetarian diet. While healthy in many ways, diets that don’t contain meat are low in chromium. Several patients, who are vegetarian, responded well to chromium supplementation.

Antacids. Antacids in the stomach may combine with chromium and interfere with its absorption. Joseph, a man I described in Lifting Depression: The Chromium Connection, had taken antacids for years. I wonder if that caused him to become chromium deficient.

Decrease in stomach acid. Drugs that decrease acid in the stomach may interfere with the absorption of chromium. Such acid-decreasing drugs include cimetidine, rantidine, and esomeprazole.

Corticosteroids. A study of 13 patients showed that administration of corticosteroids caused chromium loss. I wonder — because chronic stress is associated with an increase in blood cortisol — if chronic stress might deplete the body of chromium.

Exercise. Chronic, sustained exercise and sweating my decrease chromium in the body. Several of my patients, whose depression responded beautifully to chromium, had relapses after intense exercise on a hot day. Doubling chromium intake for 2-3 days corrected the problem.

A great deal more research needs to be conducted on the topic of chromium deficiency. Again, thank you for asking this excellent question.

Are there foods which are good sources of chromium?

Are there foods which are good sources of chromium?

Q: Are there foods which are good sources of chromium?

A: There are some foods (for example, animal organs and broccoli) that are rich in chromium, but it is almost impossible to consume enough of them to maintain a healthy mood, curb carb cravings and increase energy. Moreover, most processed food contains and sugar contain very little chromium. to make matters even worse, sugar and carbs cause the body to lose chromium.

Several of my patients have consumed chromium-rich foods in large quantities with the hope of relieving their symptoms. But this hasn’t helped. They simply cannot get enough chromium from food sources for symptom relief.

To achieve relief, I have found that a person must take approximatly 3 to 5 micrograms per pound of body weight per day of chromium picolinate. To get 5 micrograms per day from food, a 200 pound person would have to consume the following:

Forty cups of raw raw onions, or
Two pounds of broccoli, or
One hundred turkey legs, or
Three pounds of liver,or
Six gallons of grape juice,or
Several pounds of beef.

Obviously these amounts are absurdly large. Therefore, supplementation with Chromax®chromiumpicolinate is the way to go.

Please let me know if this helps.

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