Natural Calm Magnesium

Question
I was comparing labels on a bottle of Natural Calm which was recently purchased with a bottle from a previous purchase. It appears that we need to take twice as much to get the same effectiveness. Please explain this difference. The bottles we received have less magnesium amounts listed and different directions. It appears that we need to take twice as much to get the same effectiveness. But, why does the new, same size bottle (16 oz.) say that it will last twice as long? Please check the labeling on the bottles and help me with this confusion.

Answer
Thank you for your query. The recommended amount per serving did change to a lesser amount. I wrote a blog post called Magnesium RDA – Is it safe to take more. I would suggest you read that to see how much magnesium, in my opionion, you should take.

Now to answer your question. The recommended daily intake of Natural Calmwas reduced from 600mg to 350. The recommended daily allowance is something the government sets and we believe they are usually on the conservative side. RDAs will vary from country to county with Canada being low at around 200mg and most of the rest of the world closer to 400mg. The European standard just changed from 300mg to 375mg so all our European Natural Calm labels called, Magnesium Supreme, will have to go through a label change to reflect the new RDA.

‘We need an average of 200 milligrams more magnesium than we get from the average diet.’ - Dr. Mildred Seelig, President of the American College of Nutrition

The government also states that 70% of men and 80% of women are deficient in magnesium. Dr Carolyn Dean, author of the Miracle of Magnesium believes that 90% of people are deficient.

If you are magnesium deficient (70-90% are) and are consuming a deficient amount of magnesium in your food (e.g. 200mg/day of magnesium from your food) then taking an additional 200mg per day (from Natural Calm) will keep you in a magnesium deficiency state and in theory keep you from becoming more deficient. If you add an additional 200mg/day (i.e. 200mg of magnesium from food and 400mg of magnesium from Natural Calm) then you getting ahead of the game. Most people consume a lot of acidic foods (soda pop, high protein, high sugar, etc.) which takes magnesium and calcium from your system to neutralize the acid. We are also a very high stressed society and stress depletes magnesium. I doubt that RDAs are based on busy soccer moms, people going through relationship or financial problems or fast paced business owners.

My personal opinion is that we need even more magnesium. I personally take 15 grams a day of Natural Calm and about 5 grams a day of Magnesium Rub. I have three businesses, am successfully married for more than 30 years, raised 4 children, pastor a church of 500 and run a homeless shelter. I also ride my bike a lot and love adventure. So for me around 1,200-1,500 mgs (one very heaping teaspoon) is optimal (and my nutritionist stills says I am somewhat deficient but better than last year).

The manufacturer found the higher therapeutic dosage they recommended on the bottle was rarely used by the general public. They decided to scale it back to the recommended daily allowance in relationship to teaspoons. Since 2 rounded teaspoons (4.5gms) is around 350 they opted to recommend that as 2.25 teaspoons isn’t a practical dose. Putting the dosage in grams as well as teaspoons makes everything more accurate. A teaspoon can mean a level baking teaspoon for one person and a super heaping teaspoon to another.

Governments are also getting more persnickety about supplements, dosage levels and the claims that companies make. Lowering the dosage also helps keep the regulatory officials from salivating. We are the main distributors in the UK for Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality products and I know personally firsthand how the government is making it really hard for supplements like Natural Calm to be on the market and it is pretty obvious how they favour the large pharmaceutical companies. So another reason for lowering the dose would be to list the RDA of the government instead of what we believe is correct.

And just to cover bases, while the manufacturer was switching over the labels, there was ONE run done in the interim that they only listed the common intake amount. The current ones list both the common intake amount and the therapeutic dosage amount. The duration of the bottle (weeks it will supply you) reflects both consumption rates.

So the only thing that really changed was that we lowered the recommend dose which raised the number of doses per bottle (i.e. making it last longer). If you keep taking the dose you were taking, nothing will change for you personally.