Magnesium & Circulation

Your doctor may suggest remedies to help your cardiovascular system. If you have heart problems, he may prescribe medication and suggest magnesium supplements. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center notes that magnesium has shown some benefit to people who have heart problems such as high blood pressure. Ask your medical practitioner about the use of magnesium supplements before using them.

Magnesium in Food

If you eat green leafy vegetables, meat, nuts and some grains, you probably get sufficient quantities of the magnesium that you need. The mineral helps maintain normal function in many body systems, including your muscles and your heart. Magnesium also helps control how your body uses calcium; this affects your cardiovascular system and circulation because calcium helps to regulate your heart rate.

Magnesium Supplements

The University of Maryland Medical Center indicates that magnesium deficiency in one’s diet is rare. If you are diabetic, however, the Office of Dietary Supplements notes you run the risk of a magnesium deficiency and may need to take a supplement for the problem. With your physician’s approval, add a magnesium supplement to help your cardiovascular system and improve your circulation.

Benefits for Circulation

Magnesium relaxes and thus opens your blood vessels and arteries, helping your blood to circulate more efficiently than when blood vessels are constricted. This helps lower your blood pressure and allows your heart to work in a more relaxed and less strained manner. Nicola Reavley, a nutritionist, writes in her book, “The New Encyclopedia of Vitamins, Minerals, Supplements and Herbs,” that magnesium can help to break up blood clots. This allows more efficient flow through blood vessels. Reavley also notes that magnesium helps to make your heart muscle work better.

Side Effects of Magnesium

If you use magnesium to help improve your circulation, you may encounter a few minor side effects, which should go away after you become accustomed to taking the supplements. You may experience pain in your stomach, nausea, a slight stomach upset or mild diarrhea when you first use magnesium supplements. If problems seem severe or do not end in a few days, seek your doctor’s help.