magnesium question

[sarahsmom]

Hi Im a little confused on dosage for magnesium. THe rda for age group 4-6 in 120 mgs. but I saw to get the amt to give go by 6 mg per pound then its higher for a 6 year old who is 45#s. or is it just the differance of mg vs mgs? What is a good multi vit. to get started with that has most everything needed in it? It almost sounds like the kids gonna have to be taking a lot of supplements??? Also, whats the most helpful for calming hyperness? Thanks Lisa

[rosyred45]

Hi Lisa, like you I am just gettin gstarted down this road.

Have you looked into the top 2 threads? New to this and Where do I start or something like that. They are stickied at the top of the natural section .

Hope that helps a little. You could use the search and type in vitamins, though it might take a while, you could cruise through old posts that might help also.

Hope to see ya around

[catatonic]

Hi Lisa,
For starters, mg and mg's and mgs are all the same thing; they all stand for milligrams, which is what most vitamins/minerals are measured in...except for some that say "IU", which means international units.

Many of the guidelines for how much you should be taking are kind of mixed up right now. The NIH has been re-doing the recommended amounts and it can get a little confusing. For example, at this point, the recommended daily allowance of magnesium for a child 4-6 is 130mg, but the amount listed as the upper tolerable limit is 110mg. Makes no sense, does it? At your child's weight, your target therapeutic dose would be 270mg. It's common to find supplements in 200mg size. The biggest problem with going over the recommended amounts of mangesium is that it can upset your stomach, particularly at first while you're getting used to it. It helps to start low and build up. There are some actual health risks associated with too much magnesium supplementation, but this normally aren't seen unless the amount is very high, as in thousands of mg's per day. (Low blood pressure is the most serious risk.)

If you don't feel comfortable exceeding the recommended levels, then you can get more magnesium through certain foods. There are no documented cases of any sort of mangesium toxicity ever from foods. 1/2 cup of All Bran cereal will provide about 110mg magnesium. 10 milk chocolate coated peanuts will give you 40mg. There's a very complete list of foods and their magnesium content here:

www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR17/wtrank/sr17a304.pdf

For multi-vitamins, look for one that contains both vitamins and minerals. (You'll want to make sure, for example, that there's selenium, manganese, zinc etc. included.) LauraA posted recently about a teen vitamin she'd found at WalMart called One Source that looked very good. I like the Kirkman Labs multi-vitamins. Source Naturals makes several good children's formulations. Freeda's has children's chewables that you can order on-line.

What's most helpful for calming hyperness? Boy, don't we all want to know the answer to that!! What has worked the best for us -- and truly it was almost a miracle -- was the Feingold diet. You can read about it at:
www.feingold.org

Magnesium and Omega-3 fish oil have also been very beneficial, as has the amino acid tyrosine. You'll probably need to do some trial-and-error to figure out what works best for your child.