One of the most excruciating pains to bedevil mankind and the
medical profession ever since the dawn of history is caused by
kidney stones. The torture of passing a kidney stone was aptly
described by one victim as "passing broken bottles, old razor
blades, molten lead and sulphuric acid garnished with bits of
rusty barbed wire." Stones have been found in the kidneys of
Egyptian mummies, and it is apparent that man has suffered with
this affliction at least 4,000 years, while doctors have been
able to be of little or no help.
We will now discuss the effect of magnesium on kidney stones.
We will first quote from Health Bulletin (June 13, 1964)
published by the Rodale Press: "Magnesium oxide 'looks very
promising' as a preventive of kidney stones," Dr. H. E. Sauberlich of the Army's Fitzsimons
General Hospital in Denver told Health
Bulletin this week. He said that results he has been
getting with a 250 milligram tablet made from the same material
used to manufacture fire bricks could spark a revaluation of the
present methods of treating kidney stones.
"The new therapy is simply taking one capsule daily.
Assisted by three researchers from the University of Colorado Medical School, Dr.
Sauberlich prescribed this capsule for a group of volunteer
patients who had histories of passing kidney stones. After only
a very short time on these pills, he pointed out, the patients
had no more stones. That happened with each of the patients he
has followed up for as long as two years, Sauberlich added. No
side effects have been encountered.
"The odd part about the new therapy, which is strictly
experimental and not conclusive, is that none of the
researchers understands why or how magnesium prevents kidney
stone formation. The only clue they have to go on is that a
patient with this disorder 'for some unknown reason requires
more magnesium than normal amounts.' Tracking down the reason
and devising a test to discover those individuals who have this
unusual requirement is the next step, Sauberlich said.
"A possible hint to the way the Denver researchers will
attack the problem came when Dr. Sauberlich was asked whether a
dietary deficiency was implicated in the kidney disorder.
Although he stated that at
present no such association exists, he was quick to point out
that 'magnesium as a dietary requirement has not been
adequately studied.'"
Further information on the above research was given in
The Medical Tribune
(June 3, 1964), which said, regarding Dr. Sauberlich's work:
"'Therapy consisted of a single tablet of 420 mg. of
magnesium oxide, which provided 250 mg. of magnesium, daily.
Longest period of treatment to date is two years, and none of
the 14 have passed urinary tract calculi while undergoing
treatment,' Dr. Sauberlich said.
"He detailed two phases of the magnesium therapy after other
methods had failed. A 34-year-old man had passed a calculus
about every other week for 11 years, but passed none while
receiving therapy for six months. When the therapy was
temporarily withdrawn, he began passing calculi within two
weeks. Since returning to therapy he has been asymptomatic
[without symptoms] for a year.
"A 38-year-old man had a 10-year history of weekly kidney
stones. Magnesium therapy stopped this for 12 months, at the
end of which the patient decided on his own to discontinue
treatment. Calculi recurred within two weeks, and Dr.
Sauberlich observed that he gladly resumed therapy, also on his
own. He has been asymptomatic again for three months.
"Coinvestigators were G. E. Bunce, Ph.D., and Drs.
C. A. Moore and 0. G.
Stonington of Fitzsimons and the University of Colorado
Medical School."
There was a recent medical article on the subject of oxalic
acid present in many foods, in which appeared the statement that
approximately two-thirds of the kidney stones in English people
contain calcium oxalate. In another medical article, we now find
that kidney stones come usually where there is a deficiency of
magnesium. In the first-mentioned
article, it was also stated that
vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) could reduce the oxalic acid
in the body.
Vitamin B6 will
be found in brewer's yeast
tablets, wheat germ, and desiccated liver tablets. Therefore, if
a person observes care in his diet to see that the
oxalate-containing foods are low, and that he is getting enough
magnesium and vitamin B6, the chances are he can
forget all about kidney stones.
Let us look into the second-mentioned article which appeared
in Nutrition Reviews
(October, 1961). It says that as far back as 1931 it was known
that kidney stones could result if there were a deficiency of
magnesium. In The
Lancet (2, 174, 1932), W. Cramer found kidney stones in
rats that were on a low magnesium diet. These rats were normal
except for the kidneys.
G. Hammarsten (Lunds Universitets Arrskrit, N. F. 32,
12, 1937) produced kidney stones in rats fed a diet low in
magnesium. Then when there was an addition of magnesium to their
diet, it prevented the occurrence of kidney stones. These
researchers also found that "high
levels of magnesium appear to have a sparing effect for very
low levels of vitamin B6," which means that magnesium
acts as a protector of the vitamin B6 supply in the
body.
Finally, there is news of a new study which shows that kidney
stones are most likely a deficiency disease that can be corrected
with proper diet. Nutritional correction is the means that has
been found, at last, to brighten the outlook of the victims of
this agonizing disease, from which no race or geographic area has
ever been entirely free.
In the study conducted at the Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health,
reported by Stanley N. Gershoff and
Edwin L. Prien (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, May,
1967), patients suffering
recurring kidney stones have been relieved of this condition
without resorting to surgery when maintained on oral supplements
of both magnesium and vitamin B6.
This latest news of cures achieved by the team of researchers
from the Harvard School of Public Health throws the spotlight on
vitamin B6 as perhaps the "unknown factor" which, when
in short supply, increases the body's needs for magnesium.
Because a B6 deficiency in laboratory rats resulted
in a marked increase in urinary oxalate, the precursor to kidney
stones, Harvard researchers Stanley N. Gershoff and Edwin L.
Prien undertook an investigation of the effects of daily oral
administration of both magnesium and B6 on patients
with histories of recurring kidney stones. Their results can only
be described as remarkable.
Male and female adult patients who had had two or more kidney
stones in the two years prior to the study were used for this
investigation reported in The American journal of Clinical
Nutrition. Patients were asked to take two tablets, each
containing 100 mg. of pyridoxine, daily. This treatment did not
produce looseness of the bowels except in an occasional patient.
All patients were told to avoid milk as a beverage but were
allowed the use of milk or cream in all other foods. Intakes of
cheese and other high calcium foods were restricted. They were
asked to drink two quarts of water per day.
Fabulous Results
Thirty-six patients have been maintained in this study for at
least five years. There was no recurrence of kidney stones in
nine. Two patients produced one stone each in their fourth year
in the program. Another passed several over the Christmas holiday
in his first year when he stopped taking the pill, one in the
second year, and one in the fourth. This patient had passed 11 in
the year before therapy and over 300 in the 14 years prior to
entering the program. A fourth patient, a very busy executive,
passed one or two small stones every year for three years, none
since. A fifth patient, with two existing small stones when the
treatment was started, showed no increase in their size for 2 1/2
years, failed to come in for checkups after this period, and
stopped taking the drugs six months later. A year and a half
later, one of the stones had grown considerably and caused
symptoms requiring surgery. Only one patient showed no
improvement and continued to make stones.
While researchers Gershoff and Prien recognize that a much
larger series of cases over a long period of time will be
necessary to determine the efficacy of this regimen, they are
encouraged by the results obtained so far. Of 36 patients
maintained on the program for five years or more, 30 have shown
no recurrence or decreased recurrence of stone formation.
This study, it seems to us, has deep significance for
everyone--not only for those who are suffering the agonies of
kidney stones, but also for those who would avoid them.
If you are not careful about your nutrition, are not getting
natural supplements, and have been trying to slim down by
following one of the popular reducing diets, you could be
shortchanging your body of that vitally essential catalyst,
vitamin B6.
This vitamin is essential for the synthesis of proteins. It
serves as a key link in the metabolism of amino acids and fatty
acids. Lack of B6 has been shown to cause a variety of
metabolic difficulties because of inability to use proteins
properly. One of these metabolic disturbances results in a marked
increase in urinary oxalate, the precursor to kidney stones.
Vitamin B6 deficiency can also lead to weakness,
irritability, nervousness, skin and hair problems, muscle
malfunction, and abdominal pain. Prolonged deficiency in the
rhesus monkey produces arteriosclerosis, anemia, cirrhosis of the
liver, and dental caries. Cancer tissue has a very low level of
vitamin B6 and uses amino acids differently from
normal tissues.
"The Pill" a Threat?
Women who take oral
contraceptives are apparently being robbed of
B6, according to a recent study
reported in a weekly journal of science published in England.
Oral contraceptive tablets contain synthetic estrogen and
progesterone, and their action is very similar to that of hormone
secretions during a natural pregnancy. They create a false
pregnancy in which ovulation is prevented. Recently it has been
learned that one of their effects is to inhibit the activity of
enzymes containing B6. Dr.
David P. Rose of Sheffield, England, expresses his concern in
Nature (April 9, 1966)
that oral contraceptives might have the same effect as pregnancy
on enzymes containing pyridoxine, thus exposing another large
group of women to B6 deficiency. It is already known
that pregnancy often leads to
deficiency of this vitamin. A study reported at the Fifth
International Congress on Nutrition reported in Obstetric
Research advised greatly increased consumption of
B6 for pregnant women. The average pregnant woman now
gets about 0.5 to 1.5 mg. daily instead of the 15 to 20 mg. she
needs. It would seem from Dr. Rose's study that women on "The
Pill" would have the same requirements.
Because B6 is sadly lacking in processed foods and
is destroyed by heat, it is easy to incur a deficiency.
Pyridoxine does not exist in natural form apart from the other B
vitamins, all of which play an important role in your body's
remarkable assembly line. Any preparation, therefore, that is
sold just as pyridoxine would have to be synthetic. Get your
pyridoxine along with other B vitamins in fresh raw fruits and vegetables (not cooked),
and from liver, heart, wheat germ, peanuts, egg yolk, legumes,
and especially brewer's yeast which is your richest source of
pyridoxine. While B6 is not lost in quick cooking to
any great extent, much of it may dissolve and be thrown away in
the water in which foods are slowly cooked. Roasting or stewing
of meat can result in great losses. Decreases in vitamin
B6 in sterilized liquid milk products not only occur
during pasteurization but continue at a rapid rate for as long as
seven days.
So, if you have been on a reducing diet, guard against any
B6 deficiency you may have induced by increasing your
intake either through natural foods or supplements of yeast and
desiccated liver--another rich source of all the B vitamins.
Magnesium, the vital mineral in this partnership that is
proving so effective in preventing the formation of kidney
stones, is indispensable for a proper regulation of calcium
metabolism. When animals deficient in vitamin B6 were
given high levels of magnesium, they continued to show oxalic
acid in the urine but they no longer converted this acid into
kidney stones. Magnesium, then, by improving the body's
utilization of calcium, has the effect of a solvent-preventing
the caking and crusting, like lime in your teakettle, of
unassimilated calcium.
Good dietary sources of magnesium
are wheat germ, desiccated liver, eggs, green vegetables,
soybeans, almonds and dolomite.
Gallstones
In addition to the prevention of kidney stones there is
evidence that magnesium can prevent gallstones. Our medical
dictionary says that the gallstone is a concretion formed in the
bladder or the biliary ducts, composed, in varying amounts, of
cholesterol, bilirubin, and other elements found in bile. The
biliary ducts are in the liver. In this case also, magnesium is a
specific preventive factor in the formation of gall- or liver
stones. For one thing, in a previous chapter, we showed that
magnesium has the effect of reducing the amount of cholesterol in
the bloodstream.
The matter is mentioned in a communication to the French Academy of Medicine (June 23, 1931) by
Pierre Delbet, M.D., reproduced
in his book Politique
Préventif du Cancer. He says that when the diet is
rich in magnesium it immediately shows up in the bile. In this
manner the quantity of the magnesium m the bile can be actually
doubled. This was confirmed by Bretau. Dr. Delbet also mentions
clinical work by Drs. Godard and
Palios, which showed that such
increase in magnesium can have a favorable influence on
gallstones.
Dr. Delbet studied human bile in the laboratory and found that
the addition of magnesium drove out practically all the
cholesterol, and he noted that the addition of magnesium added a
pigmentation to the bile, gave it a deeper coloring. Its effect
on the bile was to make the cholesterol in it more soluble.
Dr. Delbet then adds that, "It is a clear result of
experiments ... on the action of magnesium chloride on the
elements that make up calculi [stones] that the addition of a
food ration of magnesium in the form of halogenated salts has the
power to reduce chance of biliary calculus formation.
"This conclusion is confirmed by facts. I know a great number
of people who take delbiase
regularly. None of them has vesicular trouble. That's probably
not very convincing. You can't prove that those who take delbiase
would have had biliary calculus if they bad not taken it. On the
other hand, quite a few patients have biliary calculus without
being magnesium deficient." In other words, there are other
causes of gallstones than a magnesium deficiency.
However, says Delbet, "cases of the gall bladder being healed
by the regular use of halogenated
magnesium salts are numerous."
Delbet gives an interesting account of a doctor who used
magnesium in connection with difficulties he had with the
bile:
"The clinical facts have, for the most part, been observed
by chance. My followers take much magnesium chloride. They are
enthusiasts propagandizing for it. Others adopt it, partly,
perhaps, because it often produces systemic excitation. Among
those who take it for its tonic action, several are afflicted
with various ailments which disappear, and they report from
time to time successes I did not expect, acting on ailments
that are out of my province. Thus I am led to discuss matters
of which I do not know a great deal.
"About the preparation of the sick for operations, I have
reported the action of magnesium chloride on the digestive
tract.
"Laborde states that it
has a strong action on the secretion of bile. I have no
experience on this point, but I have confirmed with de Wades that, introduced into the
duodenum, it leads to evacuation of the tube. By this mechanism
it can render service in infections of the biliary duct. One of
our associates has sent me his own observation which seems
interesting to me, He had repeated attacks of inflammation of
the gall bladder and the biliary ducts With fevers up to
39.6º, chronic intestinal troubles (diarrhea, distention,
painful spasms after eating). In spite of a strict regime and
treatment by physical agents on the liver and abdomen
(diathermy and infra-red light), he showed no improvement. He
put himself on delbiase in a dosage of 2 tablets (1 gr. 20) a
day, stopping all other medication. Here are the results: it is
he who has recounted them. "No more liver attacks, no more
epigastric pains; intestinal troubles improved. After several
weeks the stools became normal, as they had not been for five
months. In two months, a weight gain of 10 kilograms.
Transformation of the appearance, appetite normal, digestion
easy, in spite of a return to hard work. The possibility,
without the least sensation of fatigue, of taking up once more
my habitual occupations."
So we pause and look back on what we have been reading. It
sounds too good to be true--magnesium seems to be good for
anything that ails you.
Therefore why don't we hear much about it? The newspapers sing
the praises of the wonder drugs in headlines, but the action of
this miracle mineral is ignored. One wonders about the honesty of
medicine. There have been hundreds of researches on magnesium. Is
there a specific reason why it is being ignored?
This page was first uploaded to The Magnesium Web Site on
January 3, 2001
http://www.mgwater.com/
Healthy Water
Association--USA