6 Magnesium Bisglycinate Benefits: A Comprehensive Guide

You’ve managed to drag yourself into the gym as usual, but you’re simply not in the mood to exercise. For as long as you can remember, you’ve approached your weight training session with a body that’s tired and unresponsive and with an ache that seems to permeate all the way down to your bones.

“You look like you’re barely alive!” remarks the club’s resident personal trainer. “Are you okay?”

“Absolutely not,” you state, shaking your head dramatically from side to side. “I feel so run down all the time, but I still can’t get any sort of restful sleep. I’m starting to wonder if I should be taking medications to fix the way I’m feeling.”

“Are you sure it’s not just your diet?” asks the trainer. “Tell me something… Have you considered taking a quality magnesium supplement, like Transparent Labs Magnesium Bisglycinate?”

“Never,” you reply. “I’ve never even heard of it. I’ve always taken a multivitamin. I figure that should be good enough.”

Your trainer just laughs.

“Magnesium is really important, and it’s harder to account for in your diet than a lot of the other vitamins and minerals,” says the trainer. “It plays a major role in bone health, recovery, sleep quality, and energy optimization. A multivitamin is good, but some multivitamins don’t carry nearly enough magnesium. If I were you, I’d look into getting some magnesium bisglycinate immediately.”

You’ve never considered magnesium supplementation before, let alone with this mysterious form of magnesium this personal trainer just mentioned. Still, you make a mental note to look into it. If magnesium bisglycinate is all it will take to fix your problems, then it’s definitely a supplement worth looking into.

What is Magnesium Bisglycinate?

As its name suggests, magnesium bisglycinate is a form of magnesium that is commonly taken in supplement form. What differentiates it from other forms of magnesium is that it is a salt extracted from the amino acid glycine instead of other amino acids or food sources.

Compared with other magnesium supplements, magnesium bisglycinate is more easily absorbed and tends to be less active in the digestive system. This makes it popular among people who boost their magnesium intake through the use of supplements… which isn’t nearly as many people as it should be.

Don’t allow yourself to be confused over the difference in names when you start looking for magnesium bisglycinate and people start offering suggestions for how you should use magnesium glycinate supplements. The two terms are synonyms for the same exact form of magnesium, so you should expect the names to be used interchangeably. 

So if you decide that taking extra magnesium in a supplement form would benefit you, there’s no need for you to worry if you tell someone to take magnesium bisglycinate and someone tries to tell you that magnesium glycinate supplements would be better. They’re essentially the same forms of magnesium, and they’ll provide you with all of the benefits of magnesium despite the subtle differences in the names.

What About Regular Dietary Magnesium?

By this point, you’ve probably asked the following question: Don’t I already get enough magnesium in my ordinary diet? The answer: probably not. 

It’s not that there aren’t plenty of ordinary food items out there that you can use for dietary magnesium intake. The problem stems from the fact that the food items that offer the most bioavailable forms of magnesium tend not to be particularly popular. On top of that, there are essentially no single-serving food items that offer magnesium levels that are high enough to satisfy your daily needs in one meal. 

This results in many people suffering from magnesium deficiency and being totally unaware of it. Moreover, when they try to increase their dietary magnesium intake, their best efforts are likely to fall short for several reasons.

Why don’t people get enough magnesium?

The answer to the question of why a well-meaning person might continue to suffer from magnesium deficiency has a great deal to do with the difficulty of maintaining healthy magnesium levels through ordinary food options.

For example, the list of magnesium-rich foods includes a select few green leafy vegetables like spinach, black beans, almonds, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, dark chocolate, avocados, bananas, oatmeal, and salmon. 

Only a scant few of those sources of magnesium leap off the page as being items that are routinely consumed, at least at average American kitchen tables. Not everyone eats pumpkin seeds as a snack food, and avocados rank relatively low on the list of favorite fruits and vegetables compared to offerings like apples, carrots, potatoes, or even broccoli. 

Of course, dark chocolate is still chocolate, which generally qualifies it as a dessert item. The fact that it has some health benefits like elevated antioxidants and a relatively high magnesium level compared to milk chocolate doesn’t make it any less of a dessert, nor does that make it preferable to the taste buds of people who prefer milk chocolate.

The greater problem is that Most food sources that are considered relatively high in magnesium aren’t particularly high in an absolute sense, at least not in the way we think of other foods as being saturated with certain vitamins and minerals. 

For instance, a whole grapefruit contains 200 percent of a person’s daily requirement of vitamin C, and 70 percent of their daily requirement of vitamin A. You can consume a single grapefruit and be confident that your daily needs for certain vitamins have been more or less satisfied.

In comparison, single servings of most foods that claim to be high in magnesium tend to provide—at best—35 percent of your daily magnesium needs. 

Not only do most people not want to eat massive amounts of spinach, but of the foods that are most attractive to eat for satisfying the magnesium intake requirement, the victory is often pyrrhic in some regards. 

For instance, to eat enough peanuts to satisfy even 60 percent of your daily magnesium intake recommendation, you’ll have to consume nearly 1,000 calories worth of peanuts.

In short, this is why magnesium deficiency is the norm in many households and also why magnesium supplements should be downright mandatory for most people.

6 Health Benefits of Magnesium Bisglycinate

So now we know why so many people suffer from a magnesium deficiency, but that doesn’t explain why magnesium is such an important mineral to the optimal functionality of your body.

Acquiring the recommended dosage of magnesium — even if it requires the scheduled consumption or a magnesium supplement — is going to improve your life in a wide range of ways. 

Improved Sleep

Taking magnesium bisglycinate is known to improve sleep quality. Specifically, while magnesium naturally helps to relax muscles, studies show that the amino acid glycine promotes sleep by modulating thermoregulation and circadian rhythms through the activation of NMDA receptors in the suprachiasmatic nucleus [1]. In short, it’s the combination of the magnesium and the glycine that is uniquely effective to bring about a more restful situation for the body.

Stress and Anxiety Reduction

One of the most popular magnesium bisglycinate benefits is its ability to relax the nervous system even during your waking hours, resulting in reduced stress and anxiety. This is a direct consequence of magnesium’s dual ability to limit calcium’s involvement in muscle contraction, and restrict overstimulation of the nerves.

Muscle Function and Recovery

Magnesium plays a critical role in your body’s ability to tap into its energy stores, because it assists in the movement of electrolytes into cells. This means magnesium supplements may noticeably improve the quality of your exercise performance, especially if you have been living in a state of chronic magnesium deficiency for years on end. It also assists your post-workout recovery by speeding needed nutrients to your muscles, and the muscle-calming presence of magnesium also helps to prevent the onset of muscle cramps.

Bone Health

One of the qualities of magnesium that makes it such an essential mineral is that it is critically important to the development and maintenance of healthy bones. While calcium and vitamin D have a justifiable reputation for being the respective mineral and vitamin most associated with bone health, they can’t reach their full bone-strengthening potential without magnesium’s presence, as magnesium specifically helps to optimize the bioavailability of calcium.

Studies involving magnesium conclude that magnesium intake is shown to result in a higher level of bone mineral density, particularly in the hip region [2]. This becomes especially valuable during aging, as falls before more frequent, and less-stable bones can result in an increased likelihood of breaks and fractures.

Heart Health

Magnesium has a number of important roles to play in helping you maintain a healthy blood pressure, because of its role in relaxing blood vessels and easing the transport of nutrients into the regions of your body that need them. Individuals with high blood pressure, or who are at risk for cardiovascular disease, should first see if supplementation with magnesium is a more practical course of action than taking certain medications. 

Digestive Health

A direct comparison between magnesium bisglycinate and other magnesium supplements reveals that magnesium bisglycinate is a highly absorbable source of supplemental magnesium, which can reduce the stress on the muscles that move food through the digestive system. Other forms of magnesium — especially magnesium citrate — have laxative properties because the citrate pulls water into your intestines. However, if you are not battling constipation specifically, magnesium glycinate is probably preferable to another type of magnesium.

How to Take Magnesium Bisglycinate

Taking magnesium supplements seems like it would be a straightforward practice. Yet, as with any other scenario that requires you to take supplements, there is a recommended dosage involved with taking magnesium glycinate supplements. 

To ensure that you’re not taking too much magnesium — or too little for that matter — there are some guidelines that you should follow when you’re taking magnesium supplements. 

How Much to Take

The guidelines for using magnesium bisglycinate generally hew to the recommended daily intake levels for magnesium in general. In short, your recommended quantity of magnesium depends on your age, gender, and how much magnesium you’re consuming through other sources.

If you’re an adult male, your total recommended daily allowance is 400 to 420 mg of magnesium. If you’re an adult woman, your RDA for magnesium is 310 to 360 mg. 

So here’s where things get tricky: The tolerable upper intake level for supplemental magnesium is 350 mg whether you’re an adult male or an adult female. Right off the bat, this tells you that you wouldn’t want to consume more than 350 mg of magnesium supplements on a daily basis under any circumstance.

However, that’s only one consideration; there are other things you’ll want to consider if you want to avoid flirting with magnesium toxicity. The amount of magnesium glycinate or magnesium bisglycinate that you opt to supplement with should always be thought of as additional magnesium that is augmenting the quantity that you’re already consuming. 

Therefore, higher doses of magnesium glycinate should be reserved for people whose magnesium status is very low — at least on the day a magnesium supplement is being taken. If you believe that you have consumed 200 mg of magnesium on a given day, supplementing with 150 to 200 mg of additional magnesium would be safer than taking a maximum dose.

When to Take It

Broadly speaking, you can take a magnesium supplement any time of the day. However, it is common to take magnesium specifically to assist with relaxation prior to bedtime, and throughout the night.

In light of this, if you intend to take magnesium glycinate supplements for the sleeping benefits, you should take them shortly before you go to bed to help you sleep through the night. 

Potential Side Effects and Precautions

Magnesium supplements may cause a wide range of undesired reactions in the body, particularly if you take quantities of magnesium glycinate that exceed the advised levels.

What Could Go Wrong?

If you’re taking supplements containing magnesium, you should be on the lookout for the following side effects or complications:

• Kidney problems

• Diarrhea

• Abdominal pain

• Very low blood pressure

• Irregular heartbeat

• Depression

In addition, dietary supplements containing magnesium may not play well with other medications you might be taking. If you’re already taking medicine to contend with a health issue, ask a health professional if it is safe to take magnesium glycinate or any other supplement containing magnesium.

To avoid these sorts of complications during magnesium supplementation, you should pay close attention to how much magnesium you are ingesting throughout the day. From there, you should consume only enough magnesium glycinate to bring your magnesium levels to 100 percent of the RDA.

FAQs about Magnesium Bisglycinate

Hopefully we’ve adequately answered the majority of your questions related to magnesium glycinate. For the sake of being thorough, we’re providing direct answers to a few additional questions about magnesium glycinate that frequently get asked.

How does magnesium bisglycinate compare to other magnesium supplements?

Magnesium bisglycinate — also known as magnesium glycinate — is known for a few specific properties that provide it with special advantages over other magnesium supplements.

For instance, magnesium glycinate is more bioavailable and is a more absorbable form of magnesium than magnesium oxide. This makes magnesium glycinate more desirable for magnesium supplementation than magnesium oxide and similar, cheaper supplements.

Magnesium oxide also has properties that make it effective as a laxative, which is similar to how magnesium citrate operates in your body. On the other hand, magnesium malate is considered a solid all-purpose version of magnesium, but it lacks several of the calming properties of magnesium glycinate, and is therefore less effective as a sleeping aid.

Can it help with migraines?

Magnesium glycinate can help improve several health conditions, but there is little evidence that magnesium supplementation can be used to resolve migraine headaches and similar maladies. 

The foremost reason this belief may persist is because magnesium deficiency can be one of the primary causes of headaches. In light of this, using supplements to raise your magnesium levels is likely to cure migraine headaches that were caused by the mineral’s absence.

Is magnesium bisglycinate safe for long-term use?

Magnesium bisglycinate is generally regarded as safe for long-term use. However, it is suspected that there are potential risks to using magnesium supplements to relax smooth muscles. 

Studies show that the long-term use of magnesium supplements in high doses can cause many of the problems it is often taken to prevent, like digestive system irritability [3]. It is further hypothesized that chronic relaxation of the smooth muscles can lead to complications with those muscles, especially at higher doses.

Likewise, it is also believed that long-term magnesium supplementation at high dosage levels can cause challenges with blood circulation and cardiac function.