TikTok users are sharing the magic powers magnesium can do to the body, but some experts are wary of their amateur findings.
Melissa Gray shared her story on taking magnesium glycinate pills because she had trouble sleeping and anxiety, according to Insider.
“I’m a super anxious person and I’m also having this issue where I sleep a ton and I’m not feeling rested,” Gray said in the video seen more than 16.9 million times. “I took it for the first time on Saturday night, and I felt calm, and my brain felt fuzzy like ready to go to bed and then I woke up in the morning, feeling rested. I thought it was a fluke.”
Magnesium is an ambundant mineral in the body that is required for energy production and plays a role in muscle and heart function, according to the National Institutes of Health.
After taking the magnesium supplement several nights in a row, Gray woke up well rested and before her alarm.
“The whole day I felt ok, I didn’t feel like trash, I haven’t really been feeling anxious.”
Gray said she wasn’t sure if it was just a really good week or if it was the magnesium pills she was taking.
“I’m gonna be pissed if this whole time I was just magnesium deficient,” Gray concluded.
While Gray and content creators believe in the power magnesium pills have, some experts are saying there isn’t enough data to back their claims as limited research has been conducted to show the correlation between magnesium and anxiety reduction.
“There’s just no good research out there that supports that magnesium works or doesn’t work for anxiety,” Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett, a professor of Psychology at Kent State, told Insider.
Magnesium can also help lower blood pressure and reduce strokes, type 2 diabetes, and prevent migraines, according to healthline.
In a study review titled “The Effects of Magnesium Supplementation on Subjective Anxiety and Stress—A Systematic Review” conducted by the University of Leeds, 18 studies where subjects underwent tests to help find a correlation between anxiety and magnesium supplement intake were examined.
“There is suggestive but inconclusive evidence for a beneficial effect of Mg supplementation in Mild anxiety,” the 2017 study published by MDPI stated.
Neal-Barnett and Dr. Supatra Tovar, a clinical psychologist in California, have noticed an uptick in TikTok posts about the magnesium pills.
“That uptick is also accompanied by a heightened desire for a quick remedy, a magic pill in the form of magnesium supplements,” Tovar told Insider.
The Pasadena based psychologist and dietitian also pointed out these supplement pills aren’t heavily regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not subjected to rigorous surveillance.
“Without FDA oversight, no one can be certain that what is in those supplements is effective or consistent,” Tovar said.