Can Diet Changes to Increase Magnesium Help Tourette Syndrome Symptoms?

One of my sons had the beginnings of Tourette Syndrome when he was little - eye blinking, facial twitching, eye tics, etc. Our regular doctor didn't have any advice for us, so I researched my son's condition using the book library at the local health food store. The indications were that he was low in magnesium, so we changed his diet to get more magnesium rich foods and give him magnesium supplements for a few days crushed in yogurt. It worked great. The tics, twitches and eye blinking all stopped within a few days. We made the diet changes permanent, and for years I never gave the tics another thought. The only other time my son developed tics and twitches was when he was older and went on vacation with friends (without mom around to remind him to eat his vegetables!) and ate junk food for a few days, but the tics and twitches cleared up after he got home and ate healthier foods, including vegetables and nuts, for for a few days.

Then when my children were older they would come home from school and tell me about class mates with tics and twitches similar to the ones our one son experienced as a preschooler. That prompted me to put up a web page on my connective tissue disorder site about tics from magnesium deficiency a few years ago. The response to that one web page has been very positive. While one mom wrote that magnesium did not help her child, I think about 8 or so reported positive results, sometimes a complete recovery and often symptoms were alleviated within a few days. One parent emailed me that her child's vocal tics improved with increased magnesium. Many of these kids had been seeing a variety of medical specialists. Some were on prescription medications, yet no one was asking about their diets, which were often described by the parents as very low in healthy foods, especially nuts, beans and vegetables, foods high in magnesium.

I find it odd that kids with tics, twitches and other signs related to Tourette Syndrome do not seem to be regularly checked for magnesium deficiency. A web page on magnesium in diet from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health's web site clearly notes that muscle twitching is a sign of magnesium deficiency. Yet based on my experience with my son and the experiences of parents who write to me, children with symptoms of tics and muscle twitching who are taken to the doctor are unfortunately not usually asked about their diets or checked for low magnesium levels.

Organic Produce May Have More Flavanoids

In a study published in the The Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, researchers found that the level of one flavonoid in organically grown tomatoes was almost twice as high as that in tomatoes that were conventionally grown. This may give people who choose organic vegetables and fruits in order to avoid pesticides yet one more reason reason to spend the extra money on organic produce.

Flavonoids may fight a number of age-related diseases, so in recent years researchers have been trying to grow crops with higher levels of them. In the U.S. , only potatoes are eaten more often than tomatoes.The authors of the study, researchers from the University of California at Davis, examined tomatoes grown over a ten year time frames in regular and organic fields. The organic tomatoes scored much better, and over time their levels of flavonoid levels kept increasing.

Ingredients of Health

The common ingredients of health and long
life are:
Great temp'rance, open air,
Easy labor, little care. - Sir P. Sidney

Healthy Thought For the Day

We are what we repeatedly do. - Aristotle

Preventing Back Pain When You Have to Sit at a Desk All Day

Back pain is one of the most common reasons why people visit the doctor. It is especially challenging to keep your back in shape when you sit at a desk all day long. Our bodies were designed to be outside picking berries, fishing, and walking miles to look for shelter, not sitting stationary and reading email for hours on end.

Yoga can help to get all of your major muscles groups moving and strengthened. Watching your posture is also importent. If you sit hunched over a PC all day long, eventually your muscles may shorten into that position. Then when you need to stretch out your body for an activity like tennis or even reaching for a something on a high shelf, your back may "go out". The best way to prevent this is to keep your muscles flexible and aligned even before you have pain. Practicing yoga regularly and watching your posture may help.

Veggies for Asthma?

A study published in the journal Thorax found that women who ate the most tomatoes, carrots and leafy green vegetables had lower asthma rates. It is important to note that this study showed association, and not cause and effect. Women who eat a lot of veggies may have other healthy habits that lower their asthma rates. However, since no other fruits or vegetables were significantly associated with asthma prevalence, the study authors concluded that these results suggest that the intake of some vegetables may decrease the prevalence of adult asthma.

Coffee and Heart Attacks

This article from Yahoo News notes that people who are "slow caffeine metabolizers" are more likely to have a nonfatal heart attack if they drink two cups of coffee or more a day. In this study the researchers believed the ability to metabolize coffee is a genetic trait. The authors stated that there is no commercially available test to see if your body metabolizes caffeine well.

This is interesting because there are alternative health tests to see how well phase one of you liver detoxification process is working that involve a caffeine challenge test. In alternative health, caffeine processing is generally thought not to rely mostly on genetics but on how well your liver is working. In holistic medicine, how well your liver is working is thought to depend upon factors such as exposure to chemicals and toxins, proper diet, etc.

The truth about people who are slow caffeine metabolizers probably lies somewhere in between environmental, genetic and dietary factors. I can tolerate more caffeine when I'm eating healthier, but never more than a cup or so at most. Yet I know some people who can drink coffee all day long and not seem to have any side effects from it.