Vital Data for Health
Customer Rating: 
A little "pocket book" the kind you would see at a grocery checkout.
But the data presented about this vital mineral magnesium most persons would have to locate and research the various books and articles the author has included in his bibliography to find.
The general public AND most doctors are unaware of the number of problems magnesium deficiency is currently causing us.
I wish everybody could read what this very qualified author says in this little book. I took his advice and it changed my life too.
Get it. Its very affordable and your health issues may take a turn for the better.
Lower your blood pressure and mitigate many other ailments with magnesium
Customer Rating: Dr. Cohen's book does the public a great service in discussing the importance of magnesium for maintaining a healthy level of blood pressure. However, as Dr. Carolyn Dean discusses in her very important book The Miracle of Magnesium, magnesium deficiency is a significant factor -- often the major factor -- in many other severe illnesses including heart attacks and other forms of heart disease, asthma, anxiety and panic attacks, depression, fatigue, diabetes, migraines and other headaches, osteoporosis, insomnia, and most cases of muscular problems. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans are deficient in magnesium to some degree and many are severely deficient. Because magnesium deficiency is largely overlooked by orthodox medical doctors, millions of Americans suffer needlessly from the foregoing ailments or are having their symptoms treated with expensive drugs (which often have unpleasant or dangerous side effects) when they could be cured with magnesium supplementation. While I recommend Dr. Cohen's book, I recommend even more highly Dr. Dean's more comprehensive (but easy to read) book The Miracle of Magnesium. Getting the right level of magnesium can not only mitigate a large number of seemingly-unrelated ailments, it may save your life.
magnesium -- the forgotten piece of the jigsaw
Customer Rating: This useful little book is in the same series as one I reviewed earlier (The Magnesium Solution for Migraine Sufferers).
High blood pressure accounts for more trips to the doctor than any other condition. Almost always, patients are put on prescription drugs. As Dr. Peter Galgut said so eloquently on www.naturaleater.com, ALL drugs have side-effects. [This is no small matter: side effects to prescription drugs in hospital are the 4th leading cause of death in the United States, according to Lazarou in JAMA. 1998 Apr 15;279(15):1200-5.]
Moreover, doctors do not like to admit that, using drugs to lower blood pressure, does not reduce your risk of cardio-vascular disease to the same extent of someone who has the lower level naturally. In other words, drugs are dealing with the symptoms not the cause.
Dr. Cohen looks at one probable underlying cause of high blood pressure -- magnesium deficiency. He describes how up to 75% of Americans are deficient in this mineral and as a consequence are sick in many ways. Doctors are widely ignorant about magnesium and tend to think of drugs as first resort rather than last.
Dr. Cohen explains how magnesium is an essential micronutrient in maintaining suppleness in the walls of blood vessels. In magnesium deficiency, the vessels become stiffer and so do not absorb the blood pressure surges properly.
Dr. Cohen reviews many of the other lifestyle factors that are responsible for high blood pressure. These include obesity, lack of exercise, low fiber intake, salt, alcohol and smoking. However, even correcting these matters (particularly in black Americans) is not very effective; magnesium must be corrected too.
Dr. Cohen does not claim that fixing magnesium deficiency will "cure" high blood pressure. Rather it is usually an overlooked piece of the jigsaw in a pattern of factors to be corrected.
This eminently readable book has guidance on the types of magnesium available and how to find the right dose for you. As commented earlier, we should all be nervous of the aggressive side-effects of drugs.
The insights in this book offer a valuable avenue for high blood pressure sufferers to explore. Of course, as a nutritional anthropologist (www.naturaleater.com), I would say that taking pills -- even magnesium pills -- can only be a stop-gap measure. We should all be changing our eating habits so that we get ALL our nutrients from food. By feeding our bodies in the way that our bodies were designed by our ancient past, then all these food-induced lifestyle diseases (like high blood pressure) will disappear of their own accord.
