Blog #308 Living Beyond 80 Years of Age
I wrote in an earlier blog about what I have done to reach 80 in Blog #306. I will repeat my section of it below, after this news release about Magnesium. I do take some non-prescription medications that include Magnesium Oxide in the morning, Magnesium Glycinate in every other evening, along with a multivitamin, D3, Vitamin C in the cold/flue season, and occasionally an Iron tablet if I haven’t eaten meat for a week or so.
Now for this news announcement:
Well Being: The Critical Mineral Most Americans are Deficient in
Magnesium: New research suggests its role is critical for health
Dr. Robert W. Malone Sep 16, 2026More than two-thirds of American adults do not have enough magnesium.
A 2026 analysis of U.S. adults participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 67.8 percent had serum magnesium concentrations below 2.06 mg/dL, the threshold the researchers used for chronic latent magnesium deficiency. That number is remarkable, particularly because serum magnesium may actually be a relatively insensitive way of detecting inadequate magnesium stores.
Magnesium deficiency is generally assessed by measuring magnesium in the blood, yet less than one percent of the body’s magnesium is found in serum. Most magnesium is stored in bone and within cells. The body also regulates circulating magnesium rather tightly, meaning that serum concentrations do not necessarily provide a complete picture of magnesium stores. A normal blood test does not necessarily mean that the body’s magnesium stores are adequate.
There is an important issue concerning how we define deficiency. The researchers used a higher serum magnesium cutoff than is conventionally used to diagnose clinical hypomagnesemia. Their threshold of 2.06 mg/dL has been proposed as a better marker for chronic latent magnesium deficiency, based in part on studies showing physiological changes and increased health risks at magnesium concentrations that conventional laboratory ranges may still classify as normal. In other words, by the time someone crosses the conventional threshold for frank hypomagnesemia, we may be looking at the far end of the problem rather than its beginning.
There is even more reason to take the finding seriously. We already know from dietary surveys that Americans aren’t consuming enough magnesium. Analysis of NHANES dietary data found that 48 percent of Americans consumed less magnesium from food and beverages than their Estimated Average Requirement.
These are two different measurements asking two different questions, but they point in the same direction. One finds widespread inadequate dietary intake. The other suggests that suboptimal magnesium status may be even more common.
Why should we care?
Because magnesium isn’t a minor nutritional accessory. It is involved in hundreds of enzymatic reactions and some of the most fundamental processes keeping us alive. Magnesium is required for the production and utilization of ATP, the energy currency of the cell. It plays essential roles in protein synthesis, DNA and RNA metabolism, glucose regulation, muscle and nerve function, vascular tone, cardiac electrical stability and bone metabolism. In the brain, magnesium helps regulate neuronal signaling and synaptic plasticity, processes fundamental to learning, memory and cognitive function.
Low magnesium status has been associated with cognitive impairment and dementia, while experimental studies have shown that increasing magnesium concentrations in the brain can enhance synaptic plasticity and improve learning and memory. Much of the early work involved magnesium-L-threonate, a form developed specifically to increase magnesium availability in the brain. The evidence has now progressed beyond animal studies.
Randomized, placebo-controlled human trials have reported improvements in several measures of cognition and memory, including working and episodic memory, following magnesium-L-threonate supplementation. What has not yet been established is whether these cognitive effects translate into prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias.
Human studies also suggest that magnesium status differs in people with Alzheimer's disease. A meta-analysis of 21 studies found significantly lower serum and plasma magnesium in Alzheimer's patients than in healthy controls. Perhaps more interestingly, postmortem studies of human brains have reported lower magnesium concentrations in Alzheimer's-affected regions, including the hippocampal region, entorhinal cortex, and frontal cortex. These findings do not prove that magnesium deficiency causes Alzheimer's disease. Neurodegeneration itself could alter magnesium metabolism. But prospective evidence makes the relationship harder to dismiss: in the Rotterdam Study of 9,569 initially dementia-free adults, low serum magnesium was associated with a 32 percent greater subsequent risk of dementia.
Which raises an obvious question.
Why are so many Americans apparently running short of a mineral this fundamental to human biology?
There isn’t one answer. The medical system likes to point out that medications, gastrointestinal disease, diabetes, alcohol use, kidney loss, and aging can all affect magnesium status.
But there is another explanation sitting directly in front of us.
The food industry removed much of the magnesium from our food.
Big Ag removed much of the magnesium from food
When we wrote Homesteading for Health, we spent considerable time examining something largely missing from modern discussions about nutrition. Food isn’t simply protein, carbohydrate, and fat.
Food contains minerals.
And the nutritional composition of our food is not fixed.
The nutritional quality of our food has changed. Evidence accumulated over decades shows that modern high-yield agriculture can produce more food per acre while reducing the concentration of minerals in that food. Historical USDA comparisons found substantial declines in several nutrients in fruits and vegetables between 1950 and 1999. Long-running agricultural experiments provide even stronger evidence. The Broadbalk Wheat Experiment in England, which has been continuously cultivated and studied since 1843, has documented significant declines in magnesium, zinc, iron, and copper concentrations in wheat grain associated with modern high-yield varieties. As crop yields increased, mineral concentrations often fell, a phenomenon researchers call the dilution effect.
But yield is only part of the story. Plants do not simply vacuum minerals out of dirt. Healthy soil is a living biological system in which bacteria, fungi, and plant roots work together to make minerals available to the plant. Modern tillage, heavy fertilizer use and other intensive practices disrupt those relationships, particularly the mycorrhizal fungal networks that extend the effective reach of plant roots. A soil may therefore contain magnesium and other minerals on a laboratory assay while becoming less biologically effective at delivering them into the crop.
What matters isn’t simply whether magnesium exists in the dirt. What matters is whether it makes its way from the soil into the food and ultimately into us.
Then we take the food we produce and process even more magnesium out of it.
We know exactly where much of it went.
Industrial milling removed it from our food
Again, in Homesteading for Health, we document that much of the issue stems from the production of processed flour. The wheat kernel consists of the bran, germ, and endosperm. The bran and germ contain a disproportionate share of the grain’s minerals, including magnesium. Making refined white flour removes those portions of the kernel.
The result can be a dramatic reduction in magnesium.
And then comes one of the stranger ironies of our modern food system.
We call the resulting product “enriched flour.”
Iron and selected B vitamins are added back after milling, and folic acid is added to most enriched grain products.
Magnesium generally isn’t.
We take a naturally magnesium-containing food, remove much of its magnesium, replace a selected handful of the nutrients lost during processing, and call the finished product enriched.
Then we make refined flour a foundation of the American diet.
Perhaps the magnesium problem isn’t quite so mysterious after all.
Where Did the Magnesium Go?
The best natural sources of magnesium aren’t particularly exotic.
Pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, almonds and other nuts, beans, lentils, whole grains and dark leafy vegetables are all good sources. Magnesium is, after all, at the center of the chlorophyll molecule. Green plants are therefore an obvious place to find it.
The modern American diet has moved in almost exactly the opposite direction.
Whole grains became refined grains. Beans and legumes became less central to many meals. Nuts and seeds became optional snacks rather than routine foods. Fresh vegetables increasingly compete with highly processed products made primarily from refined flour, starch, sugar, and industrial oils.
The result is an interesting nutritional paradox.
Americans can consume more than enough calories while remaining poorly supplied with micronutrients.
We can be overfed and undernourished at the same time.
Then There Is the Brain
For years, magnesium was discussed primarily in relation to muscle function, bone, cardiovascular health, and metabolism. Its role in cognition received considerably less public attention.
That has changed.
Magnesium is involved in neuronal signaling and synaptic plasticity, the process through which connections between neurons change in response to experience. These mechanisms are fundamental to learning and memory.
Animal experiments produced some striking early findings. Increasing brain magnesium concentrations improved measures of synaptic plasticity, learning, and memory, and experimental work with magnesium-L-threonate generated particular interest because this compound was developed to increase magnesium availability in the brain.
There are also observational human data connecting magnesium status with cognitive health and dementia. A 2024 systematic review examined three randomized controlled trials and 12 cohort studies. The cohort evidence suggested relationships between magnesium status and cognitive outcomes. Interestingly, the researchers also found a U-shaped association between serum magnesium and dementia or cognitive impairment, with approximately 0.85 mmol/L appearing to represent an optimal concentration in the available cohort data.
That last observation is important.
More is not always better.
The objective isn’t to consume enormous amounts of magnesium. It is to have enough.
Magnesium-L-Threonate and Memory
This brings me to the form of magnesium that I find particularly interesting: magnesium-L-threonate, commonly abbreviated MgT.
Magnesium-L-threonate was developed specifically to increase magnesium concentrations in the central nervous system. Early animal experiments reported improvements in learning, working memory, and both short- and long-term memory.
The evidence has now moved into humans.
A recently published randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial enrolled 100 adults aged 18 to 45. Participants received either 2 grams per day of magnesium-L-threonate or placebo for six weeks.
Compared with placebo, the magnesium-L-threonate group demonstrated greater improvement in the NIH Total Cognition Composite, with particularly notable effects involving working and episodic memory. Reaction time also improved. Not every endpoint improved, including several objective measures of sleep, but the study provides controlled human evidence supporting some of what the earlier animal studies had found.
This is the form of magnesium I personally favor when cognition and brain health are among the objectives.
Your Heart Needs Magnesium
Magnesium is also deeply involved in cardiovascular physiology.
It influences vascular smooth-muscle tone, movement of calcium and potassium across cell membranes, and the electrical activity of the heart. Severe magnesium deficiency can produce abnormal heart rhythms. Magnesium is important enough to cardiac electrophysiology that intravenous magnesium has long-standing medical uses for certain arrhythmias and other acute clinical settings.
But the more interesting question for most of us concerns the effects of chronic, less severe magnesium inadequacy.
A meta-analysis of 38 randomized trials involving 2,709 participants found an average reduction of 2.8 points in the upper (systolic) blood pressure number and 2.1 points in the lower (diastolic) number compared with placebo. In practical terms, a reading of 130/80 would decline, on average, to about 127/78.
Magnesium supplementation appears to lower blood pressure most in people who actually have high blood pressure, particularly those already being treated for hypertension. A 2025 meta-analysis of 38 randomized controlled trials involving 2,709 participants found that among people with hypertension who were already taking blood-pressure medication, magnesium supplementation lowered the upper blood-pressure number by an average of 7.7 points and the lower number by about 3 points compared with placebo. People who were magnesium deficient also experienced larger reductions, while those with normal blood pressure did not experience a statistically significant reduction.
Magnesium is also closely connected to glucose metabolism and insulin signaling. In a pooled analysis of 24 randomized trials involving people with type 2 diabetes, magnesium supplementation was associated with reductions in fasting glucose, HbA1c, and blood pressure.
Magnesium isn’t a miracle cure.
It is something more mundane and perhaps more important: a basic nutrient necessary for the metabolic systems we are asking our bodies to operate every day.
How Much Magnesium Do We Actually Need?
The recommended dietary allowance varies by age and sex. For most adult men, it is approximately 400–420 mg per day, while most adult women require approximately 310–320 mg per day, with somewhat higher requirements during pregnancy.
Those numbers aren’t particularly difficult to reach if someone eats a nutrient-dense whole-food diet.
That “if” is doing a lot of work.
The NIH identifies legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and green leafy vegetables as major dietary sources.
That list looks remarkably similar to the foods that have been displaced by the modern processed diet.
Food First. But Perhaps Not Food Alone.
Magnesium-rich foods should be the foundation. Eat green vegetables. Eat beans and legumes. Eat nuts and seeds. Choose whole grains rather than refined flour. Grow some of your own food if you can. Buy food from farmers who care about their soil. Reduce the amount of highly processed food in your diet.
But there is a problem with stopping the discussion there.
The food isn’t the only thing that changes as we get older. We change too.
Aging alters the gastrointestinal tract and can reduce how efficiently some nutrients are absorbed. Older people may also eat less food, have less varied diets, take medications that interfere with magnesium balance, or develop diseases that increase magnesium losses. Kidney handling of magnesium also changes with age. Proton-pump inhibitors are a particularly important example because long-term use can cause hypomagnesemia in susceptible individuals. Diuretics and several other medications can also alter magnesium status.
This means that the person who was able to maintain adequate magnesium status at 35 may not necessarily do so at 65 or 75 while eating essentially the same diet.
That matters because aging is precisely when many of the biological systems that depend upon magnesium become increasingly important: cardiovascular function, glucose regulation, bone health, muscle function and cognition.
So I don’t think “food first” should automatically mean “food only.”
For many adults, particularly as we age, magnesium supplementation is worth considering alongside a magnesium-rich diet.
The form matters. Magnesium oxide is inexpensive and contains a lot of elemental magnesium, but it is poorly absorbed and commonly causes gastrointestinal effects. Magnesium citrate is better absorbed and useful for people who also benefit from its laxative effect, but for others loose stool isn’t particularly desirable. Magnesium glycinate is widely used and generally well tolerated. Magnesium-L-threonate is considerably more expensive, but is particularly interesting because it was developed to increase magnesium availability in the brain and now has both animal and human evidence concerning cognition.
This is why magnesium-L-threonate is the form I personally favor when brain and cognitive health are part of the objective.
But supplementation shouldn’t become another exercise in the American belief that if some is good, more must be better. The NIH establishes a 350 mg/day upper limit for magnesium from supplements and medications in adults. Importantly, that limit does not include magnesium naturally present in food. It was established primarily because supplemental magnesium can cause diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal cramping. Much higher intakes can become dangerous, especially in people with impaired kidney function, because the kidneys normally eliminate excess magnesium. Magnesium supplements can also interact with several medications.
The objective is adequacy, not excess.
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Hot link: Well Being: The Critical Mineral Most Americans are Deficient in
My View: John Shoemaker
I just turned 80 in September 2026. I agree with most of the comments above. I took many calculated risks that could have gone bad, but they also gave me strength and courage. Training to be a paratrooper, a jungle warfare expert, volunteering for war, and missing certain death five times by inches or by a few minutes as a Lieutenant and platoon leader against the Viet Cong and NVA, with death all around me, gave me a sense of maturity, courage, and confidence. I also learned to confront challenges head-on and seek positive results.
As we grow older, life comes in phases. I didn’t realize each phase forces us to do things differently, and that it’s important to prepare for the next phase and the future. During all this time, I was not a Foxhole Convert in Vietnam, but I am a Catholic and believe in Christian values and Jesus Christ. I also believe something hard to imagine…God…is responsible for our Universe. That is consistent throughout my life.
Anyway, I got an education. I took jobs focused on acceptable performance or else - highly measured and clear goals. It is about getting results. Failure was never an option, but it happens. I climbed the corporate ladder and, after getting laid off due to a merger I sponsored, went on to work at five different start-ups. I won with two of them. In total, I was laid off seven times because companies merged, went bankrupt, withdrew from the market, or products failed. But the two wins were home runs.
It was a high-stress life, but it provided a good lifestyle. So, what did I do to get to be 80?
In the Army, I learned how to respect being in good physical shape. I always avoided smoking and drinking. I never really got drunk, maybe once or twice when I was young. I did not play golf, but I loved hiking in the mountains. Each year for 25 years, I arranged trips for friends to meet at a national park or such a place to hike a real mountain. Sometimes over 12,000 to 14,500 feet high. I made it to the top of 18 14,000-foot (14ers) mountains and over 30 13ers.To do that, I trained year-round, hiking in parks one afternoon a week with a 40 lbs backpack filled with water to test and challenge my stamina. I was typically the oldest on the team, which inspired me to keep up with them.
Even today, living in Florida, I walk the beach barefoot two to three times a week for 2-4 miles, many times with a 20 lb backpack. While living in a Florida condo, I trained for 25 years by walking up/down a 12-story staircase ten times with a backpack. It is great for strengthening your legs, which is vital in old age to ensure stability and mobility. I also mountain bike, ride a road bike, and lift weights to stay active.
Personal hygiene: Since the stress made me grind my teeth during sleep, I invested in my health by having my teeth renewed with 28 crowns. Not easy, but good teeth and gums are critical to your health and the appearance of your facial structure.
After 70, I visited doctors regularly to ensure my vital signs were in good shape. Although I learned I had shrapnel from a bomb embedded in my leg from the war, I decided to leave it alone. Why risk infection? I went ahead with replacing my knees when I was 77, which was the latest I would go since healing from operations is most difficult after 80. I also decided to replace both at the same time and have my legs straightened, as they were severely bowed during Vietnam due to my diet. The surgeon would do it only because I'd been lifting weights for years to keep my upper body strong, which lets me lift myself off the toilet onto a walker without assistance or bending my knees. Try doing it without using your legs. Not easy.
For sure, I do the basics: at least 7 hours of sleep, eat less meat and more veggies, and cut back dramatically on how much I eat.
While I felt a tremendous sense of duty to my country by joining the Army during the Vietnam War. It was an exciting, valuable experience, and I would do it again. But I would not make it a career. I wanted a family and financial success. My soulmate gives me the love and purpose we all need in life. So, I stayed in private industry until I retired at 70. Then I served the community again by being elected Commissioner for the Town and serving on two condo boards as a director and President. Community service matters because it lets you give back and build lasting relationships. It also gives purpose while challenging your brain to keep up.
I’ve made funeral arrangements for both my wife, whom I married in 1968, and me, and created a “trust” so that when my time is up, all property and financial matters are prepared.
But until that day arrives, I will fight to keep my mind sharp, keep learning, stay mobile, and remain independent.
I try to be a good man. You can’t make everyone happy. I value friendships and have tried to be a loyal, honest, and open man who always tries to be productive.
I trust in God and hope that I will see all of you in Heaven — at some distant time, maybe when I reach 100. :<))