The Tao of Detox Author, Daniel Reid, on Magnesium

The skin is your biggest... one of the biggest organs in your body.
It’s a major excretory organ, but you also absorb fluids through your skin
- through the pores. So, magnesium in particular is easier to assimilate
in the body through the skin, especially in the form of a bath.
And in addition to being the quickest way to get it into your body,
it also is very good for the skin itself. So primarily, we use transdermal application
in our programs. Life on earth began in the ocean. And it’s
a well-known fact at least to naturopaths, I’m not sure if doctors know anything about
it, but the basic chemical composition of the blood is identical to seawater. Clean
seawater. When I say identical, it has the same elements
in it, and they appear in the same proportions.
So, magnesium, for example, in the ocean takes the form of magnesium chloride.
Which means, obviously, that that’s the form that your cells would recognize and accept.
And yet if you look at magnesium supplements today,
it’s hard to find magnesium chloride. You have a dozen other varieties, sulfate,
and oxide, and all these others, but not the one that your cells actually recognize
as the natural magnesium of the body. But the key is: if that’s the form it takes
in the ocean, then you know that’s the form that the blood wants.
We do use magnesium abundantly in our detox programs.
And it’s one of the most popular items among our clients.
And there are many reasons for it. It is so comprehensive in its use.
Like I said, it’s a primary mineral required for detoxification and self-cleansing.
You’ve got to have a lot of magnesium in there. It alkalizes.
When you do a detox, your body goes into an acid state,
because you’re purging so many toxins out of your cells and tissues, your joints.
It’s all acid. So, your acid level goes up and that makes you uncomfortable.
So, during the program we use magnesium to bring people back down
to a state of balance during the detox process. And then there’s the other thing,
is that magnesium is wonderful for relaxation and sleep.
And of course during the detox your whole body is agitated.
You’ve got all this stuff coming out and most people without any sort of supplementation
basically don’t sleep. They are tossing and turning all night. So,
we use magnesium. Especially at night if a person is having
problems sleeping, we give them an extra foot soak with magnesium,
and they sleep like babes. The skin is probably the best path for mineral
absorption specifically. I think that’s one reason for thousands
of years one of the main ways of getting your health
back was to soak in a hot springs. This is known in Europe. It’s known in Asia.
You go to a hot springs. You soak in a bath. It’s not just because the water is hot.
You can do that at home. But there are these minerals in it. And the
minerals absorb very quickly into your skin and have an immediate therapeutic effect on
your entire body, and particularly your nervous system. So,
it’s very, very efficient. I don’t think it’s even known to modern
medicine that you can do... that you can apply a nutrient this way.
You’ve heard things like nicotine patches. A chemical they put underneath a piece of
plastic, which they stick on the skin. But that’s not what we’re talking about.
We’re talking about the natural function of sitting in water,
which humans have been doing for thousands and thousands of years.
And all animals go to the river… and elephants spraying water [gesturing] on
their backs. It’s an ancient way for mammals to get nutrients
in their body is just to soak in water. And often it’s
muddy water. The mud is where the minerals are. It’s
not dirty. So, all of this has been lost.
Ancient Minerals brand magnesium chloride, which is what we’ve been using,
has got to be one of the purest nutrients on earth because it’s been underground.
It’s been kept underground in this ancient seabed 2,000 meters below the ground
for about 200 million years. And it doesn’t get any more pure than that.