Getting Cramps? Taking Magnesium?

Today I noticed on twitter a reference to this study, about the use of magnesium to treat muscle cramps. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22972143/ 

It is an interesting topic. I know alot of people at different gyms where I have trained swearing by certain treatments for muscle cramps. One of these being the use of magnesium supplements.

What does this study mean?
So what does the science say about this. It is interesting to note "Magnesium supplements are marketed for the prophylaxis of cramps but the efficacy of magnesium for this indication has never been evaluated by systematic review". Never been evaluated? Well Im glad that they decided to do this!!! So they went about doing a meta analysis. This basically means that the reviewers found the most robust studies and put them together to give an over all idea and indication of a result. In this case being Does magnesium actually work to treat cramps. Well the results are a mixed bag. They ended up looking at it from 3 differing perspectives. One being cramps in exercise, another cramps in the elderly and finally cramps in pregnant woman. The results were that they found it to have no real effect on cramps in the elderly. They did not have enough studies or data of the right nature to determine its effectiveness in Exercise related cramps. And it seemed that it was a similar case in pregnant woman. With some conflicting studies, meaning more research is needed to determine its effectiveness on pregnant woman.

So what foods have magnesium ? 
By Eating a wide variety of legumes, nuts,seeds, whole grains, and vegetables will help you meet your daily dietary need for magnesium. Bran is also really high in magnesium. The recommended daily intake is 420mg a day for males and about 310mg per day for females. Just 100gm of squash or pumpkin seeds will give you a little over 500mg of magnesium A bran muffin is another way to get a good hit of fibre and magnesium! 

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