The Most Common Nutritional Deficiency

Scott: You also specialize in vitamin and mineral replacement.  What the most common deficiencies that you see today?

Erin Lommen: The first thing that comes to mind is magnesium.  Honestly, we're probably deficient in many things as you go through the course of practicing and testing.  In one of the clinics that I had for about 10 years did a lot of IV nutrients and so we were looking to replace very quickly with IV nutrients.  I certainly do a lot of oral supplementation now I'm not in that setting any more.  

Magnesium probably tops that list as one that a lot of us are deficient in; that makes such a difference in cellular metabolism and integrity. We hear so much more about calcium or some of the other things.  That would be the one that I would name if I had to pick one. The trace minerals, too.  If you start reading literature, I think there's a pan insufficiency in a lot of the minerals and a lot of the nutrients, and some of that comes from how we're eating and the quality of the food that we're eating.  When I entered medical school in the early '80s, I had the idealistic ideal that if you eat well and if you exercise, you don't need to take supplements.  30 years later, I would say that's simply not true.  I knew that within a few years of looking at profiles on people, testing people, watching.  We don't get the nutrients through our food, they're not there like they once were, and other factors changing our absorption.  Definitely supplementing I think is a standard that everybody has to have to optimize and then deciding which things is the key.  None of us want to be taking mounds of pills, even if they're natural, every day.

Scott: You mentioned Magnesium and I know sleep is a big part of Magnesium.  If someone is deficient, what are some of the ways that they might be able to know that, or what kind of signs are there?

Erin Lommen: In terms of?

Scott: Just deficient in Magnesium.

Erin Lommen: I went to another area in terms, for the women I treat, Magnesium for example helps women who are having lots of PMS symptoms: Lots of chocolate cravings, lots of cramping for example during their menses.  That's a simple correction that we start with before we get more sophisticated because that can help quiet a few women.