Been taking Mg threonate both orally and topically for like year. Not like the impact on hair would have been huge. Maybe some, perhaps. What I find fascinating is that threonate has all kinds of effects in the brain too. People used to view it as an inert breakdown product of vitamin c. But it is actually hugely active biologically. Need to dig up the studies, but I recall the neurogenesis aspects of Mg threonate are best explained by increased threonate in the brain.
Plz do Ukko.
I can't find any studies showing conclusively that "the neurogenesis aspects of Mg threonate are best explained by increased threonate in the brain".
Just studies showing that L-Threonate blocks DKK-1 and restores youthfull levels of neurogenesis.
So all the evidence points to Magnesium-L-Threonate having a dual beneficial effect, but not enough so for those who enjoy a good argument!
Give me some time and I will find what I am alluding to. Did quite a bit of digging a while ago as I could not explain the effects of Mg threonate on brain function just based on magnesium.
Found some stuff. Need to dig for more.
1. Problem: Vitamin C in the ascorbic acid form does not cross the BBB to brain. Traditionally, it was thought that it was the dehydroascorbic acid form how vitamin C got to the brain. Using glucose transports given the similarity between glucose and Vit c chemically.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....cles/PMC508490/2. Vitamin C is hugely important for brain function. We should all know that low brain vitamin C leads to low dopamine. Uncool, don't want that. What is also known is that vitamin C is needed for healthy BDNF production. Lots of studies on that...start from here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/156279723. How does Mg threonate fit into the picture? Well, its other part is threonic acid a molecule closely related to ascorbic acid. In fact, its breakdown product. Put there is increasingly data on threonic acid being able to do whatever ascorbic acid does, even preventing scurvy the classic syptom of vitamin C deficieny. Irrelevant whether threonic acid can actually be converted back to ascorbic acid or whether when we speak of scurcy and vitamin C deficiency, we are actually talking about threonic acid deficiency. Guess what? Threonic acid is up to 4 times better as vitamin C than ascorbic acid itself in that it prevents scurvy four times better than ascorbic acid. Wow.
http://www.immunesup...ws/94spr002.htm It also hugely boosts cell uptake of ascorbic acid, maybe this is the mechanism. But it does not matter. Threonic acid makes the vitamin C metabolism work vastly better and it crosses over to brain through the BBB, at least when bound to a mineral like magnesium. Check this too:
"Dr. Veriangieri has shown that adding L-threonic acid to ascorbic acid or calcium ascorbate results in the same improved vitamin C activity as provided with calcium threonate. Additionally, he has shown that in a special breed of laboratory rat called the Osteogenic Disorder Shionogi (ODS) rat, calcium threonate is four to five times more effective than ascorbic acid in preventing scurvy. This is the accepted method for measuring vitamin C activity.The ODS rats do not manufacture
vitamin C in their bodies. Thus, they have the same genetic handicap that humans do. For this reason ODS rats may replace guinea pigs for studying vitamin C."
So, it seems clear that both calcium and magnesium threonate will help to raise L-threonic acid levels in the brain, which in turn will have positive impact on things like brain antioxidant defenses, brain metabolism, BDNF and even dopamine. I bet you anything that the great results from the MG threonate studies are mostly due to this. After all, the increases in brain magnesium levels from mg threonate are too small to really matter much. There was a great thread on this recently.
It is not the magnesium. It is the L-threonate i.e. L-threonic acid. Just as it is on the balding human scalp.