This maybe a longer post but it’s important. Sleep is the foundation of recovery. We talk a lot in this group about optimizing our health through peptides, hormones, training, nutrition, recovery and sleep. But sometimes we get so focused on the advanced stuff that we overlook the basic nutrients our bodies require to make all of those systems work in the first place. Magnesium is one of those nutrients, and if you’re training regularly, sweating, dealing with stress and trying to improve your sleep and recovery, I think it’s one of the most important minerals to understand. Magnesium isn’t some new supplement that was created for sleep. It’s an essential mineral involved in more than 300 enzyme systems throughout the human body. We need it for normal nerve and muscle function, energy production, protein synthesis, glucose regulation, blood pressure regulation and many other processes. So rather than thinking of magnesium as simply a “sleep supplement,” I think it’s more accurate to think of it as one of the basic materials your nervous system and muscles need to function correctly. Think about it like oil in an engine. Oil doesn’t magically give the engine more horsepower, but try running the engine without enough of it and you’ll quickly understand how important it is. Magnesium works in a similar way. When your body has enough, you may not think about it very much. When your intake is inadequate, however, you’re asking a lot of biological machinery to operate without enough of one of its basic ingredients. 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗦𝗢 𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗬 𝗣𝗘𝗢𝗣𝗟𝗘 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗚𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗘𝗡𝗢𝗨𝗚𝗛? This is what originally got my attention. According to NIH dietary data, roughly 48% of Americans consume less magnesium from food and beverages than their estimated average requirement. That doesn’t mean half of Americans have a severe clinical magnesium deficiency, but it does mean almost half of us aren’t consistently consuming the estimated amount needed through our normal diets. Once you look at where magnesium comes from, it’s not hard to understand why. Some of the better dietary sources include pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, almonds, cashews, beans, whole grains, spinach and other leafy green vegetables. Now compare that list with the average modern diet, which tends to contain a lot of processed food, refined grains and fast food and not nearly enough nuts, seeds, beans and leafy greens. The math starts to make sense pretty quickly.

This is super interesting. A brand-new study published in Nature Metabolism looked at something I know a lot of people in the peptide world have been talking about: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗲? This is the first published study specifically looking at this combination, and there are some 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 interesting findings. Let’s make this ridiculously simple. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🧠 𝗥𝗘𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗧𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗖𝗔𝗚𝗥𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗗𝗢 𝗗𝗜𝗙𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦 Retatrutide works through 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: 𝗚𝗟𝗣-𝟭 𝗚𝗜𝗣 𝗚𝗹𝘂𝗰𝗮𝗴𝗼𝗻 Think of these as three different switches involved in hunger, blood sugar, energy balance and metabolism. Cagrilintide works through a completely different system called 𝗮𝗺𝘆𝗹𝗶𝗻. Your body naturally releases amylin along with insulin after you eat. One of its jobs is basically telling your brain: 𝗪𝗲 𝗮𝘁𝗲. 𝗪𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗻𝗼𝘄. So Retatrutide and Cagrilintide can both influence how much you eat, but they don’t get there through exactly the same biological pathway. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔬 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗗𝗜𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗗𝗬 𝗙𝗜𝗡𝗗? Researchers used obese male rats and compared Retatrutide, Cagrilintide and the combination. Over 16 days: 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗲 + 𝗖𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗲: 𝟮𝟮.𝟲% 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲: 𝟭𝟯.𝟮% 𝗖𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲: 𝟲.𝟰% 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽: 𝗚𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗗 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝟰% So the combination produced substantially more weight loss than either compound alone at those doses. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗜 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🤯 𝗦𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗢𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗦. 𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬 𝗗𝗜𝗙𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗪𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗟𝗢𝗦𝗦. Researchers did something called “pair feeding.” Sounds complicated. It isn’t. They gave another group of rats the 𝗦𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗮𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 the treated rats were eating. Why? Because now you can separate: 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀. from: 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱. And look what happened: 𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗿-𝗳𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝘀: 𝟭𝟬.𝟲% 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝘀: 𝟭𝟴.𝟭% 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀 Think about that. 𝗦𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗜𝗡. 𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬 𝗗𝗜𝗙𝗙𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗪𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗟𝗢𝗦𝗦 𝗢𝗨𝗧. That tells us the effects seen in the treated animals weren’t explained by reduced food intake alone.