Why I Keep Doctor's Best Magnesium Glycinate in My Kitchen

There is a wall of vitamin bottles at my grocery store, and I have stood in front of it more times than I care to admit with my reading glasses pushed up on my head. I am 63. I retired three years ago after 31 years as a middle school librarian in Dayton, Ohio, and I live alone in a small two bedroom house with a gray tabby named Dewey who is not allowed near any of this.

When I was still working, I decided I should be taking something. Not because anything happened to me, and not because I had a scare. I just thought a person my age ought to know what was in her cabinet. So I started reading labels the way I used to read reference books: slowly, with a pencil, and expecting to be annoyed.

My doctor has seen every bottle I take. I wrote them on one index card, and I brought that card to my yearly physical. That is how Doctor's BEST High Absorption Magnesium Glycinate ended up in my kitchen, in the upper cabinet left of the sink, and it has been there for 24 months.

I want to be careful with you upfront. I cannot tell you I feel a difference from any one bottle, and I would not trust anyone who says they can. What I can tell you is what the label says, how big the tablets are, how long a bottle lasts, and why I kept buying it. Anything past that is a question for your own doctor or pharmacist, not for me.

How I Ended Up With It

I asked my doctor about magnesium at a physical two years ago, the way I ask about anything I have read on a bottle. She said it was fine for me. That is the entire story. There was no research project, no article that changed my life, no moment in a parking lot.

What sold me was the label itself. Doctor's BEST prints that the magnesium is counted as elemental magnesium per serving, and the serving is two tablets, so 200 mg. I liked that it says so plainly instead of leaving me to do arithmetic in an aisle. The bottle also states the tablets are 100 percent chelated, and that the product is vegan, non-GMO and gluten free. Those are the maker's words. I can read them. I cannot verify them.

The other thing the label says, and I want to be exact because I think this matters, is that the 6x absorption language is Doctor's BEST describing its own product. I cannot check that with a pencil and neither can you. I am telling you it is printed there, not that I proved it.

My pharmacist at the grocery store is the one who suggested keeping the magnesium away from my multivitamin, because that one has iron in it. So the magnesium went into the PM lid of my pill box and the multivitamin stayed in the AM lid, and they never go together. I fill that box every Sunday evening at the kitchen table with the pencil beside me, and I have not missed a Sunday in two years.

I cannot tell you I feel a difference from any one bottle. What I can tell you is the serving is two tablets, the bottle lasts me about four months, and the label says what it is.

What It Is Actually Like to Take

Two tablets with dinner, about six in the evening, with food and water. That is my routine and it is not a recommendation. A bottle of 240 lasts me roughly four months at that pace, which is the kind of thing I actually care about, because I do not want to be back at that shelf every six weeks.

Here is my one real complaint, and it is not small. The tablets are big. I take two at a time and I notice it every single evening. I have never had trouble swallowing pills, and I still notice it. If you struggle with large tablets, that is worth knowing before you order 240 of anything.

The bottle is not large. The listing gives the dimensions as about 3.13 by 3.13 by 5.19 inches, and it fits on my shelf beside the others without shoving anything aside. Doctor's BEST also states it is not buffered with fillers or additives, and the flavor is listed as unflavored, which is a strange thing to print on a tablet but there it is.

Dewey is the reason every bottle lives behind a closed cabinet door, well away from the stove. He is 11 and he jumps on the counters, and none of this is for him. Nothing in my kitchen is.

What I Did Not Buy

I compared magnesium citrate labels at the store, and I asked my pharmacist about the difference. He said people's stomachs differ and left it there, which I appreciated more than a lecture. I stayed with the glycinate because it was the one already on my card and already seen by my doctor. I have never taken citrate, so I have nothing to tell you about it.

If you want the longer version of that comparison, I wrote it out properly, and the two year notes are on the site as well. This is the short version: I changed nothing, because nothing needed changing for me.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you that the shelf is designed to make you tired, and the cure for tired is a pencil. Read the serving size first, because that is where most of the confusion lives. Two tablets is a serving here, not one, and a person who takes one and wonders why the number on the front does not match the bottle has simply not read far enough down the label.

I would tell you to bring your list to your doctor before you buy anything, especially if you take a prescription, are pregnant, or have a health condition. I did that. It is the only reason I have any confidence in what is in my cabinet, and it costs nothing but a little nerve.

And I would tell you not to expect a story from me. There is no before and after in this house. There is a blue pill box, filled on Sunday, an index card with five lines on it, and a bottle that comes back around every four months. That is what a daily routine actually looks like at 63. It is not exciting. It is just done.