- Can Epsom salts help?
- taurate not taureate (typo above)
- How good is the product “Magnesium Breakthrough”?
- If magnesium citrate clears out the gut, should we take it?
- Epsom salts because of sulphates?!
1) Can Epsom salts really help?
Epsom Salts are magnesium sulfate. There is actually no medical evidence to date that magnesium can be absorbed thru the skin, I’ve read several studies about this and this article is a great (long and detailed) take on it (but well structured, so reading the intro and the summary or just parts is well possible).
But seeing how often people feel it helps and recommend it, either it has a good placebo effect, due praps to the connotations, our imagination: ‘Epsom salts’ sound traditional and good (the article says ‘folk remedy’). Maybe people wouldn’t get as much help if they only knew it under the name of magnesium sulfate or epsomite. Also as above article says the water feels silkier and there is a flotation effect from the salt. Definitely something to help placebo. BTW placebo is about the only thing the article has forgotten 
And I think placebo is one of the best self-healing mechanisms we have, esp. as it works on our body even if we know “it doesn’t”, or “there’s nothing in it”. We don’t have Epsom salts in Germany at all, poor us. ;-D
Or research just hasn’t found out how it works “under appropriate circumstances”, like this 2016 study on sulfates suggests: Sulphate absorption across biological membranes - PubMed - also I’ve seen more suggesting that, just can’t find it at the moment. It’s the sulfates that’s the problem, not (necessarily) the magnesium. However there doesn’t seem to be a different magnesium sort (‘compound’) which works better via the skin. So taking that as a supplement is recommended and has considerably more evidence for it helping. That said I’m never quite sure how much that is really helping (malate and glycinate), so do stop it sometimes. Started again, sleep better again…
Edit 1, as I’m allowed to edit, but not to answer 3x in a row (yet).
2) Taurate, not taureate
Only just realized that this info from a German site made me say taureate instead of correct in English: taurate as I’ve written everywhere else…
3) Suspicious vague product: Magnesium “Breakthrough”
Edit 2:
Someone recommended a product by a company called biOptimizers called “Magnesium Breakthrough” containing 7 sorts of magnesium.
It’s suspicious, because the product is hard to find on neutral sites, it seems more industry-driven, and neither the label nor the website specifies how much of which magnesium form is in there, something which I don’t think is allowed in Europe.
In their website chat, the producing company biOptimizers replied to me that “our formula is propietary information is not available to the general public”.
Interesting though as they have answered me that when they say “magnesium chelate” they mean a compound of several chelate forms (in this case e.g. aspartate & lysinate and/or threonate, seeing as glycinate & taurate are in in separately).
Also I’ve seen that it contains “sucrosomial magnesium”, which is supposed to increase magnesium oxide’s bioavailability (to 20% more than citrate, altho oxide is otherwise is 4%). Not sure if that can be believed!?!
Altogether a product I’d never take or recommend.
4) Magnesium citrate clears out the gut(?)
Morley Robbins is called the Magnesium Man, because he bases his Root Cause Protocol on magnesium (and copper and retinol). He does not recommend magnesium citrate, arguing that as it is the liquid you drink before a colonoscopy then clearly that is not good for you, because it wipes out the colon. https://youtu.be/iAHpV_dxI1Y?t=3307. He does think magnesium works transdermally by the way, recommending Epsom salt baths and using magnesium spray & creams esp. on your feet, and doesn’t recommend MagOx, being magnesium oxide, which is only 4% bioavailable. Magnesium and cortisol run on a seesaw - magnesium helps chill. As much as bowel movement can take. His wife (doc) recommends for baths: 2 cups of Epsom salts, 1/2 cup of baking soda and 1/4 cup of borax. Half that for a foot bath. Baking soda helps the delivery of the magnesium. Borax is 98,8% boron, mysterious, to detox… (These are no recommendations from me, just suggestions to think about. - I can’t take baths, so I’ve no idea if I’d feel stuff like this works.)
5) Epsom salt baths because of sulphate rather than magnesium?
Interesting idea here to take Epsom salt baths not because of the magnesium, but because of the sulphate in them - never read it put that way. https://www.nutritionist-resource.org.uk/memberarticles/why-do-i-react-to-histamine-sulphites-and-salicylate