Magnesium Chloride Vs Magnesium Sulfate

According to Daniel Reid, author of The Tao of Detox, magnesium sulfate, commonly known as Epsom salts, is rapidly excreted through the kidneys and therefore difficult to assimilate. This would explain in part why the effects from Epsom salt baths do not last long and why you need more magnesium sulfate in a bath than magnesium chloride to get similar results. Magnesium chloride is easily assimilated and metabolized in the human body.[i] However, Epsom salts are used specifically by parents of children with autism because of the sulfate, which they are usually deficient in , sulfate is also crucial to the body and is wasted in the urine of autistic children.

For purposes of cellular detoxification and tissue purification, the most effective form of magnesium is magnesium chloride, which has a strong excretory effect on toxins and stagnant energies stuck in the tissues of the body, drawing them out through the pores of the skin. This is a powerful hydrotherapy that draws toxins from the tissues, replenishes the “vital fluid” of the cells and restores cellular magnesium to optimum levels. Magnesium Chloride is environmentally safe, and is used around vegetation and in agriculture. It is not irritating to the skin at lower concentrations, and is less toxic than common table salt.

Magnesium Chloride solution was not only harmless for tissues,
but it had also a great effect over leucocytic activity and
phagocytosis; so it was perfect for external wounds treatment.

Dr. Jean Durlach et al, at the Université P. et M. Curie, Paris, wrote a paper about the relative toxicities between magnesium sulfate and magnesium chloride. They write, “The reason of the toxicity of magnesium pharmacological doses of magnesium using the sulfate anion rather than the chloride anion may perhaps arise from the respective chemical structures of both the two magnesium salts. Chemically, both MgSO4 and MgCl2 are hexa-aqueous complexes. However MgCl2 crystals consist of dianions with magnesium coordinated to the six water molecules as a complex, [Mg(H2O)6]2+ and two independent chloride anions, Cl-. In MgSO4, a seventh water molecule is associated with the sulphate anion, [Mg(H2O)6]2 +[SO4. H2O]. Consequently, the more hydrated MgSO4 molecule may have chemical interactions with paracellular components, rather than with cellular components, presumably potentiating toxic manifestations while reducing therapeutic effect.”

MgSO4 is not always the appropriate salt in clinical therapeutics.
MgCl2 seems the better anion-cation association to be
used in many clinical and pharmacological indications.[ii]
Dr. Jean Durlach et al

These researches also studied ionic fluxes in the two directions between the mother and the fetus. They found that there was a greater positive effect when MgCl2 was used and that MgSO4 could not guarantee the fetal needs in sodium and potassium exchange like MgCl2 could. They also found that MgCl2 interacts with all the exchangers in the cell membrane, while the effect of MgSO4 is limited to paracellular components without interaction with cellular components. Dr. Durlach summarized saying, “MgCl2 interacts with all exchangers while the interaction of MgSO4 is limited to paracellular exchangers, and MgCl2 increases the flux ratio between mother to fetus while MgSO4 decreases it.”

Chloride is required to produce a large quantity of gastric acid each day and is also needed to stimulate starch-digesting enzymes. Using other magnesium salts is less advantageous because these have to be converted into chlorides in the body anyway. We may use magnesium as oxide or carbonate but then we need to produce additional hydrochloric acid to absorb them. Many aging individuals, especially with chronic diseases who desperately need more magnesium cannot produce sufficient hydrochloric acid and then cannot absorb the oxide or carbonate.

Sulfate is also important and has an influence over almost every cellular function. Sulfate attaches to phenols and makes them less harmful, and sets them up for being excreted from your kidneys. A lot of these potentially toxic molecules are in food. Sulfate is also used to regulate the performance of many other molecules. Many systems in the body will not function well in a low-sulfate environment. Sulfur is so critical to life that the body will apparently borrow protein from the muscles to keep from running too low.

Though magnesium sulfate will save your life in emergency situations as quickly and easily as magnesium chloride, magnesium chloride fits the bill as a universal medical nutrient. Magnesium sulfate is a close cousin whose effect, form and toxicity demands it be used in special applications when the sulfur is needed".