Just came from the store with a bottle of ZMA.
I am well aware Calcium competes with Magnesium and should never be taken together. However, one of the additional ingredients of the ZMA I got is Calcium Carbonate, maybe used as a binder.
I havent opened it and am planning on returning it. However, I’d like to make sure Calcium Carbonate does in fact make the product obsolete or ineffective.
Help will be appreciated.
Just use it! It’s awesome!
Both Calcium and Magnesium have a 2+ ionic charge. However, Carbonate (CO3) has a ionic charge of 2- thus the calcium and carbonate forms a neutrally charged ionic compound. The magnesium should be free to do it’s little business without fear from the CaCO3.
Thanx!
Nate, you seem very happy with it, want to share some more?
Macaija, do you mean that the calcium Carbonate will NOT interfere with the ZMA effectiveness?
I should point out other ingredients include:
vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Riboflavin, vitamin B-12, CopperGluconate.
I am also a little uncertain about the Magnesium and Zinc. Magnesium is in the Aspartate form, but Zinc is in the arginate form. It has 300 mg each of Zinc Arginate and Magnesium Aspartate, which yields 30 mg of Zinc and only 60 mg of Magnesium (I read there should be 450 mg of Magnesium).
Any thoughts?
Sounds like you bought a cheap shit knock off of true Balco Labs ZMA. Stick with Bio-test and a couple of the other major brands that fork out the dough for the real stuff. According to the guy who invented it, the calcium is a no no. The real stuff is still pretty inexpensive. Bio-test’s ZMA is 14.95 at netrition.
Bill Roberts has posted several times in the past about his absolute disregard of any possible worries that taking calcium and magnesium together. People have been doing it for centuries, ZMA works for many quite well, and basically, Nate’s right: just give it a shot and see for yourself.
That said, you should get the good stuff, not some cheap shit.