Name: Best Magnesium Supplements for Sleep & Brain Health | Dr. Rhonda Patrick & Dr. Andrew Huberman
Uploaded: 2026-03-26T21:33:29.000Z
Duration: 8 min 57 s
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I'm very bullish on magnesium, in particular magnesium 3 and 8 before sleep.

For sleep I take AGZ because I help them build it.

Relative clauses (Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive)

It just has a bunch of things like magnesium 3 and 8 and saffron and tart cherry, the things that have either been shown or are gradually—there's amassing research data to other people, studies out there to support that it can facilitate either transition to sleep or sleep.

But magnesium 3 and 8 and magnesium bisglycinate, to me, are interchangeable with respect to sleep.

But magnesium 3 and 8, I'm aware there are some studies that there may be some cognitive benefits.

So magnesium obviously could be split into a number of things,

but maybe we just start there with 3 and 8 bisglycinate.

I have a feeling that you're aware of some additional differences between them,

and I'd like to know what you prefer for sleep or for cognitive benefits,

and then maybe we get into the other magnesiums.

so. If we're comparing magnesium bisglycinate or magnesium glycinate, depending on how many molecules of glycine are attached to the magnesium, compared to magnesium L3 and 8, the main difference here—and this is based on a very limited amount of data, a lot of it animal data with respect to the magnesium 3 and 8—is that that form of magnesium is supposed to get into and cross the blood-brain barrier more readily and get into the brain better.

And in the brain, it's helping facilitate neurotransmission, etc., helping improve cognitive function.

And so whereas magnesium glycinate or bisglycinate, you're having the magnesium attached to the glycine.

Glycine also is great to take for sleep, so I like to take magnesium bisglycinate or glycinate for sleep.

And so that, I would say, if you're interested in more the cognition aspect.

Well, the studies—I think you're referring to the Gorsong-Lewis data—show some in mice, some cognitive enhancement or at least some offsetting of cognitive decline.

Those are different but related, obviously.

In anticipation of today's discussion, I was able to find one study—seems okay, it's not a huge sample size—showing positive reports on sleep quality after magnesium L3 and 8.

But there aren't a lot of studies on magnesium for specific outcomes in humans,

and I think it's because it hits what, 3, 000-plus pathways?

So if you're taking bisglycinate before sleep, are you taking it a half hour or 60 minutes before sleep?

I'm usually taking it, I would say, a couple hours before bed.

Sometimes I add a little bit more magnesium in the mix, depends on the day and if I exercise more, because you do sweat out magnesium.

And so if you're pretty athletic, your requirements can go up by even as much as 20%.

But yeah, the magnesium L3 and 8, it's interesting.

I very recently got interested in experimenting with it.

There's a little bit of human evidence as well that it improves cognition.

Not strong, but again, it's that we just don't have a lot of people researching it.

Don't have a lot of human data, but it seems to signal it might be important.

And so I kind of got interested in experimenting with the magnesium L3 and 8, which I haven't usually—it's a new thing for me.

I've been doing magnesium glycinate for a while.

I think the study actually looked at the MagTeen version.

I have no financial relationship to MagTeen.

I just mentioned that because that's a common one out there.

And as far as I know, I'll double-check, but they weren't paid by MagTeen.

But I think the MagTeen did fund the study.

Doesn't discredit it unless there's some bad things going on, which I like to think not.

I mean, when they pay for a group to do it, I mean, by law, they're supposed to blind the data and not bias the outcomes.

And I think for the most part, for the most part, you're probably okay.

But it is something to consider if there is a potential COI, right?

So that was the first part of your question, was the difference between the glycinate and the L3 and 8.

And then the concern that I might have, which might be something you're not thinking about, is, okay, well, I need to fulfill my magnesium requirements, right?

And so our daily magnesium requirements, again, based on our gender and our physical activity, it's a range.

men, 350, 400 milligrams a day, really depending on how physically active you are.

And this is just your daily requirements to have enough magnesium to run repairing DNA damage, to run—you need magnesium to make energy, to utilize energy.

There's so many different important functions in our body that require magnesium to work to make vitamin—to convert vitamin D3 into the active steroid hormone.

And this, to me, is to some degree vindicating,

but also I'm super annoyed by it because we have all these different studies out there on vitamin D supplementation and is it important.

And I mean, there's so many negative data out there.

But half the US population doesn't get enough magnesium.

And so those enzymes that are important for converting the D3 that you're taking into the active steroid hormone are not working properly.

So anyways, I'm not going to go on that tangent,

but I'm just saying magnesium is doing a lot of things.

So if you are taking the magnesium 3 and 8 and let's say it is getting—it's going into the blood more—sorry, the brain more readily, then the concern would be, well, not enough of it is around for DNA repair and other organs and stuff.

And so you might want to get another source of magnesium.

And there's no data on that, mostly because no one's looking at it.

It's funny when people will always say, "Well, there's no incentive because the drug companies can't make a lot of money on it." And sometimes that's true,

but I have to chuckle because as scientists, I will tell you, folks,

and I wish I could just paint this across the sky,

but then I get accused of being a chemtrail person or something.

The reason there's no studies on BPC-157, the reason there's no RCTs on randomized control on different forms of magnesium and large sample sizes is because we barely have enough money to fund the current research.

We just had a 1% increase in the NIH budget,

but there isn't an infinite amount of money to run studies.

And so scientists are, if they already work on magnesium or it becomes interesting to them because it came up in a screen of pathways, people aren't—there's not a lot of scientists sitting around going, "Oh, maybe I should study compare magnesium, malate, bisglycinate, 3 and 8 in sleep in 2,000 subjects, male, female, pregnant and perimenopausal." No, no, there's no money to do it.

So that's where I get back to, is it safe?

Do you want to be in the experimental or the control group?

Can you afford to be in the experimental or the control group?

And I'm chuckling out of—it's sort of like a laughter of pain because I get where people are coming from,

but the drug companies are not avoiding studying magnesium because there's no money to make.