The most-cited magnesium sleep study used the "worst" form — magnesium oxide
If you've shopped for magnesium, you've been told the same rule a hundred times: buy glycinate, because it's the only form that actually absorbs — up to 4× better than that "useless" magnesium oxide. So we checked where that number comes from, and read the actual sleep trials. The internet's #1 magnesium rule mostly doesn't survive contact with the studies.
The famous sleep study used oxide
The trial everyone cites for magnesium and sleep is Abbasi 2012 (J Res Med Sci, PMID 23853635) — a double-blind, placebo-controlled RCT in 46 older adults with insomnia. Its own Methods say it dosed "magnesium oxide tablets twice a day (each tablet containing 414 mg magnesium oxide as 250 mg elemental magnesium)." In other words, the study that launched a thousand "magnesium for sleep" recommendations used the cheap form the internet tells you to avoid.
We put the full breakdown — every study, every number, with the PMIDs — on our own site.
Originally published at super-achiever.com. We check viral supplement claims against the primary research and publish the results — including the ones that go against us.