Dr Dean Diaries #7 | Escape from Manhattan with a New Book Contract

Magnesium Became My Touchstone

In 1999, I was asked by Random House to write a book on magnesium. Here’s how that came about. A friend introduced me to a Random House publisher, Leslie Meredith. I was pitching a Chinese diet book that I wanted to write with Jeffrey Yuen, a Daoist Priest of two traditional sects and and Chinese Medicine Master. I was taking his Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture courses but that wasn’t enough for me. I brought my computer to class and typed his lectures word-for-word – and sold them to classmates!

Back to the book – as fate would have it, the publisher had just signed an author for a book on Chinese diet therapy. But, having had personal success using magnesium for migraines, Leslie asked me if I would consider writing a book about magnesium instead. Of course my first thought was Yes, but my second thought was how was I going to find 300 pages of information to write about one mineral.

From Magnesium Deficiency to The Magnesium Miracle

It turns out that the fickle finger of fate was pointing straight in my face because not only would magnesium become my signature topic – the foundational formula for my ‘yet-to-be-dreamed-of’ dietary supplement company but I rquickly ealized I was the poster child for magnesium deficiency. Even with my medical degree and my naturopathic degree, I didn’t realize that my insomnia, headaches, eye lid twitching, neck and back tension and pain, choking on vitamins, cramping muscles, Charlie horse leg cramps, intestinal cramping, and heart palpitations were all magnesium deficiency.

I also learned that stress burns off magnesium and boy was I stressed. Not only did I have to power through my magnesium deficiency, I had to take on the work of my mentor and keep treating AIDS and Chronic Fatigue patients. I was even turned back at Customs when I did an obligatory reentry for my Green Card status not knowing that the paperwork had changed. On that “visit” to Toronto, I went to a cardiologist who had internned with me for and EKG to diagnose my heart arrhythmia – he did not mention magnesium deficiency.

It’s no wonder I hit early menopause at age 45. Some people call it perimenopause but I call it stress menopause. Magnesium deficiency is part of early menopause. As soon as I realized this, I rushed to a nearby health food store and bought a bottle of magnesium. I was only taking about 50mg in a multiple but once I took more than that I was paying frequent trips to the bathroom. I had the magnesium laxative effect that most doctors equate with taking enough magnesium. They think that if the body doesn’t retain it, then the body doesn’t need it. That was certainly not my case and it’s not the case of many people.

Finding the Magnesium That Finally Worked for Me

As I was writing the book and for years after, I tried to get enough magnesium. I coated my skin with magnesium oil, which is made by dissolving magnesium chloride crystals in distilled water. It’s an oily mixture that is so irritating to the skin, I had to limit my use of it while I soaked in Epsom salts baths.

Eventually, and I do mean eventually, after about 10 years, I found a chemist who had a secret 18-step procedure to stabilize magnesium ions. I called it ReMag and as soon as I began taking it, I slept better, did not have Charlie horse leg cramps and my muscle aches and twitches disappeared. It took a lot longer to be completely rid of my heart palpitations, but they too left me as I became fully saturated with magnesium.

After not being able to ingest more than 50mg of magnesium without the laxative effect, I was taking 1,200 mg of ReMag. I took that amount for over a year to achieve normal heart rhythm. Only then did I get a laxative effect which alerted me to the fact that I had reached my saturation point and I could cut back. I now only take 300-450mg per day, and that’s not because I’m “addicted” to it, it’s because that’s the amount we are supposed to get in our food, but we don’t anymore. And we all probably need even more even than that because we burn it off with our stress, and toxins, and WiFi and all the other aspects of civilization that help us and hurt us in equal measure.

A Book Launch Changed by September 11

I signed a contract with Random House, August 2000 and began to write the book. It really didn’t take that long because I was so obsessed by the topic. I saw magnesium deficiency everywhere. I saw the dozens of conditions that are misdiagnosed as disease but are really magnesium deficiency. Even worse, they are treated with drugs that actually cause more magnesium loss.

The release date for the book and the beginning of a book tour across the states, I kid you not, was September 11, 2001. The day the towers fell and the day New York died. Everything was thrown aside. Nothing was published for two years except books about 9/11. When it finally came out, without any fanfare, the publication date was January, 2003 and it was called The Miracle of Magnesium.

The title was changed in the second edition (2017) to The Magnesium Miracle. Just to finish up that thought – the second edition was 600 pages long, so in 2026 I wrote Magnesium: The Missing Link to Total Health to summarize all I knew about magnesium including the 68 magnesium deficiency conditions that masquerade as diseases.

Where was I on 9/11?

The year 2000 was a fate-filled year. We made a move to City Island in the Bronx, in that year, escaping before 9/11. The move was on a recommendation of the Ambassador to Iran, who brought us to Manhattan in the first place. The Ambassador and a member of had family had homes on City Island. It’s a beautiful mile-and-a-half-long – quarter-mile wide island rumored to have been settled by the mafia for its quick boat escape routes. We even rented a flat from a woman with the last name Gallo, who claimed to be related to that family. And next door was a Soprano’s star, Big Pussy. He and I would have limo’s pulling up to take us into the city for our respective gigs.

We were ready for this move; the AIDS–Chronic Fatigue study had fizzled out and so did the work with local clinics. On City Island I began a telephone consulting practice and organized a Community Supported Agriculture group that planted in me, not a seed but a whole box of seeds for my intensive farm experience in Maui.

Life on City Island Before Everything Changed

I had previously joined and then helped coordinate a CSA out of a church at East 91st Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. After moving to City Island, I organized a group of locals to bring that same farmer out to the island with boxes of delicious organic produce.

The rest of the time, I took long walks through the island over the bridge and through the woods to Orchard Beach. It was a much slower pace than Manhattan. And those were much safer times – riding the subway alone or walking through park woods felt safe. It was a big change from the big city.

Watching September 11 Unfold from City Island

Then one Tuesday morning, a patient I was scheduled to travel to Manhattan to meet called me. It was the morning of 9/11. She said “Don’t come into Manhattan — turn on the TV.” My husband and I watched the chaos unfold on TV, then we ran down to the beach at the bottom of our street and saw the smoke billowing high from the towers. It wasn’t long after that we could smell the smoke and the burning metal.

The Toxic Aftermath of 9/11

At the time, I was involved with a local group lobbying New York City Council to stop the toxic aerial spraying for West Nile-carrying mosquitoes. We were even promoting N95 respirators for people with impaired lung function to cope with the regular assaults. In the days after 9/11, my group offered our respirator supply and contacts to protect first responders and residents near the demolished towers from toxic fallout. The offer was rejected because the city said since they could not provide respirators to everyone they would not provide them to anyone. That reasoning was patently absurd – 9/11 was a global emergency and we could have gotten all the respirators we need from around the world. Instead of taking this step, lung disease and cancer rates rose precipitously in the aftermath of the attack.

I’ve always been concerned about mercury poisoning – my inventor/photo engraver grandfather suffered from lead and mercury poisoning; I had a mouthful of mercury fillings – until I had them removed in the 1980s; and we were being told by experts that fish collect and concentrate mercury. One of the 9/11 toxins was mercury gas being released from hundreds of thousands of fluorescent tubes being vaporized! Fluorescent tubes contain mercury, typically ranging from 3 to 15 milligrams each. This mercury is necessary for the lamp’s operation but requires careful handling and disposal due to its toxicity and any amount is toxic.

There were an estimated 1,500 fluorescent tubes vaporized on 9/11. Let’s do the math; taking the average of mercury per tube at 9mg and multiplying by 1,500, there were 13,500mg or 13.5 grams of mercury contaminated Manhattan after 9/11.

Mercury gas was being inhaled by everyone – and also people on City Island as it was blown our way. After all we could smell the smoke and burning metals.

9/11 Changed How I Thought About Food Security

A few days after 9/11, I was scheduled to fly to Toronto for a weekend conference but all flights in and out of New York were cancelled. That problem was solved when the patient I was supposed to visit in Manhattan on 9/11 invited us to drive to Toronto with her. The Canadian border was very tight and few people were getting through but she was the wife of the director of CSI (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and traveled with diplomatic plates.

During the drive, we talked non-stop about food security, since no U.S. commercial trucks were allowed to enter Canada. The whole food-security issue that Canadians suffer was fully exposed; they depend on imported food, especially in winter.

That food security concern stayed with me. Years later in Maui, I learned Hawaii shockingly depends on the mainland for roughly 90% of its food supply — a shock, given the islands’ year-round sun, abundant water, and fertile soil.

The idea of leaving New York was on my mind since 9/11 — ‘everyone was depressed and New York was a sad place to be. But we did stay on this sweet little island with wonderful neighbors for another seven years.

Searching for a Life Beyond New York

I became an Honorary Board Member of the Gerson Institute in San Diego. I spoke about this in Blog #2. As fate would have it, Charlotte Gerson, the daughter of Max Gerson invited me to experience a week-long detox program in San Diego. I had met her and her son, Howard Strauss at health conferences and we found out we shared the same birthday.

I visited San Diego a few years before and I wondered if we could relocate there – so I had the perfect opportunity to check it out. That idea was dropped almost immediately: on my first morning there. A walk toward the nearby Pacific coast beach was blocked by a 12-lane highway that I couldn’t safely cross on foot. I did cross and I did walk the beach for hours, but, I repeat, the crossing wasn’t safe. I had to accept the fact that San Diego is straight up car culture and I don’t drive.

Taking The Magnesium Miracle on the Road

In the New York years, in Manhattan and City Island, I attended a number of health conferences on the mainland – Natural Products Expo East, and Expo West and the Trinity Health Freedom Expos. I would be invited to speak about magnesium and promote my Magnesium Miracle book. At some of the Expos I was hired to be a consultant at the Natural Vitality booth and speak about magnesium. They had a magnesium product called Natural Calm. The company has since been bought out, and it eventually ended up in the hands of Clorox who changed the formula as usually happened with most big corporation buyouts. In the past decade more than 100 dietary supplement companies have been bought by conglomerates.

Health Freedom, Codex, and Death by Modern Medicine

At the Health Freedom Expos I met activists who were protesting the work of Codex Alimentarius run by the WHO and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) to standardize toxins allowed in foods and the dosage of dietary supplements shipped across borders. About 189 countries have adopted Codex standards. Bottom line is that they want to allow as much toxicity as possible in the food supply and make dietary supplements low potency and synthetic so they wouldn’t interfere with drugs.

I was asked by the Canadian Health Freedom activists to attend Codex meetings, 2004 and 2005 in Bonn, Germany and Rome. I found the Bonn meeting so off-putting that I began writing Death by Modern Medicine on the spot. Even though I was being asked to become a leader in the movement I left when I saw it was being infiltrated – another reason for me to “do my own thing” and “be my own boss.”

How Maui Finally Came Into the Picture

Here’s how beautiful Maui came into the picture. In 2007, a friend from Canada living in Maui was building a retirement community in Costa Rica. He asked if I would sign on as Wellness Director of the planned Health Spa. Here’s my MO: ‘always say yes and let the chips fall where they may.’ So we flew to Maui to discuss the offer and fell in love with the island. Shortly after we got back to City Island, we packed and relocated to Maui in June 2008 to plan for the Costa Rica project. That same year there was a major financial crash and the Costa Rica project folded, leaving us ‘stuck’ in Maui — which was an awesome Plan B.

Next week I’ll talk about Oko’a Farms and how it intertwined seamlessly with my first formula – the RnA Drops.

This content is for educational purposes only and discusses nutritional and lifestyle support for normal structure and function of the body. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure disease. Consult a qualified healthcare professional for personal medical guidance.

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