Marketing Scoops: Low Magnesium Symptoms: 7 Ways To Spot a Magnesium Deficiency

If you’ve been feeling run down, weak or have been struggling with frequent headaches and muscle twitches, it might be time to check your magnesium levels. Signs and symptoms of low magnesium may be subtle at first, but a chronic deficiency of this vital nutrient can harm your health.

In this guide, we’ll explore what magnesium is, why you need it, how to get the right amount through your diet and what to do if you find your levels are too low……Story continues.…

By: Elaine K. Howley

Source: Low Magnesium Symptoms: 7 Ways to Spot a Magnesium Deficiency and How to Treat It| U.S. News

Critics:

Magnesium deficiency is an electrolyte disturbance in which there is a low level of magnesium in the body. It can result in multiple symptoms. Symptoms include tremor, poor coordination, muscle spasms, loss of appetite, personality changes, and nystagmus. Complications may include seizures or cardiac arrest such as from torsade de pointes.Those with low magnesium often have low potassium.

Causes include low dietary intake, alcoholism, diarrhea, increased urinary loss, poor absorption from the intestines, and diabetes mellitus.A number of medications may also cause low magnesium, including proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and furosemide. The diagnosis is typically based on finding low blood magnesium levels (hypomagnesemia).

Normal magnesium levels are between 0.6 and 1.1 mmol/L (1.46–2.68 mg/dL) with levels less than 0.6 mmol/L (1.46 mg/dL) defining hypomagnesemia. Specific electrocardiogram (ECG) changes may be seen. Treatment is with magnesium either by mouth or intravenously. For those with severe symptoms, intravenous magnesium sulfate may be used.

Associated low potassium or low calcium should also be treated. The condition is relatively common among people in hospitals. Deficiency of magnesium can cause tiredness, generalized weakness, muscle cramps, abnormal heart rhythms, increased irritability of the nervous system with tremors, paresthesias, palpitations, low potassium levels in the blood, hypoparathyroidism which might result in low calcium levels in the blood, chondrocalcinosis, spasticity and tetany, migraines,epileptic seizures,basal ganglia calcifications and in extreme and prolonged cases coma, intellectual disability or death.

Magnesium plays an important role in carbohydrate metabolism and its deficiency may worsen insulin resistance, a condition that often precedes diabetes, or may be a consequence of insulin resistance. People being treated on an intensive care unit (ICU) who have a low magnesium level may have a higher risk of requiring mechanical ventilation, and death.

Magnesium deficiency may result from gastrointestinal or kidney causes. Gastrointestinal causes include low dietary intake of magnesium, reduced gastrointestinal absorption or increased gastrointestinal loss due to rapid gastrointestinal transits. Kidney causes involve increased excretion of magnesium.

Poor dietary intake of magnesium has become an increasingly important factor – many people consume diets high in refined foods such as white bread and polished rice which have been stripped of magnesium-rich plant fiber. Magnesium deficiency is not uncommon in hospitalized patients. Up to 12% of all people admitted to hospital, and as high as 60–65% of people in an intensive care unit, have hypomagnesemia.

About 57% of the US population does not meet the US RDA for dietary intake of magnesium. The kidneys are very efficient at maintaining body levels; however, if the diet is deficient, or certain medications such as diuretics or proton pump inhibitors are used, or in chronic alcoholism, levels may drop.

Low levels of magnesium in blood may be due to not enough magnesium in the diet, the intestines not absorbing enough magnesium, or the kidneys excreting too much magnesium. Deficiencies may be due to the following conditions:

Loop and thiazide diuretic use (the most common cause of hypomagnesemia) Antibiotics(i.e.aminoglycoside, amphotericin, pentamidine, gentamicin, tobramycin, viomycin) block resorption in the loop of Henle. 30% of patients using these antibiotics have hypomagnesemia. Long term, high dosage use of proton-pump inhibitors such as omeprazole .

Other drugs Digitalis, displaces magnesium into the cell. Digitalis causes an increased intracellular concentration of sodium, which in turn increases intracellular calcium by passively increasing the action of the sodium-calcium exchanger in the sarcolemma. The increased intracellular calcium gives a positive inotropic effect.

Adrenergics, displace magnesium into the cell. Cisplatin, stimulates kidney excretion, Ciclosporin, stimulates kidney excretion, Mycophenolate mofetil, Gitelman-like diseases, which include the syndromes caused by genetic mutations in SLC12A3, CLNCKB, BSND, KCNJ10, FXYD2, HNF1B or PCBD1. In these diseases, the hypomagnesemia is accompanied by other defects in electrolyte handling such as hypocalciuria and hypokalemia.

The genes involved in this group of diseases all encode proteins that are involved in reabsorbing electrolytes (including magnesium) in the distal convoluted tubule of the kidney. Hypercalciuric hypomagnesemic syndromes, which encompass the syndromes caused by mutations in CLDN16, CLDN19, CASR or CLCNKB.

In these diseases, reabsorption of divalent cations (such as magnesium and calcium) in the thick ascending limb of Henle’s loop of the kidney is impaired. This results in loss of magnesium and calcium in the urine. Mitochondriopathies, especially mutations in the mitochondrial tRNAs MT-TI or MT-TF. Mutations in SARS2, or mitochondrial DNA deletions as seen with Kearns-Sayre syndrome, can also cause hypomagnesemia.

Other genetic causes of hypomagnesemia, such as mutations in TRPM6, CNNM2, EGF, EGFR, KCNA1 or FAM111A. Many of the proteins encoded by these genes play a role in the transcellular absorption of magnesium in the distal convoluted tubule. Insufficient selenium,vitamin D or sunlight exposure, or vitamin B6. Gastrointestinal causes: the distal digestive tract secretes high levels of magnesium. Therefore, secretory diarrhea can cause hypomagnesemia.

Thus, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, Whipple’s disease and celiac sprue can all cause hypomagnesemia. Postobstructive diuresis, diuretic phase of acute tubular necrosis (ATN) and kidney transplant. Chronic alcoholism: Alcohol intake leads to enhanced diuresis of electrolytes. Chronic consumption leads to the depletion of body stores of magnesium.

Acute myocardial infarction: within the first 48 hours after a heart attack, 80% of patients have hypomagnesemia. This could be the result of an intracellular shift because of an increase in catecholamines.Malabsorption, Acute pancreatitis, Fluoride poisoning, Massive transfusion (MT) is a lifesaving treatment of hemorrhagic shock, but can be associated with significant complications.

Magnesium deficiency is frequently observed in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus, with an estimated prevalence ranging between 11.0 and 47.7%. Magnesium deficiency is strongly associated with high glucose and insulin resistance, which indicate that it is common in poorly controlled diabetes.

Patients with type 2 diabetes and a magnesium deficiency have a higher risk of heart failure, atrial fibrillation and microvascular complications. Oral magnesium supplements has been demonstrated to improve insulin sensitivity and lipid profile. A 2016 meta-analysis not restricted to diabetic subjects found that increasing dietary magnesium intake, while associated with a reduced risk of stroke, heart failure, diabetes, and all-cause mortality, was not clearly associated with lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) or total cardiovascular disease (CVD).

A 2021 study on blood from 4,400 diabetic patients over 6 to 11 years reported that “People with higher levels of magnesium in the blood were found to have a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease”, and also of diabetic foot and diabetic retinopathy. The researchers, however, stated that “we have [not] demonstrated that magnesium supplements work. Further research is needed.”

“Hypomagnesemia”.

“Definition of Magnesium Deficiency”.

“Hypomagnesemia in Type 2 Diabetes: A Vicious Circle?”.

Goldman-Cecil Medicine E-Book.