Low Blood Levels of Magnesium Linked to Type 2 Diabetes

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Low Blood Levels of Magnesium Linked to Type 2 Diabetes

 

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What the Study Showed

 

In this study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 1999,

researchers reported that low blood magnesium levels were good at predicting the

risk

of non-insulin-dependent (type 2) diabetes among white participants. How It

Was Done As part of the ongoing Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study,

10,871 individuals between the ages of 45 and 64 were followed for six years. At

the start of the study, the investigators took information on family medical

history, medication use, level of physical activity, and foods commonly eaten.

None of the participants had diabetes.

 

Blood samples were taken to measure levels of (serum) magnesium, glucose, and

insulin. Body fat was also measured. Similar measurements were made during

two follow-up visits over the course of the study.

 

Why It's Important

 

This is the first study designed to follow participants over a period of time

that detected a link between low magnesium levels and the development of

non-insulin-dependent (type 2) diabetes. In other words, along with obesity and

lack of physical activity--two firmly established and modifiable risk factors

for this kind of adult-onset diabetes--magnesium deficiency may now be added.

 

Several factors might explain how low levels of this mineral can lead to

diabetes, including its intimate involvement in insulin reactions and in the

metabolism of carbohydrates.

 

Interestingly, this study showed that only low blood (serum) magnesium

levels, and not the amount of magnesium in the participants' diets, predicted

their

diabetes risk. This may mean that a magnesium-rich diet alone may be

insufficient and that to reduce the diabetes risk in any significant way, large

doses

of magnesium supplements may be required. This finding stands in sharp contrast

to results of the large, ongoing Nurses' Health Study, which has found that

low dietary magnesium levels predict the risk for type 2 diabetes.

 

The investigators aren't sure what accounts for the present study's

surprising findings about the importance of blood levels of magnesium as opposed

to the

amount of magnesium in the diet, although they do acknowledge design problems

that could have played a role in skewing the results. For example, serum

magnesium levels, which they measured during the clinic visits, may not

accurately

reflect magnesium levels in other tissues.

 

Relying on a questionnaire to determine dietary magnesium intake is also

potentially unreliable. In fact, the researchers speculate that participants in

this study were not as precise in recording their diet as were the professional

women in the Nurses' Health Study.

 

Additional Findings

 

While it's still not clear whether low magnesium levels actually cause

diabetes or result from a person's problem with insulin, in the current study

low

serum magnesium predicted diabetes no matter what the insulin levels were. This

was only true for white participants, however. In black participants, a low

serum magnesium level was not such a strong, independent predictor of the

development of diabetes.

 

by W.H. Linda Kao. Aaron R. Folsom, F. Javier Nieto, Jing-Ping Mo, Robert L.

Watson, Frederick L. Brancati