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One analogy I've heard for magnesium is that it's power for your brain. When one first starts taking it, it feels like the force of a rocket ship being used to power a bicycle. When I first started on it I was fidgety as all else, but leveled out eventually. I wonder if ones brain can get "burned out".

this result seems like it’s probably sensitive to the choice of high/med/low groups

especially with something that is a continuous measure like millimoles per liter, you’re literally destroying information to map it in to three groups instead of regressing on the (centered/normalized) continuous quantity

Looks like approximately 9% in all three groups developed dementia

Dementia is, a lot of times, something that develops in people predisposed to it genetically, so how is it possible to conclude a correlation to magnesium levels and dementia unless you root out the people who are already predisposed to having dementia via genetic disposition in your study.

That’s the average for people in their early 80s, but risk rises very fast after that.

About 1 in 3 people that reach 90 are likely to die from dementia complications.

> About 3% of adults ages 70 to 74 had dementia in 2019, compared with 22% of adults ages 85 to 89 and 33% of adults ages 90 and older.

Many genetic conditions involve nutrition, and the need for supplements that can be properly absorbed increases with age.

> Gluten intolerance is associated with severe vitamin and mineral deficiencies

> Magnesium is largely obtained through food; however, absorption of magnesium decreases with age.

Okay but the study is about dementia. It is true, though, people predisposed to lots of other types of genetic disorders can benefit from having a proper diet.

I wonder if they controlled for calcium intake, they both compete for the same receptor so if the people that were in the high magnesium group were also taking more calcium then they sort of cancel out to some degree because of the competition.

and exactly how am I supposed to track my magnesium levels?

What? That’s not even remotely true. Who told you that?

Serum magnesium level is a terrible marker to measure for this kind of thing. 66% of your body’s total magnesium is in your bones and 33% is intracellular. You can been total body magnesium depleted and have a normal serum magnesium.

The study data shows there is no difference across all three groups so magnesium was not a factor

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So, 7% developed dementia in the normal range, 9% in the low range, and 10% in the high range.

Maybe there is a slight risk, but it seems like the odds are fair that you run the risk, between 7% - 10%, of developing dementia. I don't think, based on these numbers, that magnesium is either the cause nor would it significantly change the likelihood of developing dementia.

I tend to have low folate and magnesium for genetic reasons. Also, everyone in my family has died from dementia. 50% of dementia patients have low folate levels.

Because people can have specific low nutrient levels for genetic reasons. I also get low b12 and D.

big magnesium

This article actually says:

> Namely, Dr. Kieboom and team performed further analyses in which they excluded dementia cases diagnosed in the first 4 years after magnesium measurements were taken. The results were similar, which, the authors write, “[strengthens] the possibility of a causal relationship.”

The articles that are written by journalists are more readable.

> … Intestinal absorption of Mg tends to fall with age, and this decline may be one of the possible causes of Mg deficit with aging …

Correlation isn’t causation, but it will probably be decades before magnesium investigated by pharmaceutical companies if it happens.

The article suggests that one of the health risks that people suffer in old age can reduced.

Some medications used more by the elderly cause deficiencies that can’t be corrected by diet.

> FDA Drug Safety Communication: Low magnesium levels can be associated with long-term use of Proton Pump Inhibitor drugs (PPIs)

Proper diet is inadequate if intestinal disease or age impairs nutrient absorption. The diagnostic failure rate for just celiac disease is 98%, so it’s pretty safe to assume that the first warning of impaired absorption would be the the kind of issue described in the article.

> The prevalence of celiac disease in the United States has been estimated to be as high as one in 133 individuals. At the same time, only one in 4,700 individuals have been diagnosed with celiac disease. The average delay in diagnosis for a person with symptoms is 11 years.

Some of that is genetic. Some is not.

That’s a good question. Some nutrients interact, so too much of one can impair the other even if consuming enough.

It seems that we spend quite a bit of effort on disease treatment after it’s too late to prevent, but we spend almost zero effort on actual prevention because disease is more profitable.

> It is currently estimated that 60% of adults do not achieve the average dietary intake (ADI) and 45% of Americans are magnesium deficient, a condition associated with disease states like hypertension, diabetes, and neurological disorders, to name a few.

> However, despite this mineral’s importance, it is poorly understood from several standpoints, not the least of which is its unique mechanism of absorption and sensitive compartmental handling in the body, making the determination of magnesium status difficult.

With modern early detection and treatment. The incidence of severe dementia can probably be reduced significantly in the future.

Does it have any thing to do with the brains ability to produce ATP using these resources? High levels would indicate a low usage of magnesium whilst low levels indicate malnutrition?

I'm not American

There is nothing special about the US.

> A global deficiency of nutrition education in physician training: the low hanging fruit in medicine remains on the vine

Most countries at least in my part of the world, have quite a lot of focus on preventative healthcare. Perhaps because we have a universal healthcare system that isn't driven by profits.

Its been pointed out in the comments that serum magnesium is not a good biomarker for tissue magnesium.

As such high serum magnesium may result from impaired magnesium transport to tissues, perhaps?

So high and low Mg might indicate a Mg distribution/regulation problem, low serum Mg would starve the transport system to tissues, leaving tissue deficiency, whilst high serum Mg could indicate a blockage in the uptake system, also leading to tissue deficiency.

Is Mg transport energy related? Features of diabetes in the brain and impaired brain metabolism is known in dementia and Alzheimers, and diabetes is a risk factor.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4455825/

Serum Mg is largely controlled by kidney excretion.

Mg is known to be difficult to deliver to the brain via supplemental routes and different Mg forms may influence this.

So, if the transport barrier to brain uptake is increased in dementia then the serum level might not tell us much, and it could be that it is showing there is an issue getting it into the brain.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6678825/

Asside from kidney dysfunction in regulating Mg it could be that bone decay is releasing Mg. It's known that as we age the bones release elements like lead that have been absorbed throughout life, so perhaps this is an added source of high Mg.

This was five years ago, has it been confirmed?

“These results need to be confirmed with additional studies,” adds Dr. Kieboom, “but the results are intriguing.”

"She also adds that if the results are confirmed, magnesium blood tests could be used to screen those at risk."

I tried a search, but could not find a magnesium dementia test.