A CASE OF MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY 



W. I. Card and I. N. Marks 



Gastro-intestinal Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh 



Our knowledge of the effects of magnesium deficiency in 

 man is so meagre that we feel warranted in presenting the 

 data from a single case and, though these data are not as 

 complete as one would wish, we believe they are sufficient to 

 allow useful though tentative conclusions to be drawn. 



The state of magnesium deficiency in animals whether 

 experimentally produced or occurring as a natural state has 

 been recognized for some time (Kruse, Orent and McCollum, 

 1932; Greenberg and Tufts, 1938). In animals such as cows 

 the syndrome goes under various names (Blaxter, Rook and 

 McDonald, 1954); it can be cured by the injection of mag- 

 nesium salts and prevented by using magnesite dressings on 

 the pasture. In man there seems to be no clearly recognized 

 picture. There have been reports of various states associated 

 with lowered blood magnesium which have responded to 

 magnesium sulphate injections, and it is recognized that 

 various excitable states such as delirium tremens may be 

 associated with a low serum magnesium and may improve 

 with magnesium therapy (Flink et al., 1954; Martin, Mehl 

 and Wertman, 1952). A case described as tetany and associ- 

 ated with low blood magnesium has been reported in a child 

 (Miller, 1944). 



Such observations are not wholly satisfactory since the 

 fraction of magnesium which exists in the plasma is so minute 

 that it must necessarily be a very imperfect reflection of the 

 state of magnesium in the body. The only satisfactory evid- 

 ence for a magnesium deficiency is clearly some measure of 

 the actual body store of magnesium. Fitzgerald and Fourman 

 (1956) have shown how very difficult it is in man, owing to 



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