Magnesium In Human Health And Disease

Magnesium is an essential mineral which is required for growth and survival of humans. Since magnesium is a mineral and not synthesizable it must be obtained through dietary foods and/or supplements. Magnesium in Human Health and Disease reviews the benefits of magnesium supplementation to reach recommended intakes as well as provides new research that suggests how reaching levels above the recommended intakes can promote health and treat various diseases. Magnesium deficiency can cause low serum potassium and calcium levels, retention of sodium, and low circulating levels of regulatory hormones. These changes in nutrients cause neurological and muscular symptoms such as tremor and muscle spasms. Further magnesium deficiency causes loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, personality changes and death from heart failure. Causes of magnesium deficiency include alcohol abuse, poorly controlled diabetes, excessive or chronic vomiting and/or diarrhea. Thus the effects of inadequate and deficient intakes or levels of magnesium is critical to health and are reviewed by the expert clinicians in this book. Magnesium in Human Health and Disease provides the most current research to support the potential benefits or lack thereof for normal and high supplementation with magnesium. Animal model research and early human trials are reviewed to document other disease states such as hypertension, cholesterol level, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease that would benefit from increased magnesium.

The brain is the most complex organ in our body. Indeed, it is perhaps the most complex structure we have ever encountered in nature. Both structurally and functionally, there are many peculiarities that differentiate the brain from all other organs. The brain is our connection to the world around us and by governing nervous system and higher function, any disturbance induces severe neurological and psychiatric disorders that can have a devastating effect on quality of life. Our understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of the brain has improved dramatically in the last two decades. In particular, the critical role of cations, including magnesium, has become evident, even if incompletely understood at a mechanistic level. The exact role and regulation of magnesium, in particular, remains elusive, largely because intracellular levels are so difficult to routinely quantify. Nonetheless, the importance of magnesium to normal central nervous system activity is self-evident given the complicated homeostatic mechanisms that maintain the concentration of this cation within strict limits essential for normal physiology and metabolism. There is also considerable accumulating evidence to suggest alterations to some brain functions in both normal and pathological conditions may be linked to alterations in local magnesium concentration. This book, containing chapters written by some of the foremost experts in the field of magnesium research, brings together the latest in experimental and clinical magnesium research as it relates to the central nervous system. It offers a complete and updated view of magnesiums involvement in central nervous system function and in so doing, brings together two main pillars of contemporary neuroscience research, namely providing an explanation for the molecular mechanisms involved in brain function, and emphasizing the connections between the molecular changes and behavior. It is the untiring efforts of those magnesium researchers who have dedicated their lives to unraveling the mysteries of magnesiums role in biological systems that has inspired the collation of this volume of work.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Magnesium Intake and Human Health" that was published in Nutrients

Diet and Health examines the many complex issues concerning diet and its role in increasing or decreasing the risk of chronic disease. It proposes dietary recommendations for reducing the risk of the major diseases and causes of death today: atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (including heart attack and stroke), cancer, high blood pressure, obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes mellitus, liver disease, and dental caries.

MILS-13 provides an up-to-date review on the relationships between essential metals and human diseases, covering 13 metals and 3 metalloids: The bulk metals sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, plus the trace elements manganese, iron, cobalt, copper, zinc, molybdenum, and selenium, all of which are essential for life. Also covered are chromium, vanadium, nickel, silicon, and arsenic, which have been proposed as being essential for humans in the 2nd half of the last century. However, if at all, they are needed only in ultra-trace amounts, and because of their prevalence in the environment, it has been difficult to prove whether or not they are required. In any case, all these elements are toxic in higher concentrations and therefore, transport and cellular concentrations of at least the essential ones, are tightly controlled; hence, their homeostasis and role for life, including deficiency or overload, and their links to illnesses, including cancer and neurological disorders, are thoroughly discussed. Indeed, it is an old wisdom that metals are indispensable for life. Therefore, Volume 13 provides in an authoritative and timely manner in 16 stimulating chapters, written by 29 internationally recognized experts from 7 nations, and supported by more than 2750 references, and over 20 tables and 80 illustrations, many in color, a most up-to-date view on the vibrant research area of the Interrelations between Essential Metal Ions and Human Diseases.

Can calcium and magnesium ("hardness") in drinking water contribute to preventing disease? This book documents the outputs of an unprecedented group of experts assembled by the World Health Organization to address this question. It includes their comprehensive consensus view on what is known and what is not about the role and possible health benefit of calcium and magnesium in drinking-water. Also included is a series of chapters each authored by internationally renowned experts reviewing the state of the art in different aspects including: global dietary calcium and magnesium intakes; the contribution of drinking water to calcium and magnesium intake; health significance of calcium and magnesium; role of drinking-water in relation to bone metabolism; epidemiological studies and the association of cardiovascular disease risks with water hardness and magnesium in particular; water production; technical issues and economics. In both developed and developing countries, typical diets are often deficient in calcium and magnesium--essential minerals which are necessary for the development of strong bones and teeth, and for cardiovascular function. At the same time, there is evidence that consuming "hard" drinking-water may be associated with reduced risks for some diseases. Climate change and other ongoing changes will increase the use of high tech treatments--for example desalination and reclamation of polluted waters and mean that the issue will be of increasing future importance.