Magnesium Deficiency
Dr. Weyrich's Naturopathic Functional Medicine Notebook
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Overview
Magnesium deficiency is associated with a number of medical conditions, including [Starr2005, pg 188]:- irriatability of skeletal and cardiac muscle.
- rapid and irregular heartbeats, especially during thyroid hormone supplementation.
- cofactor of various enzymes.
Diagnosis
See [Rogers].According to [Starr2005, pg 188] the standard blood test for magnesium is not reliable because it does not reflect intracellular levels.
Differential Diagnosis
Treatment
600 to 1000 mg/day is typical, but oral amount may be limited by bowel tolerance. IV pushes can increase the daily dose. Also consider magnesium oil [Starr2005, pg 188].Hypotheses
Dr. Weyrich suggests that heavy metal toxicity (e.g. mercury may be mitigated by increasing supplementation with magnesium. This is because both Mg and Hg can exist as +2 charged ions, and Lechatlier's Law of Mass Action suggests that increasing the concentration of Mg+2 will displace Hg+2 from binding sites that it may be blocking on enzymes. Clinical evidence to support this follows from the observation that the side effects reported by [Starr2005, pg 188] during thyroid hormone supplementation in the presence of magnesium deficiency are similar to the side effects observed in the presence of mercury toxicity (rapid, irregular heartbeat).ICD-9 Codes
| ICD9-Code | Description | Comments |
|---|---|---|
References
Unless specifically noted above, references used in the construction of this web page include the following:[FDM] Lecture notes from Functional Medicine University.
[SCNM] Lecture notes from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine.
[UT] Lecture notes from the University of Tennessee graduate programs in Chemistry and Biochemistry. [Rogers] Rogers Sherry. The Scientific Basis for Environmental Medicine Techniques. Cited by [Starr2005].
[Starr2005] Mark Starr. Hypothyroidism Type 2: The Epidemic. Columbia, MO: Mark Starr Trust (2005).
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