The Low-Down on Low Magnesium

When some­one says ​“elec­trolytes,” do you imme­di­ate­ly think of chug­ging your favorite neon-col­ored sports drink after a run?

We often hear about the need to replen­ish elec­trolytes — min­er­als and chem­i­cals in your blood that car­ry an elec­tric charge. They are essen­tial for bal­anc­ing the amount of water in your body, mov­ing nutri­ents into and remov­ing waste prod­ucts from your cells, and sup­port­ing how your nerves and mus­cles func­tion. There are many elec­trolytes, and one of the most com­mon is magnesium.

Mag­ne­sium is a nutri­ent that is involved in many bod­i­ly func­tions and process­es, like mak­ing pro­tein and bones, and reg­u­lat­ing your blood pres­sure, blood sug­ar, and nerve and mus­cle func­tion. Every major organ relies on mag­ne­sium, includ­ing your heart, kid­neys, and muscles. 

Your body needs mag­ne­sium to func­tion prop­er­ly — but about half of Amer­i­cans don’t get enough of it from their diet.

How Mag­ne­sium Defi­cien­cy Wreaks Hav­oc on Your Body

Mag­ne­sium defi­cien­cy (also called ​“hypo­mag­ne­semia”) occurs when the mag­ne­sium lev­els in your body drop below where they should be. 

When some­one first starts hav­ing low mag­ne­sium, they might not feel any symp­toms at all. If they do, the ear­li­est symp­toms include nau­sea and vom­it­ing, fatigue, weak­ness, and loss of appetite. Since these over­lap with symp­toms of many oth­er con­di­tions, many peo­ple who are mag­ne­sium defi­cient don’t even real­ize it. 

While these symp­toms might seem like more of a nui­sance than any­thing seri­ous, they shouldn’t be ignored. Con­tin­ued or extreme mag­ne­sium defi­cien­cy can affect your entire body, lead­ing to severe symp­toms and con­tribut­ing to the devel­op­ment of chron­ic dis­eases — some of which can be life-threat­en­ing. Here are 4 areas of your health that low mag­ne­sium can affect.

1. Mag­ne­sium and the Heart and Lungs

Mag­ne­sium affects the flow of elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty through­out your heart. When you have low mag­ne­sium, this flow is dis­rupt­ed and caus­es elec­tri­cal insta­bil­i­ty in the heart. It makes your heart speed up, which results in heart pal­pi­ta­tions (the feel­ing like your heart is rac­ing or pound­ing). Heart pal­pi­ta­tions are a type of arrhyth­mia, or abnor­mal heart rhythm. While some arrhyth­mias are harm­less, oth­ers could cause poten­tial­ly dead­ly dam­age to your organs.

Addi­tion­al­ly, low mag­ne­sium lev­els can lead to oth­er heart prob­lems, like coro­nary artery spasms (when the coro­nary arter­ies — tube-like struc­tures that car­ry blood through­out your body — tem­porar­i­ly nar­row and block blood flow to the heart). And, since mag­ne­sium helps your body reg­u­late blood pres­sure, it’s like­ly that low mag­ne­sium could con­tribute to hav­ing high blood pressure. 

Also read: ​“Every­thing You Should Know About AFib”

When it comes to your lungs, low mag­ne­sium has been asso­ci­at­ed with breath­ing prob­lems like wheez­ing and low­er lung func­tion. It’s also been shown that peo­ple with asth­ma tend to have low­er lev­els of magnesium. 

Talk to your pri­ma­ry care provider to learn more about keep­ing up a healthy lev­el of magnesium. 

2. Mag­ne­sium and the Ner­vous System

Your ner­vous sys­tem is made up of your brain, spinal cord, and nerves. Mag­ne­sium has sev­er­al impor­tant func­tions with­in the ner­vous sys­tem, includ­ing play­ing a crit­i­cal role in how nerve cells com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er and help­ing pro­tect against cell death. If you don’t have enough mag­ne­sium, your ner­vous sys­tem might not com­mu­ni­cate or func­tion as it should.

For exam­ple, one of the seri­ous con­se­quences of mag­ne­sium defi­cien­cy is seizures. Seizures occur when there is unusu­al elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty in the brain. Mag­ne­sium acts like some anti-seizure med­ica­tions, so low mag­ne­sium can mean low­er pro­tec­tion against seizures — and even more so in peo­ple who are already prone to hav­ing seizures.

Low mag­ne­sium has also been con­nect­ed to migraines. Research has shown that peo­ple have sig­nif­i­cant­ly low lev­els dur­ing and in between migraine attacks.

3. Mag­ne­sium and Men­tal Health

Low mag­ne­sium doesn’t just affect you phys­i­cal­ly — it can also take a toll on your men­tal health.

Mag­ne­sium has been called ​“nature’s relax­ant” and is involved in bal­anc­ing and con­trol­ling cer­tain hor­mones. For instance, it helps your body with the pro­duc­tion of sero­tonin, which influ­ences your mood, mem­o­ry, and irri­tabil­i­ty. If low mag­ne­sium stands in the way of sero­tonin pro­duc­tion, you could be at a greater risk for men­tal health conditions. 

Low­er mag­ne­sium lev­els have been asso­ci­at­ed with men­tal health dis­or­ders com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with low sero­tonin, like depres­sion and anxiety.

Also read: ​“Facts You Need to Know About Depression”

4. Mag­ne­sium and Bone Health

Mag­ne­sium is part of the make-up of your teeth and bones, and is a key play­er in bone health. 

Your body nat­u­ral­ly reab­sorbs old bone and cre­ates new bone in its place. Bone loss hap­pens when the amount of old bone that’s reab­sorbed is greater than the amount of new bone that your body cre­ates. Even­tu­al­ly, your bones can weak­en, increas­ing your risk of osteo­poro­sis (a bone dis­ease where your bones are frag­ile and more prone to breaks).

There are sev­er­al min­er­als that are crit­i­cal for main­tain­ing the process of cre­at­ing new bones, and one of the most impor­tant is vit­a­min D. How­ev­er, in order for vit­a­min D to work, it needs to be metab­o­lized (processed) cor­rect­ly — and that can’t be done with­out mag­ne­sium. Because of this, mag­ne­sium defi­cien­cy can con­tribute to a greater risk of bone loss and osteoporosis. 

Also read, ​“Who Does Osteo­poro­sis Affect?”

How Mag­ne­sium Defi­cien­cy is Diag­nosed — and What You Can Do About It

If your provider sus­pects a mag­ne­sium defi­cien­cy, they will like­ly order a spe­cial blood test to see how much is in your blood. Chang­ing your diet to include more mag­ne­sium is a good way to start over­com­ing a mag­ne­sium defi­cien­cy and treat­ing symptoms.

How­ev­er, diet changes alone aren’t always enough. Your treat­ment may include tak­ing mag­ne­sium sup­ple­ments or med­ica­tions to treat symp­toms, or receiv­ing flu­ids through an IV — it depends on how severe your defi­cien­cy is and the types of symp­toms it’s causing. 

A Word of Warn­ing About Mag­ne­sium Supplements

It might be tempt­ing to start tak­ing mag­ne­sium sup­ple­ments with­out get­ting test­ed for low mag­ne­sium, ​“just as a pre­cau­tion.” How­ev­er, it’s impor­tant to talk to your provider before start­ing any sup­ple­ments, includ­ing magnesium. 

Mag­ne­sium sup­ple­ments can inter­fere with oth­er med­ica­tions or dietary sup­ple­ments. For exam­ple, your body might have dif­fi­cul­ty absorb­ing antibi­otics if they are tak­en too soon before or after tak­ing mag­ne­sium supplements.

It’s also pos­si­ble to get too much mag­ne­sium from sup­ple­ments, which can lead to side effects like nau­sea, diar­rhea, and stom­ach cramps. Mag­ne­sium lev­els that are extreme­ly high could even lead to irreg­u­lar heart­beat or car­diac arrest (when your heart sud­den­ly stops beating). 

If you’re inter­est­ed in start­ing mag­ne­sium sup­ple­ments, or if you’re wor­ried about your mag­ne­sium lev­els, talk to your provider about how you can keep up healthy mag­ne­sium levels.