Ionized Magnesium in Danish Children With Type 1 Diabetes

I t is well known that type 1 diabetes isassociated with magnesium deficiency(1), which may be followed by vascular complications (2–5). As a consequence, magnesium supplementation has been advocated to diabetic patients to mini-mize the risk of serious complications (6– 8). The magnitude of hypomagnesemia in diabetic subjects is, however, difficult to establish because most studies have re-ported changes in total magnesium (i.e., ionized magnesium bound to albumin and other ligands), whereas only sparse information is available regarding ionized ion (9–11). Recently, a new electrode has been available for the measurement of ionized magnesium (12,13).