A Study of Oral Magnesium Supplementation in Patients With Essential Hypertension

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Knowledge of the association between magnesium (Mg) and hypertension is almost a century old.But controversial reports are available regarding the effect of oral Mg supplementation on Bp and lipid profile hence the present study aims to evaluate serum Mg levels and to assess the effect of oral Mg supplementation on lipid profile and Blood Pressure (BP) in patients with essential hypertension who were maintained on Atenolol. MATERIALS & METHODS:This study involved 80 subjects out of which 40 were patients of essential hypertension (aged 30-60 years) of either sex, maintained on Atenolol, 40 were age and sex matched non hypertensive controls.After performing the baseline investigations, hypertensive patients and controls were supplemented with 600mg of magnesium oxide (Mgo) in three divided doses daily for a period of 8 weeks and investigated for BP, serum Mg and lipid profile at the end of 8 weeks. RESULTS:The incidence of hypomagnesemia is more in study group and oral supplementation of 600 mg of Mgo daily resulted in a significant elevation of mean serum Mg levels as compared to the baseline which is well correlated with the decrease in the mean levels of Diastolic BP, total cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL cholesterol and an increase in the mean value of HDL cholesterol. CONCLUSION:The prevalence of hypomagnesemia is more in hypertensive patients and beneficial effects are obtained on diastolic BP and lipid profile with oral Mg supplementation.However in order to explain the controversial reports in various other studies, further large scale trials and reproducible and sensitive measures of extra cellular Mg estimation are required.