Healthy Discoveries: Diabetes risk may fall as magnesium intake climbs

Healthy discoveries

A new study suggests that getting enough magnesium in your diet could help prevent diabetes.

Dr. Ka He of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues found that people who consumed the most magnesium in foods and from vitamin supplements were about half as probable to develop diabetes over the next 20 years as people who took in the least magnesium.


The findings may explain partly why consuming whole grains, which are high in magnesium, is also associated with lower diabetes risk. However, large clinical trials testing the effects of magnesium on diabetes risk are needed to determine whether a causative relationship actually exists, the researchers note in Diabetes Care.


It's believable that magnesium could affect diabetes risk because the mineral is needed for the proper functioning of several enzymes that help the body process glucose, the researchers point out. Studies of magnesium and diabetes risk have had conflicting findings, though.


To investigate the link, the researchers looked at magnesium intake and diabetes risk in 4,497 men and women ranging from 18 to 30 years old, no one of whom were diabetic at the study's outset. During a 20-year follow-up period, 330 of the subjects developed diabetes.


People with the highest magnesium intake, who averaged about 200 milligrams of magnesium for every 1,000 calories they consumed, were 47% less likely to have developed diabetes while following up than those with the lowest intakes, who consumed about 100 milligrams of magnesium per 1,000 calories.


He and colleagues also found that as magnesium intake rose, levels of several markers of inflammation lessened, as did resistance to the impacts of the key blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin. Higher blood levels of magnesium also were linked to a lower degree of insulin resistance.


"Increasing magnesium intake may be important for reducing systemic inflammation, improving insulin sensitivity, and reducing diabetes risk," He and colleagues write. "Further large-scale clinical experiments are needed to establish causal inference and explain the mechanisms behind this potential benefit."


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