Review: Magnesium and stress, 2018, Cuciureanu and Vink

Full text at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507250/

 

Had a quick skim. Looks interesting in places although it doesn’t really conclude anything and there are a couple of dodgy sections talking about human beings as organisms etc ? This might be something lost in translation?

Best to detach preconceived ideas around the word stress when reading, the references quoted appear more interesting than the actual text which is a rather loose literature survey with very little added from the original references. It certainly doesn’t link psychiatric conditions with magnesium deficiency if that’s what it was trying to do?

In summary this paper says ...we know magnesium is important and has a role to play in the body and low magnesium causes symptoms (some of these I didn’t connect before like light and sound sensitivity), but we don’t know how or why depletion happens. We know it happens in lots of different situations but further work needed etc etc

I think treatment protocols could be investigated for PWME with regards to giving people symptom relief (presumably via injection) and to discover what the underlying reason is for being deficient, although I doubt this is anything other than a knock on effect of having a disrupted energy metabolism.

 

A human is a organism like animals and plants.

 

As a biologist I know this of course, but when talking in a medical sense you normally discuss humans as ‘patients’ it reads very strange in the context it’s written was my point.

Kind regards

A member of the Hominidae family

 

The authors do seem confused on this point...they seem to suggest that MS and epilepsy is made worse by ‘stress’ but don’t define this for other conditions?

Of course there is the usual jumble of meanings for the word stress throughout.

 

If magnesium levels are the answer to the problems of this condition what is proposed as the mechanism by which, after almost 30 years of healthy life, one is suddenly precipitated into illness?

 

Could inflammation be a possible cause of magnesium deficiency?

 

My understanding is magnesium deficiencies are associated with chronic disease (and often, by extension, inflammation), much like Vit D deficiencies. Magnesium deficiencies are common place in Lyme, for instance, but that is in part due to Borrelia pretty much being the only bacteria that shuns iron and consumes magnesium instead.

My Lyme factoid for the day. Promise.

 

My oxidative stress test was in the high percentile (95%) range during the period I was severely mg deficient.

 

But the question is if Magnesium is low due to oxidative stress or the other way around. Also, is with "stress" also oxidative stress meant in the paper?
To be honest I find this paper somehow puzzling...

 

@Inara Yes, what 'stress' are they referring to. I also had an OAT and Antioxidant test done during that time and everything was down in very low- below range. The consultant (biochemist) told me that this was 'viral' and recommended I continue to take mg injections.

Oh, and recommended not to exercise.

 

There was a study done by the MEAssociation research fund (I think!) many years ago which had significant results for magnesium sulphate. It is probably still the only successful trial of a treatment in this coountry. Of course it lead to headlines in the papers of "Epsom salts cures ME" and a further trivialising of our illness.

It is another of those things lost in the CFS whirlwind.

My friends with MS all feel that stress, physical or emotional, makes their MS worse. It may be difficult to define but it is important. Unfortunately it has been taken over and subverted by the BPSers so no real scientific study has been done though it makes evolutionary sense for the body to have mechanisms which change under stressful conditions.

 

Did they consume the magnesium sulphate or soak in it?

 

I think it was tablets. If it had been soaking I might have tried it It was in the 80s or early 90s so a long time ago.

 

My understanding is that oral magnesium sulfate is used as a laxative for a short period of time. Magnesium sulphate is also used in Epsom salt soaking. Magnesium sulfate injectable is for mg deficiency.

 

Epsom salt baths definitely helped me with stiff muscles/pain/aches. But I still needed other treatments

 

Yes, oral magnesium sulfate is not a very good treatment for magnesium deficiency. Epsom salt soaking can be very effective at reducing or eliminating magnesium deficiency and its associated symptoms. Magnesium sulfate injections tend to be the most effective treatment for magnesium deficiency; in extreme cases, magnesium sulfate by IV can have profound and fast acting effects.

This is certainly one of the many benefits of magnesium sulfate, even among people without a clinical magnesium deficiency. But in any case, as magnesium is not a cure for ME/CFS, other treatments will always be needed.

I in particular had a fantastic response to magnesium sulfate supplementation via nebulizer, much as Sarah Myhill advises. I no longer need significant magnesium supplementation. Yet I still have many symptoms unrelated to a magnesium deficiency.

 

I once tried a subcutaneous injection (as e.g. Myhill suggests), and for me it was too painful. (It was really terrible.) For weeks I had a bump. I can't recommend it. So it should be i.v. or i.m.

 

Not sure if this is just me confusing the meaning in your post or not but I believe ‘sulphate’ and ‘sulfate’are different spellings for the same thing. Not sure that is what is meant or whether I’m stating the bleeding obvious and got the wrong end of the stick (often happens nowadays)

Basically if you are British you use the spelling ‘sulphate’ as in sulphur

If American or American English influenced you use sulfate.

The chemicals are the same regardless of how you spell them. So magnesium sulphate, magnesium sulfate and Epsom salts are the same thing. You can obviously get different purities for different applications.

That’s my understanding anyway. Sorry if that’s not what you meant @Mij