Friday, April 04, 2008
Women's Health
By Anne Harding
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Making sure young girls get enough magnesium may help keep their bones strong, according to new research.
But the findings are too preliminary for any blanket recommendations to be made on taking magnesium supplements for bone health, Dr. Thomas O. Carpenter of Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health. "There's a number of caveats that have to be taken into account," he said.
Magnesium plays a key role in bone formation, and many young women don't get enough of the mineral, Carpenter and his team note in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. To better understand the role of magnesium supplements and bone health in a healthy population, they randomized 44 girls aged 8 to 14 to take 300 mg of magnesium daily for one year or a placebo. All of the girls had intakes of the mineral that were below 220 mg a day; the recommended daily allowance for magnesium is 240 mg for girls aged 8 to 13 and 360 mg for girls 14 to 18 years old. The girls given magnesium showed significantly greater bone mineral content in the hip than those who took placebo, while their spinal bone mineral content also was greater, but not significantly so, the researchers found. No serious side effects from the supplements were seen, aside from diarrhea in a few study participants, which Carpenter noted could be addressed by phasing in the supplements slowly.
Carpenter emphasized that the current study was done in girls who were deficient in magnesium, so it is not clear if the findings could be generalized to young women who are getting adequate amounts of the mineral.
But there is strong evidence that young US women aren't getting enough magnesium, and that the number who is deficient in the mineral is on the rise, he pointed out. "It may be increasingly important to look at this kind of research because of the decreased dietary intake that seems to be evident," Carpenter said. Good dietary sources of the mineral include almonds, peanut butter, shellfish, and some leafy green vegetables, he added.
SOURCE: The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, December 2006.