Abnormal Bone in Magnesium Deficiency

Abstract

Bone-wasting diseases that are resistant to physiologic doses of vitamin D, calcium, or phosphate and that have been treated with pharmacologic doses of each or of combinations of mineralizing agents, are likely to be associated with magnesium deficiency. In some instances, initial magnesium inadequacy might be contributory to the osteopenia, as in hyperparathyroidism, secondary to malabsorption, with hemodialysis with low-magnesium water, or possibly in pregnancy. There is suggestive evidence that severe magnesium depletion (in utero), alone or with hypervita-minosis D, might participate in abnormal fetal bone formation that might find expression as fractures of low-birth-weight infants, osteogenesis imperfecta, or hypophosphatasia. In infancy and later in life, vitamin-D- or parathyroid-refractory osteomalacia or hypocalcemia might also have magnesium depletion as a contributory factor. Failure to correct the magnesium deficiency before use of calcemic therapy has failed to correct hypocalcemia. In those with osteopenia (to which magnesium deficiency has contributed), failure to correct that deficit before starting aggressive mineralizing therapy intensifies the imbalance.