Threshold to N-methyl-D-aspartate-induced seizures in mice undergoing chronic nutritional magnesium deprivation is lowered in a way partly responsive to acute magnesium and antioxidant administrations.

Magnesium deficiency may be induced by a diet impoverished in magnesium. This nutritional deficit promotes chronic inflammatory and oxidative stresses, hyperexcitability and, in mice, susceptibility to audiogenic seizures. Potentiation by low-magnesium concentrations of the opening of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor/calcium channel in in vitro and ex vivo studies, and responsiveness to magnesium of in vivo brain injury states are now well established.

Neuroprotective gene profile in the brain of magnesium-deficient mice.

Background: Magnesium (Mg) deficiency may lead to serious metabolic, biological and organic dysfunctions, and cause various clinical disorders. In the current study, we explore endothelial cell activation, inflammation and cell death induced in the brain of adult mice by Mg-deficient diet.

Methods And Results: Neither TNFalpha, substance P, sTNFRI, sTNFRII proteins (ELISA), nor TNFalpha, adherence molecules and prolactin mRNAs, nor NK1R (immunohistochemistry on brain sections) were up-regulated.

Magnesium ions and ionic channels: activation, inhibition or block--a hypothesis.

The interactions between magnesium ions and ionic membrane channels are complicated and may be classified in three categories: activation, reduction and inhibition of the ionic fluxes across the channels, corresponding to three mechanisms: open-block-close. The interactions between magnesium ions and various ionic channels are reviewed and the explanations of the three mechanisms are analyzed in term of screening/binding effects on the membrane surface polar head groups.

Magnesium research: from the beginnings to today.

The beginnings of magnesium research, from the 18th century to the first quarter of the twentieth century, consists mainly of the development of chemical and pharmacological knowledge. The modern period began in 1926 when the essential character of magnesium was acknowledged. The early part of the modern period, up to the 1960s, saw the foundation of our knowledge of the basic physiological, epidemiological and clinical aspects.

New data on the importance of gestational Mg deficiency.

Chronic primary Mg deficiency is frequent. About 20% of the population consumes less than two-thirds of the RDA for Mg. Women, particularly, have low intakes.

New data on the importance of gestational Mg deficiency.

Chronic primary Mg deficiency is frequent. Around 20% of the population consumes less than two-thirds of the RDA for Mg, in both genders and in women particularly: for example, in France, 23% of women and 18% of men. Primary Mg deficiency may occur in fertile women.

Beta-2 mimetics and magnesium: true or false friends?

Physiological beta stimulation may be involved in the regulation of magnesium status namely by homeostatic increase of magnesemia during magnesium deficiency. But conversely excessive beta stimulation namely by use of pharmacological high doses of beta mimetics may induce a decrease of magnesemia. Two different types of magnesium therapy ought to be distinguished.

Physiological importance of the connective tissue in the human amnion. Role of magnesium.

The elemental ionic distribution in the epithelial layer (EL) and in connective tissue (CT = compact layer + fibroblast layer) of the human amniotic membrane has been studied in reference samples, after conservation in a physiological fluid (Hanks' solution) and after addition of 2 mM MgCl2 in Hanks' solution. Particle induced X-ray emission and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry techniques were used to provide quantitative measurements. In physiological fluid, with regard to reference samples, the monovalent ions (Na+, K +, Cl-) concentrations were identical on both layers.

Magnesium deficit and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS): SIDS due to magnesium deficiency and SIDS due to various forms of magnesium depletion: possible importance of the chronopathological form.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) might be due to the fetal consequences of a Mg maternal deficiency, which might be prevented by simple atoxic nutritional Mg intake by the mother. Various stresses in the pregnant women or in the infant may transform a simple Mg deficiency into Mg depletion which may not be cured by nutritional Mg supplement, but requires a correction of its causal dysregulation. Beside the well established risk factors in baby care and in the environment, it is important to stress the possible role of a primary hypofunction of the biological clock.

THC aggravates rat muricide behavior induced by two levels of magnesium deficiency.

A severe magnesium deprivation induces an interspecific aggressive behavior (muricidal behavior, MB) in different strains of rats. Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is also known to induce MB even after a single injection (11 mg/kg) in starving, isolated rats. In the present work, we investigated the MB behavior, for six successive assays 1 h delayed, of two groups of male Long-Evans rats fed 50- or 150-ppm Mg(2+)-deficient diets, for 42 days after a single injection of THC at doses (2, 4 or 8 mg/kg) that did not induce aggressiveness in control rats.

Metal pollutants and bioelements: retrospective of interactions between magnesium and toxic metals.

Protection from heavy metals is a problem that has not been solved in a satisfactory manner so far. Usage of complexing agents in therapy of exposed workers results in both favorable outcome and recognized adverse effects. In the field of environmental protection, they cannot be used in practice, meaning that the risk of escape of metal pollutant from factory premises and their attack on the environnement remains present.

Biorhythms and possible central regulation of magnesium status, phototherapy, darkness therapy and chronopathological forms of magnesium depletion.

Biological clock and magnesium status are linked. Central magnesium regulation may be hypothetized. Balanced magnesium status is requested to obtain efficiency of suprachiasmatic nuclei and of pineal gland.