Magnesium is essential to the functioning of your physique and might be discovered in lots of frequent meals. Wealthy magnesium sources embody inexperienced greens, nuts, seeds, and beans. Your faucet water may include magnesium.
In line with the Nationwide Institutes of Well being (NIH), this mineral performs a task in additional than 300 of your physique’s biochemical reactions. For instance, it helps regulate blood stress and your heartbeat. It additionally helps keep bone power.
Having too little magnesium in your physique can negatively have an effect on all of those capabilities. It’s attainable to have an excessive amount of magnesium as effectively.
In case your physician suspects that your magnesium stage is just too low or too excessive, they might order a serum magnesium check. This check includes a primary blood draw. Your physician will gather a few of your blood right into a vial or tube and ship it to a lab for testing.
Why do I want a serum magnesium check?
The serum magnesium check isn’t included within the routine electrolyte panel, so there typically needs to be a cause to your magnesium ranges to be examined.
Your physician could order a check if they believe your magnesium stage is just too excessive or too low. Both excessive can result in well being issues. This check may be ordered you probably have persistent low potassium and calcium ranges. Magnesium performs a task in regulating the calcium and potassium ranges in your physique. Your physician could examine your magnesium if these ranges are persistently low.
This check may be needed in case your physician thinks you might need a malabsorption or malnutrition downside. You’ll have this check often for those who take sure drugs or have diabetes, kidney issues, or persistent diarrhea. Common testing helps your physician keep on high of your situation.
What are the signs of magnesium overdose?
The indicators and signs of an overdose embody:
On uncommon events, magnesium overdose can result in cardiac arrest or loss of life.
It’s uncommon to overdose on magnesium by means of meals alone. The NIH offers a listing of meals excessive in magnesium. Shredded wheat cereal, dry-roasted almonds, and boiled spinach are on the high of the checklist. Every considered one of these meals offers solely about 20 % of your day by day worth of magnesium per serving. As a substitute, magnesium overdose could also be resulting from taking too many magnesium dietary supplements.
Individuals who take these dietary supplements could also be doing so to counter the signs of sure situations, reminiscent of diabetes, alcohol use dysfunction, Crohn’s illness, or a problem absorbing vitamins. These dietary supplements are additionally really useful for low potassium and calcium ranges within the blood.
What are the signs of magnesium deficiency?
Signs of magnesium deficiency initially embody:
Because the deficiency progresses, you might expertise:
What are the dangers related to the serum magnesium check?
You may anticipate to really feel some minor ache throughout a blood draw. You may also proceed to bleed barely for a couple of minutes after the process. It’s possible you’ll get a bruise on the needle insertion website.
Severe dangers are uncommon and embody fainting, an infection, and irritation.
What do the outcomes imply? – “magnesium in blood work”
The traditional vary for serum magnesium is 1.7 to 2.3 milligrams per deciliter for individuals 17 years previous and up, in line with Mayo Medical Laboratories.
The precise requirements for regular outcomes could range relying in your:
The requirements additionally rely on the lab performing the check. Excessive and low magnesium ranges have all kinds of causes. Talk about your outcomes together with your physician to get extra exact info.
Excessive magnesium ranges
Excessive ranges of magnesium could outcome from taking too many dietary supplements or from an issue with excreting additional magnesium.
Particular situations that may result in excessive magnesium ranges embody kidney failure and oliguria, or low urine manufacturing.
Low magnesium ranges
Low ranges, alternatively, can point out that you simply don’t eat sufficient meals containing this mineral. Typically low ranges imply that your physique isn’t conserving sufficient of the magnesium that you simply eat. This could occur in circumstances of:
There are fairly a couple of different attainable causes of low magnesium. These embody:
Low ranges may happen resulting from alcohol use dysfunction and throughout the course of a situation known as delirium tremens (DT). DT is brought on by alcohol withdrawal and includes trembling, agitation, and hallucinations.