A study on serum magnesium level in bronchial asthma patients

---

Original Article

Author Details : Yuvarajan S, Ambikapathi P, Vickram Reddy, Kalaikovan B

Volume : 2, Issue : 1, Year : 2017

Article Page : 4-6

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

Background: Bronchial Asthma is one of the most common respiratory diseases that we see in day to day practice and has been increasing in prevalence over the last few decades. Magnesium ion has an inhibitory action on smooth muscle contraction, histamine release from mast cells and acetylcholine release from cholinergic nerve terminals. Magnesium has been shown to dilate bronchial smooth muscles and influence the function of respiratory muscles. Hypomagnesaemia have been associated with diminished respiratory muscle power. Although magnesium is used through intravenous and inhalation route in the management of asthma, the exact prevalence of hypomagnesaemia in asthma is not known.
Materials and Methods: Forty patients attending outpatients department of respiratory medicine with stable asthma, were randomly selected. They were assessed clinically and their serum magnesium levels were measured. This was compared with the serum magnesium values of forty non-asthmatic healthy controls.
Results: In this study, serum magnesium value between 1.5 and 2.5mg/dl was considered normal and any value below 1.5 mg/dl was considered as hypomagnesaemia. Using this cut-off value, a total of 40 patients is compared with 40 healthy individuals. About 35(87.5%) patients were found to have hypomagnesaemia and their serum magnesium value ranged between 0.70 and 1.4 mg/dl. Rest 5(12.5%) patients had normal serum magnesium level.
Conclusions: It can be concluded from the present study that hypomagnesaemia is more prevalent in stable asthmatics than non-asthmatic control. There is statistically significant correlation of hypomagnesaemia with severity of asthma. We measured serum concentration of magnesium which may not be representative of actual body store. We did not consider the amount of dietary magnesium in the patients. Therefore, further studies are needed using large number of patients, and measuring Mg⁺⁺ levels in RBC, WBC, or muscle cell in addition to serum Mg⁺⁺and this would be very helpful for assessing the effect of hypomagnesaemia in stable asthmatic patients.

Keywords: Bronchial muscle relaxation; Serum hypomagnesaemia; Stable asthmatics

How to cite : Yuvarajan S, Ambikapathi P, Reddy V, Kalaikovan B, A study on serum magnesium level in bronchial asthma patients. IP Indian J Immunol Respir Med 2017;2(1):4-6

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.