Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Oct 1:196:108-14.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2015.05.166. Epub 2015 May 31.

The relationship between dietary magnesium intake, stroke and its major risk factors, blood pressure and cholesterol, in the EPIC-Norfolk cohort

Lucy K M Bain  1 , Phyo K Myint  2 , Amy Jennings  3 , Marleen A H Lentjes  4 , Robert N Luben  4 , Kay-Tee Khaw  4 , Nick J Wareham  4 , Ailsa A Welch  5
Affiliations

The relationship between dietary magnesium intake, stroke and its major risk factors, blood pressure and cholesterol, in the EPIC-Norfolk cohort

Lucy K M Bain et al. Int J Cardiol. .

Abstract

Background: Dietary magnesium could modify the major stroke risk factors, high blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol, but has been understudied in both sexes in a single population. This study aimed to investigate if dietary magnesium intake was associated with BP, total cholesterol (TC) and incident stroke risk in an adult population.

Methods: We conducted cross-sectional analyses in a case-cohort study of 4443, men and women aged 40-75, representative of 25,639 participants years of the EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer)-Norfolk cohort. The cohort included 928 stroke cases (42,556.5 person years). Dietary data from 7 day food diaries were analysed using multivariate regression to assess associations between quintiles or data-derived categories of dietary magnesium intake and BP, TC and stroke risk, adjusted for relevant confounders.

Results: We observed differences of -7 mmHg systolic BP (P trend ≤ 0.01) and -3.8 mmHg diastolic BP (P trend=0.01) between extreme intakes of magnesium in men, a significant inverse association with TC was observed (P trend=0.02 men and 0.04 women). Compared to the bottom 10%, the top 30% of magnesium intake was associated with a 41% relative reduction in stroke risk (HR 0.59; 95% CI 0.38-0.93) in men.

Conclusions: Lower dietary magnesium intake was associated with higher BP and stroke risk, which may have implications for primary prevention.

Keywords: Blood pressure; Dietary magnesium; Stroke; Total cholesterol.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No authors declare a conflict of interest.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Mackay J, Mensah GA. The atlas of heart disease and stroke. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2004.
    1. Mancia G, Fagard R, Narkiewicz K, Redon J, Zanchetti A, Bohm M, et al. 2013 ESH/ESC Guidelines for the management of arterial hypertension: the Task Force for the management of arterial hypertension of the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) and of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) J Hypertens. 2013;31(7):1281–357. - PubMed
    1. Maier JA. Low magnesium and atherosclerosis: an evidence-based link. Molecular aspects of medicine. 2003;24(1–3):137–46. - PubMed
    1. Houston M. The role of magnesium in hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Journal of clinical hypertension. 2011;13(11):843–7. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hruby A, O'Donnell CJ, Jacques PF, Meigs JB, Hoffmann U, McKeown NM. Magnesium intake is inversely associated with coronary artery calcification: the Framingham Heart Study. JACC Cardiovascular imaging. 2014;7(1):59–69. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

  NODES
admin 1
Association 6
twitter 2