Severe magnesium deficiency (hypomagnesemia) causes serious neuromuscular and heart issues like seizures, tetany (severe cramps), numbness, tingling, abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias), and confusion, progressing from earlier signs such as fatigue, weakness, nausea, and muscle spasms. It impacts nerves, muscles, and heart function, potentially leading to severe complications like heart failure, coma, or even death in extreme cases, alongside psychological changes.
Your body needs magnesium to function normally. Symptoms of magnesium deficiency include low appetite, nausea or vomiting, muscle spasms or tremors and abnormal heart rhythms. A blood test or urine test can be used to diagnose magnesium deficiency.
If you're experiencing symptoms of hypomagnesemia, you should see your healthcare provider. If you have severe symptoms, such as seizures or an abnormal heartbeat, call 911 or get to the nearest hospital as soon as possible.
Most of the commonly administered diuretic agents (furosemide, thiazides, mannitol) and cardiac glycosides induce hypomagnesemia by increasing urinary excretion. Other drugs such as aminoglycosides, amphotericin B, cisplatin, and cyclosporine predispose to renal tubular injury and excessive magnesium loss.
If you take lansoprazole for more than 3 months, the levels of magnesium in your blood may fall. Low magnesium can make you feel tired, confused and dizzy, and cause muscle twitches, shakiness and an irregular heartbeat. If you get any of these symptoms, tell your doctor.
Low serum magnesium levels can result in serious adverse events including muscle spasm (tetany), irregular heartbeat (arrhythmias), and convulsions (seizures); however, patients do not always have these symptoms. Treatment of hypomagnesemia generally requires magnesium supplements.
Proton pump inhibitors are accepted as the most effective initial and maintenance treatment for GERD. Oral pantoprazole is a safe, well tolerated and effective initial and maintenance treatment for patients with nonerosive GERD or erosive esophagitis.
Loop and thiazide diuretics deplete magnesium, potassium, and zinc.
Mental status changes may become evident and may include irritability, disorientation, depression, psychosis, delirium, and coma. Cardiac arrhythmias and reversible respiratory muscle failure can also occur in severe hypomagnesemia.
If a person regularly uses antacids, proton pump inhibitors, and other acid-blocking medications, it could cause poor magnesium absorption. Conversely, consuming high levels of magnesium through antacids or supplementation can cause diarrhea, nausea, and stomach cramping.
Among the known magnesium deficiency causes are prescription medications such as diuretics, antibiotics, painkillers and cortisone, which can deplete magnesium levels in the body by impairing absorption or by increasing excretion by the kidneys.
However, despite this mineral's importance, it is poorly understood from several standpoints, not the least of which is its unique mechanism of absorption and sensitive compartmental handling in the body, making the determination of magnesium status difficult.
If your body doesn't have enough magnesium, it can put you at risk of mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. A 2019 study published in the journal Nutrients found that people with low blood levels of magnesium were more likely to have symptoms of depression.
Gastrointestinal losses. Impaired gastrointestinal magnesium absorption is a common underlying basis for hypomagnesemia, especially when the small bowel is involved, due to disorders associated with malabsorption, chronic diarrhea, or steatorrhea, or as a result of bypass surgery on the small intestine.
Risk factors for hypomagnesemia
You may be at greater risk for hypomagnesemia if one of the following applies to you: You have diabetes. You're an alcoholic. You're breastfeeding.
In developed countries, older data estimated that the prevalence of marginal magnesium deficit is 15%–20% of the population. This corroborates more recent data indicating that around 10%–30% of a given population has subclinical magnesium deficiency based on serum magnesium levels <0.80 mmol/L.
Magnesium deficiency can cause a wide variety of features including hypocalcaemia, hypokalaemia and cardiac and neurological manifestations. Chronic low magnesium state has been associated with a number of chronic diseases including diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and osteoporosis.
Loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and weakness are some of the early signs and symptoms of magnesium deficiency. As the condition progresses, people with magnesium deficiency may experience numbness, muscle contractions and cramps, seizures, abnormal heart rhythms, coronary spasms, and other symptoms.
Gitelman syndrome is a recessive salt-wasting disorder characterized by hypomagnesemia, hypokalemia, metabolic alkalosis and hypocalciuria.
Magnesium can lower the absorption of bisphosphonates, some antibiotics and antiviral medications, and gabapentin (Neurontin) if they're taken together. In some cases, separating the two products can help you avoid the interaction.
GLP-1 medications like Ozempic can lower appetite, which may lead to low levels of vitamins A, B12, D, and E — especially for people already at risk due to obesity or Type 2 diabetes. And digestive side effects, such as vomiting or diarrhea, can lead to low magnesium and potassium levels.
This medicine may cause hypomagnesemia (low magnesium in the blood). This is more likely to occur if you are taking this medicine for more than 1 year, or if you are taking this medicine together with digoxin (Lanoxin®) or certain diuretics or "water pills".
Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are the gold standard treatment for gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and are among the top selling drugs in the United States, with estimated direct and indirect costs exceeding $10 billion per year.
Researchers found that breathing exercises can strengthen the LES. With breathing exercises, you breathe deeply using your diaphragm, a muscle below your lungs. The study showed that breathing exercises may help tighten the diaphragm muscle. This allows the LES to work better at keeping stomach acid where it belongs.
Serious side effects
stomach pain that gets worse, the whites of your eyes turn yellow or your skin turns yellow (this may be less obvious on brown or black skin), or dark pee – these can be signs of liver problems.