Mineral knowledge · Brucitfeld editorial team
Between the inside and the outside of the cell prevails a delicate relationship between charged particles. Brucitfeld gathers what the European Commission has authorized regarding magnesium and places it within the physiology of these relationships — in the exact wording, without emphasis.
To the detailed versionAtomic number 12 · Macromineral
Reference value 375 mg per day
About sixty percent of the human body consists of water, and this water is never pure. Dissolved in it are mineral salts dissociated into their constituents: positively charged particles such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium, as well as negatively charged particles such as chloride, phosphate, and bicarbonate. These charged particles are called electrolytes, because a solution containing them conducts electricity.
The notion of balance does not denote a rigid constancy here. It concerns a relationship that the organism continually readjusts — between the intracellular space, the intercellular space, and the blood plasma. Magnesium resides there predominantly inside the cells; blood serum contains barely one percent of the total stock.
The European Food Safety Authority has examined the data relating to this connection. On the basis of its opinions, the European Commission has authorized two claims, quoted on this page in their exact wording. What does not appear there does not appear here either.
An adult carries about 24 grams of magnesium. Slightly more than half is integrated into the mineral framework of the bones, another small third is found in the skeletal musculature. The rest is distributed between the liver, the heart muscle, and other tissues. Because the share present in the blood is so small, an isolated serum measurement says little about the cellular stock — a point debated in the literature for decades.
The kidney is the regulating organ of this balance. Each day it filters a considerable quantity of magnesium from the blood and recovers the greater part of it in the loop of Henle. The amount that ends up in the urine depends on dietary intake.
In the cell, magnesium is rarely free. It binds to adenosine triphosphate, the molecule in which cells store their usable energy. The biologically active complex is therefore called Mg-ATP. Without this bound ion, the enzymes concerned cannot break the energy-rich bond. More than three hundred enzymatic reactions are counted in which magnesium acts as a cofactor.
One of these reactions concerns the sodium-potassium pump of the cell membrane. It expels sodium and brings potassium in, thereby maintaining the charge difference across the membrane. Its motor is Mg-ATP. It is at this level that energy balance and electrolyte relationships come together.
Brucitfeld is an editorial compilation, not a diagnostic offering. We quote reference values, not individual quantities. We quote authorized claims but formulate none of our own. Anyone wishing to know where their own mineral balance stands will find the answer in a medical practice and not in a text.
Fifty-eight pages devoted to a single mineral: absorption pathways in the small intestine, the role of the kidney, content tables for thirty-six foods, a comparison of the common chemical forms, and the two authorized EU claims with their reference.
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The following four points summarize the subject of this page. The claims quoted are reproduced without modification from the European Union register of authorized health claims.
In the organism, magnesium is present as a doubly positively charged ion. Together with sodium, potassium, and calcium, it determines the distribution of charged particles between the fluid compartments. This distribution in turn determines how much water flows toward one compartment or another and what voltage is established across a cell membrane.
Pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 432/2012
A muscle contraction begins when calcium flows from the sarcoplasmic reticulum into the fiber and binds there to the troponin complex. Magnesium acts at these same binding sites as an antagonist and at the same time participates in the return of calcium. Contraction and relaxation are thus two sides of the same ionic interplay.
Pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 432/2012
The ion sits at the center of the chlorophyll molecule — green leafy vegetables are therefore an obvious source. Pumpkin and sunflower seeds, almonds, cashews, rolled oats, whole grain bread, legumes, and dark chocolate also provide notable amounts. Mineral-rich water contributes measurably as well. The reference value of the European food information regulation is 375 mg per day.
Magnesium is absorbed mainly in the small intestine, partly via the TRPM6 channel, partly passively between the cells. The absorption rate decreases as the amount taken at one time increases — smaller portions spread over the day are proportionally better utilized than one large one. Phytic acid from grain hulls and very high amounts of calcium can reduce absorption. What is not used leaves the organism via the kidney and the intestine.
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