An article in the January 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association reports the finding of an association between higher magnesium levels and a decreased risk of coronary artery disease and sudden cardiac death over a follow-up of 8.7 years.
Researchers at Erasmus MC–University Medical Center in The Netherlands evaluated data from 9,820 participants from a study of men and women aged 55 and older for whom serum magnesium levels were available. Among 2,303 deaths over follow-up, 780 were attributed to cardiovascular disease, of which 431 were classified as coronary artery disease deaths, including 187 sudden cardiac deaths.
For subjects whose serum magnesium was categorized as low, there was a 36% higher risk of coronary heart disease and a 54% greater risk of sudden cardiac death in comparison with those who had levels in the middle range.
The results from this and previous studies may provide a rationale to design intervention studies to analyze whether magnesium supplementation could prove to be effective in lowering the burden of coronary artery disease mortality and sudden cardiac death was the conclusion.