Efficacy of potassium and magnesium in essential hypertension: a double-blind, placebo controlled, crossover study.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Magnesium Chloride.

To evaluate the antihypertensive activity of potassium given alone or in combination with magnesium in patients with mild hypertension.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 37 adults taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Cardiology outpatient department, Sassoon General Hospitals, Pune, India.

37 Adults with mild hypertension (diastolic blood pressure less than 110 mm Hg).

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Magnesium Chloride and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the adults nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Magnesium Chloride, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some adults received a placebo instead of Magnesium Chloride, giving a reference point.

In the crossover set-up each of the adults took both Magnesium Chloride and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

A double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of 32 weeks' duration.

No other drug treatment was allowed.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Cholesterol, Drug Combinations, Hypertension, Magnesium Chloride and Potassium Chloride.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Magnesium Chloride in 37 adults.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 6 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 1990 (BMJ (Clinical research ed.)), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.