Magnesium Deficiency and Minimal Hepatic Encephalopathy among Patients with Compensated Liver Cirrhosis.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, published as a randomized controlled trial.

To assess the correlation between intracellular and serum magnesium levels and minimal hepatic encephalopathy.

Why It Was Studied

Magnesium is an essential intracellular cation.

Magnesium deficiency is common in the general population and its prevalence among patients with cirrhosis is even higher.

Who Took Part

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

Outpatients with a diagnosis of compensated liver cirrhosis were enrolled in this randomized, double-blinded study.

Patients were recruited for the study from November 2013 to January 2014, and were randomly assigned to a control (placebo) or an interventional (treated with magnesium oxide) group.

How the Study Was Run

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

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group a baseline to be compared against.

Serum and intracellular magnesium levels were measured at enrollment and at the end of the study.

Cognitive function was assessed by a specialized occupational therapist.

What Was Measured

Correlation between serum levels and total body content is poor because most magnesium is intracellular.

The subject headings attached to it are Cognition Disorders, Hepatic Encephalopathy, Liver Cirrhosis, Magnesium Deficiency, Magnesium Oxide and Neuropsychological Tests.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 7 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2018 (The Israel Medical Association journal : IMAJ), a journal based in Israel.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.