Antiarrhythmic effects of increasing the daily intake of magnesium and potassium in patients with frequent ventricular arrhythmias. Magnesium in Cardiac Arrhythmias (MAGICA) Investigators.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Magnesium and Potassium, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Magnesium and potassium contribute essentially to the electrical stability of the heart.

Despite experimental and clinical evidence for the antiarrhythmic properties of the two minerals, controlled data in patients with stable ventricular arrhythmias are lacking.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 232 patients taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

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

As a double-blind Magnesium study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Magnesium could be set against what happens without it.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Anti-Arrhythmia Agents, Arrhythmias, Cardiac, Food, Fortified, Heart, Magnesium, Nutritional Requirements and Potassium.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Magnesium and Potassium in 232 patients.

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 1997 (Journal of the American College of Cardiology), a journal based in United States.

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