We appreciate the comments made by Dr. Corsonello and co-workers but will now address
some of the concerns raised by this group. There were questions regarding the population
used and the probability of there being high rates of insulin resistance. The study
is population based with the only specific limitations on participation being age,
inability to attend for blood collection and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA),
and presence of severe metabolic, cardiovascular or endocrine disorders. The clinical
and biochemical description of the study population are available in this and other
publications from our group [
[1]
]. The definition of ‘healthy’ is relative to specifically identified conditions in
our exclusion criteria and conditions within our study population that have been specifically
identified for examination, such as type 2 diabetes. As to the prevalence of obesity
in the study population, 19.9% were obese based on the definition of WHO [
[2]
] using BMI. There is no consensus on definition of obesity based on DEXA measurements
at the present time. The reference values for percent body fat based on DEXA are dependent
on gender and age [
[3]
]. The relationship between serum magnesium and insulin resistance was analyzed using
several approaches including multivariate linear regression analysis. No significant
association was detected between serum magnesium and insulin resistance in the entire
study, even when subjects with type 2 diabetes were excluded from the analysis. Furthermore,
we have subsequently eliminated all obese subjects (BMI > 30), or those with impaired fasting glucose (serum glucose ≥ 5.6 mmol/L), before data analysis in the study group and reanalyzed the data. In all cases
the results were qualitatively similar to those of the original work showing serum
total cholesterol as an independent predictor of serum magnesium levels.Keywords
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References
- Altered calcium homeostasis is correlated with abnormalities of fasting serum glucose, insulin resistance and β-cell function in the Newfoundland population.Diabetes. 2005; 54: 3336-3339
WHO. Obesity: preventing and managing the global epidemic. Report of a WHO Consultation. WHO Technical Report Series 894. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2000.
- Healthy percentage body fat ranges: an approach for developing guidelines based on body mass index.Am J Clin Nutr. 2000; 72: 694-701
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- Hypomagnesemia is linked to low serum HDL-cholesterol irrespective of serum glucose values.J Diabetes Complicat. 2000; 14: 272-276
- Serum and dietary magnesium and the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study.Arch Int Med. 1999; 159: 2151-2159
- Correlation of serum magnesium and serum lipid levels in hemodialysis patients.Nephron. 1998; 78: 118-119
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 02, 2007
Received:
February 5,
2007
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© 2007 Published by Elsevier Inc.
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- Serum magnesium and lipids: More clarity is neededAtherosclerosisVol. 192Issue 1
- PreviewIn their recent paper, Randell et al. reported that serum magnesium levels were directly correlated with total, HDL- and LDL-cholesterol in a large adult study population [1]. This paper is very interesting, and the possibility that the relationship between magnesium and lipoproteins in healthy subjects may have different meaning from that in diabetic patients merits attention. Furthermore, we agree that a binding interaction between magnesium and lipoprotein could at least partially account for these results.
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