BACKGROUND: Magnesium deficiency can cause dyslipidemia and insulin hypersecretion, which may facilitate gallstone formation. However, the effect of long-term consumption of magnesium on the risk of gallstone disease is unknown.
METHODS: We prospectively studied magnesium consumption and risk of gallstone disease in a cohort of 42,705 U.S. men from 1986 to 2002. Magnesium consumption was assessed using a validated semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. Newly diagnosed gallstone disease was ascertained biennially.
RESULTS: We documented 2,195 incident cases of symptomatic gallstones during 560,810 person-years of follow-up. The age-adjusted relative risks (RRs) for men with total magnesium intake and dietary magnesium, when the highest and lowest quintiles were compared, were 0.67 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.59-0.77, P for trend <0.0001) and 0.67 (CI 0.59-0.76, P for trend <0.0001), respectively.
After adjusting for multiple potential confounding variables, when extreme quintiles were compared, the multivariate RR of total magnesium intake (RR 0.72, CI 0.61-0.86, P for trend = 0.006) and dietary magnesium (RR 0.68, CI 0.57-0.82, P for trend = 0.0006) remained significant with a dose-response relationship.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest a protective role of magnesium consumption in the prevention of symptomatic gallstone disease among men.
Magnesium may help but it's not foolproof. I'm a long time user of magnesium citrate at bedtime. I just had a CT scan two weeks ago and it showed numerous gallstones and kidney stones. I've ordered IP-6 to combat the kidney stones.
The CT scan was to determine what was causing recurring bladder infections. The urologist thinks it was a varicose looking vein on my prostate that she found on today's cystoscope. I think I may have caused some bleeding while doing heavy lifting. She prescribed terazosin for my prostate.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2008) — A new University of Illinois study shows that exercise-trained mice get far fewer gallstones than sedentary mice and identifies potential mechanisms to explain why this occurs.
"For the first time, we have direct evidence that physical activity reduces gallstone formation, adding to the ever-increasing number of reasons that people should get more exercise,"said Kenneth Wilund, a faculty member in the U of I Division of Nutritional Sciences and an Assistant Professor in Kinesiology and Community Health.
Gallbladder disease affects 10 to 25 percent of adults in the United States, although some persons who are affected may not have symptoms. It has the second highest cost of any digestive disease at $5.8 billion annually and results in over 800,000 hospitalizations each year.
Gallstones form when bile cholesterol levels become high enough to precipitate, fall out of solution, and solidify, Wilund said.
In the study, 50 mice from a gallstone-susceptible strain were fed a high-fat diet containing cholic acid, which helps increase cholesterol absorption. They were then divided into two groups. One group of mice ran on treadmills 45 minutes per day five days a week; the other group did not exercise.
After 12 weeks, the scientists removed the animals' gallbladders, pooling the stones from each group and weighing them. The gallstones in the sedentary group weighed two and a half times more than the stones in the exercised group.
"You could see through the gallbladders in the exercise-trained group, whereas the gallbladders in the sedentary group were full of stones," Wilund said.
To understand more about why this happened, the scientists then measured the expression of selected genes in the liver and intestine that are involved in cholesterol absorption and may affect gallstone development.
"In the exercised mice, we saw an increase in the expression of two genes (LDLr and SRB1) that help bring cholesterol into the liver to 'clear' it from the circulation. But we also found that a protein called Cyp27 was upregulated about two a half times; this resulted in there being more bile acids to solubilize the increased cholesterol so it didn't turn into gallstones.
"Taken together, the differences in gene expression between the exercised and sedentary mice in this study show how exercise training could simultaneously improve cholesterol levels while also inhibiting gallstone formation," he said.
Previous observational studies have suggested that people who are physically fit have fewer gallstones and lower cholesterol, but laboratory studies had not confirmed the link.
Wilund said these mice are a useful model because humans have a similar set of genes that regulate liver and bile cholesterol metabolism. He also said that human studies would be difficult to perform because of the number of years it takes for people to develop gallstones.
"We certainly found the changes in gene expression in the exercised animals very intriguing," he said. "The results add to a body of evidence that supports the importance of physical activity for good health."
Co-authors of the study are Laura A. Feeney, Emily J. Tomayko, and Hae R. Chung of the University of Illinois and Kijin Kim of Keimyung University in Daegu, Korea. Funding was provided by the University of Illinois Research Board.
If you are suffering from recurring kidney stones, start drinking lemonade concentrate. The drink is one of the most effective ways of stopping the problem, as a small study has discovered.
It’s been tested on 11 patients who had recurring kidney stones caused by low urinary citrate excretion. Every day they drank two litres of water that included 120 ml of concentrated lemon juice containing 5.9 g o citric acid.
After several years of treatment, they reported an 87 per cent decrease in stone formation.
Reference:"Impact of Long-Term Potassium Citrate Therapy on Urinary Profiles and Recurrent Stone Formation," Robinson MR, Leitao VA, et al, J Urol, 2009 Jan 17; [Epub ahead of print]. (Address: Comprehensive Kidney Stone Center, Division of Urologic Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA. E-mail: Glenn M. Preminger, [email protected] ).
Summary: In a retrospective cohort study involving 503 patients being treated in a Comprehensive Kidney Stone Center, potassium citrate therapy was found to significantly reduce the rate of kidney stone formation, from 1.89 stones per year to 0.46 stones per year. A 93% decrease in stone formation rate and a 68% remission rate were found. After just six months of treatment with potassium citrate, increases in urinary pH (from 5.90 to 6.46) and urinary citrate (470 to 700 mg/d) were found. The authors conclude, "Potassium citrate provides a significant alkali and citraturic response during short-term and long-term therapy with the change in urinary metabolic profiles sustained as long as 14 years of treatment. Moreover, long-term potassium citrate significantly decreases the stone formation rate, confirming its usefulness in patients with recurrent nephrolithiasis."
Magnesium May Prevent Gallstones
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