Serum magnesium among diabetics and non diabetics- A case control study

 

 

Abstract              Background: Low serum magnesium level has long been known to be associated with diabetes mellitus invariably in all age groups, both types of diabetes and regardless of the type of therapy. Hence this study was planned to measure the levels of serum magnesium among diabetics and healthy individuals and to assess the link between magnesium levels and HbA1c value and microvascular complications of diabetes. Methods: This case control study was conducted among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients and non diabetic patients attending outpatient and inpatient department of general medicine in Sri Muthukumaran Medical College and Research Institute during November 2019. A total of eighty patients were included among them, forty known type 2 diabetes mellitus patients (cases) and forty non diabetic patients (controls), were included. Data was entered in Microsoft excel and data analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17. Results: Mean of serum magnesium among diabetic cases and controls were 1.28±0.48 mg/dl and 2.23±0.21 mg/dl, respectively. The difference was found to be highly statistically significant. Also among the diabetic cases the mean serum magnesium levels were much low among cases with micro vascular complications of diabetes than the cases without micro vascular complications. Conclusion: Estimation of magnesium levels in all type 2 diabetes mellitus patients can be recommended, in order to diagnose and treat hypomagnesemia which in turn can prevent the complications of diabetes mellitus.

Key Words: serum magnesium, diabetes mellitus, non diabetic controls.