Editorial

ARTICLE

Auteur(s) : Jean Durlach 

Editor-in-Chief, Magnesium Research
President, SDRM

This issue brings together experimental and clinical papers on a multidisciplinary and international basis. 

1. Four original experimental papers are presented.

I.T. Mak et al. (Washington DC, USA) examined the regulatory role of Substance-P (SP) on neutrophil and endothelium activation as well as nitric oxide (NO) production induced by magnesium deficiency in male Sprague-Dawley rats. SP plays a direct role in promoting activation of the neutrophil and endothelium as well as in induction of NO production. These processes might participate in the oxydative stress that contributes to the depletion of blood glutathione and to cardiomyopathic lesions. 

O. König et al. (Berlin, Germany) assessed whether magnesium had a protective effect on hypoxia-inducced hair cell loss using an in vitro model of the new-born rat cochlea. This study supports previous in vivo observations in the guinea pig demonstrating the protective effect of magnesium on noise-induced impairment of inner ear oxygenation. 

K. Pasternak et al. (Lublin, Poland) studied the influence of α-zearalenol on magnesium concentration in cellular subfraction of various tissues of female rats and of their progeny. α-zearanelol influenced magnesium concentrations in tissue cellular subfractions in both female rats and in their progeny. The changes in magnesium concentrations depended on α-zearalenol doses and on tissue nature. The magnesium disturbances were higher in female rats than in the progeny tissues through a protective mechanism of mother-rat organisms. 

T. Shogi et al. (Kagoshima, Japan) examined the mechanisms underlying the enhanced release of IL-1β and TNFα following endotoxine challenge from rat alveolar macrophages cultured in a low-Mg²⁺ medium. This enhanced release partly depends on the enhanced synthesis of both cytokines and occurs partly via identical and partly via different signaling pathways. 

2. Next come three original clinical papers. 

K. Ueshima et al. (Morioka, Japan) investigated the relationship between cytokines, matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) and severity of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) on the one hand, and the effects of intravenous MgSO4 pretreatment on the myocardial damage in coronary reperfusion therapy in patients with AMI. The severity of AMI is reflected in blood IL6 and MMP-1 concentrations. Pretreatment with intravenous MgSO4 administration protects the myocardium of patients with AMI from reperfusion injury. 

S. Banerjee et al. (Tel Aviv, Israel) tested the hypotheses according to which infants of gestational diabetic mothers are at risk for neonatal hypocalcemia, which would be related to decrease whole blood Mg²⁺ concentration. It seems that magnesium deficit plays a role in neonatal hypocalcemia of infants of gestational diabetic mothers. 

Z. Zavaczki et al. (Szeged, Hungary) conducted a randomized placebo controlled trial on the effect of a daily magnesium orotate supplement (equivalent to 196,8 mg of Mg) during 3 months in idiopathic infertile male patients. This treatment was uneffective. 

3. Abstracts of the last issues of the Journal of Elementology, the bulk of the abstracts of 2 Mg meetings: “2nd meeting of the Israel Society for Magnesium Research” and “IIIrd ian Magnesium Symposium”, the Calendar of Magnesium Meetings followed by the Forthcoming Contents complete this second 2003 issue of our quarterly international journal “Magnesium Research”.