Dietary magnesium intake and coronary heart disease risk: a study from Serbia.

AIM: To assess the relationship between dietary magnesium intake and the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).

METHODS

A conducted case-control study included 290 randomly selected cases (mean age 59.98 +/- 10.03 years) with first event of an acute coronary syndrome and 290 selected controls paired by sex, age and region (mean age 59.43 +/- 10.10 years) admitted to the same hospitals without any suspicion of coronary disease. A diet was assessed by an interviewer-administered semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire, and magnesium intake was derived from the nutrient database.

RESULTS

Subjects with coronary heart disease had significantly lower intake of foods containing high levels of magnesium like whole grain (p<0.0001), legumes (p<0.05) and nuts (p<0.05). Lower dietary magnesium intake was found to be positively associated with risk of coronary heart disease (0.027).

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that dietary intake of magnesium was associated with reduced risk of coronary heart disease among Serbian population.