Making sure young girls get enough magnesium may help keep their bones strong, according to new research. But the findings are too preliminary for any blanket recommendations to be made on taking magnesium supplements for bone health.
Dr Thomas O. Carpenter of Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health. "There's a number of caveats that have to be taken into account," he said.
Magnesium plays a key role in bone formation, and many young women don't get enough of the mineral, Carpenter and his team note in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
The girls given magnesium showed significantly greater bone mineral content in the hip than those who took placebo, while their spinal bone mineral content also was greater, but not significantly so, the researchers found.