Elevated serum magnesium levels are strongly linked to higher mortality in sepsis, suggesting a critical role for magnesium in assessing sepsis risk and guiding treatment strategies. Study: High serum magnesium level is associated with increased mortality in patients with sepsis: an international, multicenter retrospective study. Image Credit: sfam_photo / Shutterstock.
com Sepsis refers to life-threatening organ dysfunction that develops following a dysregulated host response to infection. In 2017 alone, about 49 million cases of sepsis were reported worldwide, with about 19.7% of all mortality rates attributed to sepsis.
Thus, an urgent need remains to quickly identify sepsis to initiate supportive and antibiotic management. A recent report published in MedComm investigates the association between magnesium levels and mortality. The importance of magnesium Magnesium is the second most abundant intracellular cation.
This element is key to multiple enzymatic reactions involved in the synthesis of essential biomolecules like nucleic acids and proteins and energy metabolism. Low magnesium levels correlate with a poor prognosis among patients with cardiometabolic disease and depression. In fact, previous studies have reported an association between hypomagnesemia and increased severity of illness and mortality rates among intensive care unit (ICU) patients.
Hypermagnesemia is also associated with higher death rates among severely ill children, those diagnosed with the coronavirus.