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MAGNESIUM - AN ANCIENT MINERAL AND THE TODAY-S DEFICIENCY

Despina-Maria Bordean

Abstract

Magnesium deficiency is on the rise due to intensive industrialized farming practices, food processing and evolution of human diets. Human nutrition needs great amount of magnesium, Mg deficiencies being rampant in many developed and developing countries mostly due to dietary reliance on vegetal food with low Mg concentrations. Magnesium is an element that we might describe today as an ancient mineral but essential to life, being a vital factor within our cells, helping to maintain balance, achieve performance under stress, avoid disease and preserve good health. Concentration of Mg is often low in the tissue of fruits, seeds and tubers but high in leafy vegetables. Magnesium is a phloem-mobile element and is readily translocated to fruits, seeds and tubers. Magnesium alike other minerals are vulnerable to the reductions in soil quality and if magnesium is not present in the soil the minerals will be absent in the vegetal cultivated. There are fertilizers which are taken up by the plants and reduce the amount of magnesium absorption. A solution to this situation might be fortification and/or biofortification as well as using magnesium fertilizers to increase Mg concentrations in edible crops. Hence, it is necessary to regulate mineral content in crops as most of the modern industrialized farming practices do not take into consideration the mineral levels of crops produced when choosing fertilizers.

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