Rising Ca;Mg intake ratio from food in USA Adults: a concern?
The large, genetically variable population of the United State of America (USA) has spent decades consuming a modern, processed food diet.
The majority of this population has recently been shown to consume, with foods, well below their daily Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) of nutritional magnesium (Mg) (table 1). Many also consume below the amount of calcium (Ca) considered to be an adequate intake with their foods [2]. The ratio between these two nutrients (Ca:Mg) is rarely calculated, monitored or reported.
As early as 1964, in a quantitative review of human balance studies, M.S. Seelig reported dietary Ca to be a factor in the retention of dietary Mg [3].
Seelig further considered the impact of high Ca with low Mg intakes on physiological Ca:Mg ratios affect- ing myocardium and intravascular coagulation in later reviews [4-6], and in 1978, a population’s Ca:Mg intake ratio was seen as important to ischemic heart disease death rates [7].