ABSTRACT
Whatever the age, nervous forms of magnesium deficit represent the most commonly seen form in clinical practice. 1 First of all, it seems very important to discriminate between the two types of magnesium deficit: magnesium deficiency and magnesium depletion. In the case of magnesium deficiency, the disorder corresponds to an insufficient magnesium intake: it merely requires oral physiological magnesium supplementation. In the case of magnesium depletion the disorder which induces magnesium deficit is related to a dysregulation of the control mechanisms of magnesium metabolism, either failure of the mechanisms which insure magnesium homeostasis or intervention of endogenous or iatrogenic perturbating factors of the magnesium status. Magnesium depletion requires more or less specific correction of its causal dysregulation. 1 It should not be permitted today to extrapolate from physiological data observed in overt acute magnesium deficiency to physiological consequences of chronic magnesium deficiency. Although acute and chronic magnesium deficiencies are specifically reversible through oral magnesium supplementation with physiological doses, the experimental and clinical symptoms may differ. The typical pattern of chronic magnesium deficiency is latent whereas overt signs are observed in acute magnesium deficiency.
