ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests an inverse relationship of magnesium in drinking water to cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases. Cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension and coronary artery disease, are major causes world-wide of both morbidity and mortality and are of unknown etiology. Investigations into the potential effects on health of the geochemical environment appear to have begun in the late 1950s and in the early 1960s independently in several areas of the world. Glasgow has an extremely soft water supply and the highest death rate for cardiovascular disease in Britain, whereas greater London has extremely hard drinking water and a much lower mortality rate from such disease. Magnesium deficiency may also be a factor in some deaths associated with mechanical failure of the heart, since magnesium is essential for oxidative phosphorylation, and necessary for the replenishment of adenosine triphosphate to maintain strength of muscular contraction.
