Serum magnesium in relation with obesity

Background: Obesity is the leading public health crisis of our time. A chronic imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure will eventually lead to obesity. Several micronutrients are found to be involved in the development of obesity. Magnesium is found to have some role in the development of obesity. Aims and Objective: Objective of this study was to evaluate the correlation of serum magnesium with different parameters of obesity such as body weight, basal metabolic rate, waist circumference (WC), and waist-hip ratio on the basis of the hypothesis that subjects with hypomagnesemia are more prone to develop obesity. Materials and Methods: This is a population-based cross-sectional study. A total of 130 apparently healthy adults of age between 25 and 65 years, were recruited with prior ethical approval and written informed consent. Results: Serum magnesium was found to have significant negative correlation with body weight (r = −0.30, P = 0.003) and WC (r = −0.21, P = 0.03). Correlation with rest of the parameters was not significant. Conclusion: On the basis of results it is concluded that hypomagnesemia can be proved to be one of the important predictors of obesity.