Assignment 4

Muhammad Tayyab

BBT193011

Functional Genomics

Dr. Sehar Fazal

Date: 3rd January, 2023

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Contents
Myth ........................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction: ............................................................................................................................... 3

References: ................................................................................................................................. 5

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Myth
Eating spinach helps in lowering blood pressure.

Introduction:
Magnesium affects blood pressure by modulating vascular tone and reactivity. It acts as a
calcium channel antagonist; it stimulates production of vasodilator prostacyclin and nitric oxide
and it alters vascular responses to vasoactive agonists. Magnesium deficiency has been
implicated in the pathogenesis of hypertension with epidemiological and experimental studies
demonstrating an inverse correlation between blood pressure and serum magnesium levels.
Magnesium also influences glucose and insulin homeostasis, and hypomagnesemia is
associated with metabolic syndrome. Although most epidemiological and experimental studies
support a role for low magnesium in the pathophysiology of hypertension.

Magnesium regulating Different pathways

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Magnesium influences blood pressure regulation by modulating vascular tone and reactivity.
The direct vascular effect of magnesium was first suggested in the early 1900s when it was
observed in clinical studies that magnesium salt infusion lowers blood pressure via a reduction
in peripheral vascular resistance in spite of a slight increase in myocardial contractility.

Human essential hypertension is a complex, multifactorial, quantitative trait under polygenic

control. Although the exact etiology is unknown, the fundamental hemodynamic abnormality
in hypertension is increased peripheral resistance, due primarily to changes in vascular
structure and function. These changes include arterial wall thickening, abnormal vascular tone
and endothelial dysfunction and are due to alterations in the biology of the cellular and non-
cellular components of the arterial wall. Many of these processes are influenced by magnesium.
Small changes in magnesium levels may have significant effects on cardiac excitability and on
vascular tone, contractility and reactivity.

Accordingly, magnesium may be important in the physiological regulation of blood pressure

whereas perturbations in cellular magnesium homeostasis could play a role in
pathophysiological processes underlying blood pressure elevation. For the most part,
epidemiological and experimental studies demonstrate an inverse association between
magnesium and blood pressure and support a role for magnesium in the pathogenesis of
hypertension. However, data from clinical studies have been less convincing and the
therapeutic value of magnesium in the prevention and management of essential hypertension
remains unclear. In view of the still ill-defined role of magnesium in clinical hypertension,
magnesium supplementation is advised in those hypertensive patients who are receiving
diuretics, who have resistant or secondary hypertension or who have frank magnesium
deficiency. A magnesium-rich diet should be encouraged in the prevention of hypertension,
particularly in predisposed communities because of the other advantages of such a diet in
prevention. The clinical aspect that has demonstrated the greatest therapeutic potential for
magnesium in hypertension, is in the treatment of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia.

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References:
Sontia, B., & Touyz, R. M. (2007). Role of magnesium in hypertension. Archives of
biochemistry and biophysics, 458(1), 33-39.

Touyz, R. M. (2003). Role of magnesium in the pathogenesis of hypertension. Molecular

aspects of medicine, 24(1-3), 107-136.

Rylander, R., & Arnaud, M. J. (2004). Mineral water intake reduces blood pressure among
subjects with low urinary magnesium and calcium levels. BMC public health, 4(1), 1-5.

Schutten, J. C., Joosten, M. M., de Borst, M. H., & Bakker, S. J. (2018). Magnesium and blood
pressure: a physiology-based approach. Advances in chronic kidney disease, 25(3), 244-250.

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