Magnesium Shows Promise to Reduce Heart Failure Risk
VA Research News Briefs

Photo: ©iStock/Iuliia Pilipeichenko
(04/02/2025)
A team of Washington D.C. VA researchers used an inventive approach to show magnesium supplements provide a small but significant risk reduction in heart failure in patients with diabetes. The research team used natural language processing to scour the medical records of almost 95,000 Veterans to find those diagnosed with diabetes who reported using magnesium supplements. They then matched them across 88 characteristics with a group of Veterans with diabetes who did not. The researchers found in the magnesium supplement group, 8% experienced heart failure, while almost 10% in the non-magnesium group experienced heart failure. The magnesium supplement group also showed a reduced risk of major adverse cardiac events. This novel research could serve as the basis for testing magnesium in randomized controlled trials in patients with diabetes. (Journal of the American Heart Association, Mar. 26, 2025)