Adequate dietary magnesium intake may protect females but not males older than 55 years from cognitive impairment

ABSTRACT

Background

Magnesium is an essential nutrient required to maintain brain health throughout life, and adequate magnesium intake is positively associated with cognitive performance in older adults. However, sex differences in magnesium metabolism have not been adequately assessed in humans.

Objectives

We investigated sex differences in the effect of dietary magnesium intake and the risk of different types of cognitive impairment in older Chinese adults.

Methods

We collected and assessed dietary data and cognitive function status in people aged 55 years and older in northern China who participated in the Community Cohort Study of Nervous System Diseases from 2018 to 2019 to explore the relationship between dietary magnesium intake and the risk of each type of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in sex-specific cohorts of older adults.

Results

The study included 612 people: 260 (42.5%) men and 352 (57.5%) women. Logistic regression results showed that for the total sample and women's sample, high dietary magnesium intake reduced the risk of amnestic MCI (OR_total = 0.300; OR_women = 0.190) and multidomain amnestic MCI (OR_total = 0.225; OR_women = 0.145). The results of restricted cubic spline analysis showed that the risk of amnestic MCI (p_total = 0.0193; p_women = 0.0351) and multidomain amnestic MCI (p_total = 0.0089; p_women = 0.0096) in the total sample and women's sample gradually decreased with increasing dietary magnesium intake.

Conclusions

The results suggest that adequate magnesium intake may have a preventive effect against the risk of MCI in older women.

KEYWORDS:

• Dietary magnesium intake
• MCI
• MCI subtype
• Sex differences
• Older adults
• Logistic regression
• Restricted cubic spline
• MoCA scale

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary materials, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the [Community Cohort Study on Specialized Nervous System Diseases] under Grant [No.2017YFC0907701].

Notes on contributors

Xian Gao

Xian Gao, male, PhD candidate, Nutrition and disease major, working in Gastrointestinal Surgery Department, The First Hospital of Hebei Medical University.

Yan Sun

Yan Sun, male, Master candidate, Hebei Medical University.

Xin Huang

Xin Huang, male, Master candidate, Hebei Medical University, working in Handan Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Yutian Zhou

Yutian Zhou, male, Master candidate, Hebei Medical University.

Huichen Zhu

Huichen Zhu, female, Master candidate, Hebei Medical University.

Qingxia Li

Qingxia Li, female, Master candidate, Hebei Medical University.

Yuxia Ma

Yuxia Ma, female, PhD, Nutrition and disease major, Vice President, School of Public Health, Hebei Medical University.