Muscle injuries and excessive lactate overloads in training or at the end of a season in team sports or at the end of competition preparation in endurance and individual sports are concomitant symptoms in top-level sport, quickly preventing optimal results as well as competition participation. Is whole blood magnesium deficiency responsible for these problems in elite athletes and will magnesium supplementation improve their muscle metabolism or lactate-pyruvate-metabolism? Methods: In 70 elite athletes [male: 35female: 35 / soccer: 19field hockey: 27 -Olympics: 15tennis: 5motorsports (DTM-Formula1): 4] whole blood magnesium were determined. In 25 athletes serum and whole blood magnesium, creatine kinase (CK), venous pyruvate and lactate and the mitochondrial energy level ATP were determined before and after 3 months of daily supplementation with 370mg magnesium and statistically correlated. A Spearman-ranking coefficient of correlation, a chi-quadrat-test by Pearson and an independent t-test were used. p<0.05 was supposed to be significant, p<0.01 highly significant.Results: In 27.1% of all elite athletes (N=19/70) a whole blood magnesium deficiency (vMg<1.29 mmol/l) was proved. Female athletes were significantly worst supplied than the male athletes [vMg: 1.33 ± 0.11 mmol/l vs. 1.41 ± 0.13 mmol/l (p<0.024].Whole blood magnesium (1.31 ± 0.15 mmol/l before vs 1.45 ± 0.09 mmol/l after therapy, p<0.00025), serum magnesium (0.78 ± 0.06 mmol/l before vs 0.93 ± 0.05 mmol/l after therapy, p<0.00025), the venous pyruvate (0.21 ± 0.12 mg/dl before vs 0.39 ± 0.10 mg/dl after therapy, p<0.00025) and mitochondrial ATP (90.56 ± 10.11 %T cells before vs 99.07 ± 1.21 %T cells after therapy, p<0.00025) significantly increased after 3 month supplementation of 370mg magnesiumoxide. Venou slactate (10.62 ± 3.50 mg/dl vs. 8, 08 ± 2.09 mg/dl after therapy, p<0.0025), the pyruvate lactate ratio (69.98 ± 52.81 vs. 22.93 ± 12.29 after therapy, p<0.00025) and the creatine kinase CK (501 ± 323 U/l before vs. 294 ± 161 U/l after therapy, p=0.018) significantly reduced under 3-month of daily magnesium substitution. For each 0.1 mmol/l increase in whole blood magnesium, the pyruvate improves significantly by 0.06 mg/dl and the pyruvate lactate ratio decreases significantly by 90.9. The improvement of the pyruvate as well as the pyruvate lactate ratio leads to a significant improvement in muscle metabolism (CK) [increase by 0.1 mg/dl pyruvate decreases CK by 89.39, p=0.018, reduction of lactate pyruvate ratio decreases CK by 25.45. p=0.008). An absolute risk reduction of 68% (18/25 before vs 1/25 after therapy) could be calculated for muscular injuries. No side effects were reported.
Conclusion:The determination of serum magnesium in elite sports is not meaningful. Whole blood magnesium (vMg), on the other hand, plays a significant role in the prevention of muscle injuries, independently to the type of sports, by optimizing pyruvate-lactate-metabolism and thus mitochondrial energy production ATP. Further treatment studies have to prove if op...