Magnesium metabolism in Huntington's chorea

Plasma and erythrocyte magnesium in Huntington's chorea.

“…per litre. This is slightly lower than the mean obtained by Bruyn et al (1965) using the same method, but agrees with the results of Seller, Ramirez-Muxo, Brest, and Moyer (1965), and falls within the lower half of the normal range quoted by Jones, Desper, and Flink (1965) and Rizek, Dimich, and Wallach (1965). Our standard deviation (0-30) is less than that found by others.…”

“…Conversely, magnesium has been found to accumulate in the basal ganglia of a patient with vascular calcification (Bruyn, Staal, and Bots, 1964). At first sight our results seemed to confirm those of Jones et al (1965) and of Bruyn et al (1965), by failing to show any abnormality of plasma or erythrocyte magnesium concentration in nine of our 10 patients, on repeated samples taken over a period of nine months. On the other hand, our results again raise the possibility, first suggested by Kenyon and Hardy (1963), that erythrocyte magnesium could be increased in the later, perhaps terminal, stages of the disease, after prolonged duration of symptoms.…”

“…The patients studied by Jones et al (1965) were mostly in a young age group and they suggested that the effects of age and length of illness may have contributed to the high concentrations reported by Kenyon and Hardy (1963) although the latter authors state they found no such correlation. Our results show no effect of age; only two of our 10 patients were under 50 years of age, and erythrocyte magnesium concentrations, within the normal range in all but one, showed no tendency to change with increasing age.…”

“…In view of the reports of choreiform movements associated with magnesium deficiency, various authors have searched for a disturbance of magnesium metabolism in patients with Huntington's chorea. The results of studies by Kenyon and Hardy (1963) surprisingly suggested that erythrocyte magnesium may be increased in some patients, but subsequent investigators (Jones, Desper, and Flink, 1965;Bruyn, Mink, and Calje, 1965) have refuted the idea of any significant defect in at least that part of magnesium metabolism which is at present available to systematic study.…”