Those who live in industrialized nations have easy access to healthy food and nutritional supplements, yet magnesium deficiencies are still common. That's a difficulty since fresh research from Tel Aviv University suggests that magnesium, a key nutrient for the functioning of memory, may be even more critical than previously thought for the neurons of children and healthy brain cells in adults.

Dr. Inna Slutsky of TAU's Sackler School of Medicine released results of a 5-year probe which has significant implications for the employ of over-the-counter magnesium supplements.

"We've been able to display that today's over-the-counter magnesium supplements don't really work. They do not acquire into the brain," says Dr. Slutsky.

Dr. Slutsky advises people to get their magnesium the feeble-fashioned way — by eating lots of green leaves, broccoli, almonds, cashews and fruit. The effects on memory won't appear overnight, she cautions, however with this persistent alter in diet, memory should improve, and the effects of dementia and other cognitive impairment diseases related to aging may be considerably delayed.

"Our results suggest that commercially available magnesium supplements are not effective in boosting magnesium in cerebro-spinal fluid," says dr. Slutsky. "Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body, but today half of all people in industrialized countries are living with magnesium deficiencies that may generally impair human health, including cognitive functioning."

The research focused on improving a new magnesium supplement, magnesium-L-theronate (MgT), that effectively crosses the blood-brain barrier to inhibit calcium flux in brain neurons. Begun at MIT as a portion of a post-doctoral project, Dr. Slutsky's probe evolved to become a multi-center experiment with cooperation of researchers from Tel Aviv University, MIT, the University of Toronto, and Tsighua University in Beijing.

Published recently in the scientific journal Neuron, the new study found that the synthetic magnesium compound works on both young and aging animals to enhance memory or prevent its impairment.

In the study, two groups of rats ate normal diets containing a healthy amount of magnesium from natural sources. The first group was given a supplement of MgT, while the control group had only its regular diet. Behavioral tests showed that cognitive functioning improved in the rats in the first group and also demonstrated an increase of synapses in the brain — connective nerve endings that carry memories in the form of electrical impulses from one part of the brain to the other.

"We've developed a promising new compound which has now taken the first necessary step towards clinical trials by Prof. Guosong Liu, Director of the Center for Learning and Memory at Tsinghua University and cofounder of Magceutics firm," she says.

While the effects were not immediate, the researchers in the study were able to assess that the new compound shows improved permeability of the blood-brain barrier. After two weeks of oral administration of the compound in mice, magnesium levels in the cerebral-spinal fluid increased.

"It seems counterintuitive to use magnesium for memory improvement since magnesium is a natural blocker of the NMDA receptor, a molecule critical for memory function. But our compound blocks the receptor only throughout background neuronal activity. As a result, it enhances the brain's 'plasticity' and increases the number of brain synapses that can be switched on," says Dr. Slutsky.

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