Study, 2001
Does estrogen or progesterone affect magnesium levels in brain blood vessels?
Yes. High levels of estrogen and progesterone both decrease magnesium in brain blood vessel cells. Low progesterone increases magnesium. This may explain why migraines happen more often before the period.
What they did
Researchers grew brain blood vessel cells from dogs in the lab and exposed them to different amounts of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, then measured magnesium levels.
What they found
Before hormones, magnesium was 645 microM. Low estrogen (10 pg/ml) did not change magnesium. High estrogen (40 to 200 pg/ml) decreased magnesium, with about 30% decrease at the highest dose. Low progesterone increased magnesium from 690 to 753 microM. High progesterone (5 to 20 ng/ml) decreased magnesium. Testosterone had no effect.
What it means for you
This lab finding suggests a possible mechanism for why migraines happen more often before the period in PMS, because high hormone levels may lower magnesium in blood vessels. However, this is cell culture work using dog cells, not human studies, so we do not yet know if this actually happens in women with PMS.
645
starting magnesium level in microM
30%
decrease in magnesium at highest estrogen dose
753
magnesium level after low progesterone in microM
About the study
- Original title
- Sex steroid hormones exert biphasic effects on cytosolic magnesium ions in cerebral vascular smooth muscle cells: possible relationships to migraine frequency in premenstrual syndromes and stroke incidence
- Authors
- Li W, Zheng T, Altura BM et al.
- Journal
- Brain research bulletin
- Year
- 2001
- Study design
- Study
- What was tested
- Exposure to different amounts of sex hormones
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1016/s0361-9230(00)00428-7
Topics
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