Magnesium metabolism and hypomagnesaemia

Abstract

Magnesium is an essential element for plants and animals. The body of domestic animals contains 0.05% by weight of magnesium; about 60% of this is in the skeleton, 40% in the soft tissue, and 1% in the extracellular fluid. Magnesium is the major intracellular divalent cation, an activator of something like 300 enzymes including most of those utilizing ATP or catalysing the transfer of phosphate.