Increasing magnesium intake helps asthma sufferers

Mg improves lung function.    California/Washington universities study followed 2 groups of 26 participants with asthma for 6 1/2 months. One group took a placebo, the other magnesium.  The magnesium group showed significant improvement in lung activity and ability to move air in and out of their lungs.

Magnesium Supplements May Benefit People With Asthma.National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), 10 Feb. 2010. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.

Conversely, those with low Mg diets had more asthmatic symptoms and reported more wheezing.    Found a British study reported in the Lancet in 1994.

Britton J, Pavord I, Richards K, Wisniewski A, Knox A, Lewis S, Tattersfield A, Weiss S. Dietary magnesium, lung function, wheezing, and airway hyperreactivity in a random adult population sample. Lancet. 1994 Aug 6;344(8919):357-62. [PubMed Abstract]

Magnesium reduces inflammation of the airways and lungs by stabilizing mast cells (produce inflammation-causing mediators, incl. histamine) and T-lymphocytes (immune system T-cells, B-cells and natural killer cells).   A rat study found that severely magnesium-deficient rats had higher blood levels of histamine when exposed to allergens than magnesium-sufficent rats. Another study found that magnesium-deficient rats had raised levels of histamine and white blood cell counts.

NishioA, Ishiguro S, Miyao N, Specific change of histamine metabolism in acute magnesium-deficient young rats. 1987. 5(2):89-96 PubMed

Claverie-Benureau S, Lebel B, Gaudin-Harding F. Changes in histamine and white blood cells in the blood, spleen and thymus of magnesium-deficient rat.Reprod Nutr Dev 1981; 21(4):591-600 PubMed

Magnesium helps relax airway smooth muscle and dilates bronchioles in the lungs