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Magnesium is a micronutrient that regulates healthy nerve transmission, brain plasticity, and more than 300 enzymatic reactions involved in key physiological processes. Although research suggests that magnesium deficiency is rare in developed nations, nearly half of people living in the United States do not consume sufficient magnesium on a daily basis. Low magnesium intake has been linked to elevated rates of metabolic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and particularly neurological conditions. A recent study suggests that the neural effects of magnesium insufficiency drive the development of abnormally unemotional and callous traits in early adolescence.

Research suggests that magnesium plays important roles in regulating the dominant plasticity-promoting receptors of the brain (known as NMDA), particularly in the prefrontal cortex, which is heavily involved in evaluating outcomes, making decisions, and forming memories. In fact, supplementing animals with magnesium improves their ability to remember negative outcomes that do not occur immediately after certain actions, suggesting that childhood magnesium insufficiency impairs children’s ability to learn from the negative consequences of their actions.

In this study, researchers collected information about the eating patterns of 445 children (aged 11 to 12 years) from diverse families in one county in the United States, through a series of detailed interviews conducted by dietitians with the children and their parents. The researchers also administered several psychological assessments to measure any potentially problematic externalizing (e.g., tendency to break rules and engage in violence) and internalizing features (e.g., depression and anxiety) of behavior. They also tested the children for a collection of traits described as callous-unemotional, which include low levels of empathy and guilt.

Their analysis revealed that over 53 percent of children in their sample consumed insufficient magnesium. Moreover, a lower dietary intake of the mineral was associated with significantly more callous-unemotional traits. This effect held up after the researchers controlled for a variety of factors such as social adversity, total energy intake, and body mass index (although it is worth noting that children from more adverse families had consistently lower intakes of magnesium).

These findings, which suggest that magnesium deficiency influences emotional development in children, have important implications from both from a social and population health perspective. Children with callous-unemotional traits are at significant risk of committing crime later in life and particularly resistant to behavioral interventions. As such, magnesium supplementation or dietary education might offer a cost-effective means of improving children’s psychological and behavioral development.

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