Clinical Improvement After Oral Magnesium Supplementation in Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition-An Observational Study

The primary objective of this study was to determine the clinical improvement after oral magnesium (Mg2+) supplementation in severely malnourished children. The specific objectives were to observe the changes in clinical sign-symptoms between Mg2+ supplemented and un-supplemented group and to see serum Mg2+ level before and after oral Mg2+ supplementation. This observational study was conducted in three tertiary level hospitals in Dhaka city involving 60 severely malnourished children of 6-59 months of age by non-probability purposive sampling from July’2016 to June’2018. Children were divided into two groups; Group I was given standard management for severe acute malnutrition according to the national guideline, Group II received similar treatment plus oral Mg2+ supplementation. Improvement of the clinical profile and the serum Mg2+ level was observed in children treated with Mg2+ supplementation. The mean age of Group I children was 21.13±13.02 months and Group II was 22.52±12.13 months. Male female ratio was 1.2:1. Statistically significant improvement was observed in case of nausea/vomiting, appetite, generalized weakness and weight gain (p<0.01). Appearance, diarrhea, skin changes and edema also improved in Mg2+ supplemented group but the results were not significant. Post-treatment serum Mg2+ levels were significantly different in Group I and Group II i.e., 1.52±0.27mg/dL Vs 2.03±0.31mg/dL respectively (p<0.001). It was observed that oral Mg2+ supplementation improved clinical outcome in severely malnourished children. Further large scale randomized control trial is needed to more precisely delineate the beneficial role of oral Mg2+ supplementation in severely malnourished children.