A nutritional condition produced by a deficiency of magnesium in the diet, characterized by anorexia, nausea, vomiting, lethargy, and weakness. Symptoms are paresthesias, muscle cramps, irritability, decreased attention span, and mental confusion, possibly requiring months to appear. Deficiency of body magnesium can exist even when serum values are normal. In addition, magnesium deficiency may be organ-selective, since certain tissues become deficient before others. (Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 12th ed, p1936)

Condition due to decreased dietary intake of magnesium, as in starvation or failure to administer in intravenous solutions, or to gastrointestinal loss; deficiency causes irritability of the nervous system with tetany, vasodilation, convulsions, tremors, depression, and psychotic behavior.

Magnesium deficiency, condition in which magnesium is insufficient or is not utilized properly. Magnesium is a mineral that is essential to a variety of cellular metabolic reactions and sometimes has the ability to replace a portion of body calcium. It is also required for the synthesis of...