Serum magnesium and Vitamin D in patients presenting to the orthopedics out-patient department with chronic low back pain

Low back pain is the leading cause of disability, interferes with the quality of life and affects the work performance. In most of them precise anatomic cause cannot be localized. LBP has been associated with lower levels of vitamin D. Magnesium is a N- methyl-D - Aspartate receptor antagonist, and hence has a role in management of chronic pain. Magnesium and vitamin D act in a coordinated manner. Its therefore essential to maintain adequate amount of magnesium for optimal benefits of vitamin D. Hence, this study is an attempt to measure serum vitamin D and magnesium and find their correlation in chronic LBP. Total 192 chronic LBP patients were recruited for the study. They were further divided into three groups according to their vitamin D levels ( 30 ng/ml = Normal, 21-29 ng/ml=Insufficient, <20 ng/ml=Deficient). BMI, Serum vitamin D, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus was measured. Intensity of pain was measured by Visual analog scale. Correlation was found between serum vitamin D and serum magnesium in chronic LBP patients. Mean age in the study group was 46.4±9.43 years with female predominance (61.22%). BMI increases with decrease in serum vitamin D (p<0.001). 52.04% of chronic LBP were vitamin D deficient. Serum Magnesium in three groups were (1.90±0.11 mg/dl,1.83±0.02 mg/dl,1.76±0.34 mg/dl) respectively. The pain intensity as measured by VAS score was significantly higher with decrease in vitamin D levels. There was statistically significant relationship between serum vitamin D and serum magnesium in LBP. Hence, chronic LBP patients have significant decrease in vitamin D and serum magnesium levels. As there is significant correlation between vitamin D and serum magnesium in LBP, magnesium can play an important supplemental role in management of chronic LBP with vitamin D deficiency. This finding can be further confirmed by large sample prospective studies.