CHEMISTRY OF MAGNESIUM
Magnesium, Mg is a silver-white metal among five other alkaline earth series. Its atomic number is 12 in the periodic table.
When used in pyrotechnics, it burns with a brilliant white flame that includes ultraviolet wavelengths. Mg is also in fireworks, marine flairs, and theatrical effects such as lightning and pistol flashes. This bright light of Mg is activated when it performs hundreds of vital tasks in the human body.
Mg is the eighth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and the fourth most common element in the Earth (after iron, oxygen, and silicon). It makes up 13.9% of the planet’s mass. Mg is the third most abundant element dissolved in seawater, after sodium and chlorine.
Naturally, Mg occurs only in combination with other elements, where it almost always has a +2 oxidation state. When produced in nature, it is highly reactive and burns with its characteristic brilliant-white light. But, when in the atmosphere, it forms a thin film of oxide that partly inhibits its reactivity. As above, so is below. The human body is a miniature Universe.
Magnesium in plants
The vital interaction between phosphate and magnesium ions makes Mg essential to the nucleic acid chemistry of every cell of all known living organisms. Plants require magnesium to synthesize chlorophyll, which is vital for photosynthesis. Mg, in the center of the porphyrin ring in chlorophyll, functions like iron in the center of the porphyrin ring in heme.
Mg deficiency in plants causes late-season yellowing between leaf veins, especially in older leaves. It can be eliminated by either applying Epsom salts, or crushed dolomitic limestone, to the soil.
Magnesium in the Body
To fully understand and appreciate the workings of magnesium in the body, it helps to learn some chemistry and a bit of history.
An ion is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. A cation is a positively charged ion with fewer electrons than protons that moves downward. An anion is a negatively charged ion with more electrons than protons that moves upward.
Opposite electric charges are pulled towards one another by electrostatic force. Thus, cations and anions attract each other and readily form ionic compounds.
In 1834, English polymath William Whewell) and English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday devised the words anode and cathode, in addition to anion and cation as ions attracted to the respective electrodes.
The Mg cation is the second-most-abundant cation in seawater and sea salt. Mg is highly reactive and reactivates with water at room temperature. In the human body, it is the eleventh most abundant element by mass.
Every cell in the body contains Mg. 60% of Mg in the body is present in the bones, while the rest is in muscles, soft tissues, and fluids, including blood.
Mg is essential to all cells. Over 300 enzyme reactions require magnesium ions for their catalytic action, including all enzymes using or synthesizing ATP and those that use other nucleotides to synthesize DNA and RNA. The ATP molecule is in a chelate with a magnesium ion.