Magnesium can help protect against asthma, wheezing and other lung and airflow disorders. This significant discovery made during an intensive study of more than 2600 adults could mean that low magnesium causes or aggravates asthma.

Science has long recognized the importance of magnesium in relaxing the airwaves and muscles, yet this property had never been proven in a randomized study.

A research team from the City Hospital in Nottingham, England, led by Dr John Britton, monitored the intake of magnesium from food of a randomly selected group of adults, aged 18 to 70, living in the city.

Of these, 24 per cent suffered from wheezing and were put on a diet which contained 100mg of extra magnesium than the rest of the study group. As a result, the chances of a wheezing attack were significantly

reduced.

However, to achieve this result, the study group was on a dosage of more than 400mg of magnesium a day, far higher than the recommended daily allowance of between 270mg and 300 mg.

Apart from supplements, magnesium can be derived from cereals, nuts, green vegetables and dairy produce.

Magnesium is lost in cooking and in processed foods and, as a result, most people take in far too little (The Lancet, 6 August 1994).

Asthma in children is better treated by building the natural immune system than by vaccination, a leading Australian child health researcher has concluded. Dr Patrick Holt from the Institute for Child Health Research in Perth said that preventive care "vastly outweighed" vaccine therapy, both in human and economic terms.

!AThe Lancet, 13 August 1994.