The effect of diet and blood-plasma magnesium concentration on the endogenous faecal loss of magnesium in sheep

Abstract

SummaryTwo experiments are reported in which mature, castrated male sheep were used to study the effect of a change of magnesium status, as induced by a continuous intravenous infusion of magnesium, on the faecal output of magnesium. In the first experiment, three artificial diets differing markedly in fibre content but extremely low in magnesium were used and in the second experiment, natural diets of frozen grass and of hay and ground barley.With the artificial diets, unit change in plasma magnesium concentration gave the same increase in faecal magnesium output with all three diets but on average faecal magnesium output was highest for the diet containing the highest content of fibre and least for the diet containing an intermediate amount of fibre, and the differences, though small, were statistically significant. With the natural diets, there was no significant difference between diets in the increase in faecal magnesium output in response to a change of plasma magnesium concentration but the order of response was much greater than for the artificial diets. It is concluded that absorption of magnesium from the gut is depressed at high plasma magnesium concentrations.