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Randomized trial · measured other health measures

7-week trial in 96 older adults: no clear sleep difference between magnesium and placebo

Nielsen and colleagues · Magnesium research · 2010

Original title: Magnesium supplementation improves indicators of low magnesium status and inflammatory stress in adults older than 51 years with poor quality sleep.

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What the study found

No difference

Sleep scores improved from 10.4 to 6.6 (p < 0.0001) whether people got magnesium or placebo. The authors could not tell if magnesium helped sleep. Inflammation marker fell only in people with high starting levels.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
96 people · adults aged 51 to 85 with poor sleep (100 started, 96 finished)
What was tested
320 mg magnesium a day as citrate vs placebo for 7 weeks
What it measured
Several kinds of outcomes
Daily amount
320 mg a day
How long
7 weeks
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
Magnesium research, 2010
Source
PubMed record 21199787. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • ✓Compared with a placebo, a dummy treatment.
  • •Medium size: 96 people.
  • –Short: 7 weeks. Longer-term effects are unknown.
  • •Measured several kinds of outcomes.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: sleep quality and insomnia

    1

    1 benefit

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    6

    4 benefit, 2 no difference

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  4. Population studies

    3

    2 mixed, 1 no difference

  5. Blood levels and genes

    3

    2 benefit, 1 no difference

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does magnesium help you sleep?”

Not clearly; trials disagree.

Confidence: very low. Based on 16 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 5 papers on the same step: 4 benefit, 1 no difference. This one found no difference. It differs from most of them.

  • Quoted in “What we found”: In 96 adults over 51 with poor sleep, sleep scores improved from 10.4 to 6.6 with both magnesium and placebo, so magnesium showed no extra effect.
  • Part of the finding “Trials in poor sleepers give mixed results”.
  • Marked as a key paper in the research timeline: Earliest trial here: magnesium matched placebo.
  • Open item for a person: Mah 2021 and Lopresti 2026 likely pool some of the same trials, possibly Nielsen 2010; check overlap before counting them as separate evidence.

Other papers on the same step

See all 16 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads differed. The reviewer checked the abstract and kept the first read. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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