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Randomized trial · measured other health measures

6-week trial in 40 adults taking fluoxetine: added magnesium lowered depression scores more

Walyddaini and colleagues · East Asian archives of psychiatry · 2026

Original title: Magnesium supplementation as an adjunct to fluoxetine therapy for depression.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to benefit

Depression score fell more with magnesium (-6.35 vs -2.80, p < 0.001), particularly in mood and insomnia parts. Main outcome was depression, not sleep.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
40 people · adults aged 18 to 45 with depression taking fluoxetine
What was tested
Fluoxetine plus 250 mg magnesium a day vs fluoxetine alone for 6 weeks
What it measured
Several kinds of outcomes
Daily amount
250 mg a day
How long
6 weeks
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
East Asian archives of psychiatry, 2026
Source
PubMed record 41916937. 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.
  • –Small: 40 people. Small trials can miss real effects or find chance ones.
  • –Short: 6 weeks. Longer-term effects are unknown.
  • •Measured several kinds of outcomes.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •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: 3 benefit, 2 no difference. This one found benefit. It agrees with most of them.

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 reviewer corrected 3 fields after reading the abstract. 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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