An adequate amount of magnesium in the diet strengthens our body's natural defense system (immune system), but now new research shows that its presence can also help us fight cancer.
Magnesium is one of our most important nutrients and is abundant in foods like almonds, cashews, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, beans, wheat, milk, yogurt, and spinach.
Experts say that the amount of magnesium in the daily diet of women is 310 to 320 mg, while the amount of magnesium in the daily diet of men should be 400 to 420 mg.
This new research has been carried out at the University of Basel, the details of which have been published in the research journal 'Cell'.
This research shows that the immune system's T-cells need an adequate amount of magnesium to function properly.
T-cells, among other functions, are particularly important in finding and destroying cancerous cells.
Previous experiments on mice showed that mice whose diets were low in magnesium had weakened immune systems and were more susceptible to the flu than other mice.
Now the team of Prof. Christoph Hess of the University of Basel, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, has discovered that the body's main cells, 'T-cells', eliminate the damaged damaged cells. But they do this best only when there is an abundance of magnesium throughout the system.
Above all, it was found that an important protein 'LFA1' is found on the surface of T-cells which can function well only in the presence of magnesium.
Thus, T-cells and LFA-1 remain well connected and active due to magnesium. In the absence of magnesium, this would not occur and thus T cells may fail to eliminate suspected cancerous cells.
This failure can lead to a failure to stop the spread of cancer. This discovery will greatly help to make cancer treatment and immunotherapy more effective.
In immunotherapy, we enable the body's immune system to fight cancer on its own. This discovery is expected to pave the way for effective immunotherapy using magnesium.