A very interesting study, which may shed some light on the known anti-cancer properties of magnesium, which medicine has struggled to explain. The cliche story told by mainstream medicine is that magnesium is a co-factor in more than 400 enzymatic reactions in the body and as such probably limits the risk of “cancerous” mutations occurring. While that story may contain a grain of truth due to magnesium being one of the co-factors for the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH), which is known to be blocked in cancer, it has nothing to do with cancerous mutations but rather once again point to cancer as being metabolic in origin. The study below now adds another plausible explanation in regards to magnesium’s benefits. Namely, the mineral increases vitamin D synthesis. However, it does predominantly in the gut and not in skin where most of our vitamin D is thought to be synthesized. Thus, the study not only identified another endogenous source of vitamin D (gut) that was not know until now, but also once again corroborates the metabolic nature of cancer and the anti-cancer effects of vitamin D.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2025.09.011
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09-magnesium-inhibits-colorectal-cancer-carcinogenesis.html
“…Researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center have demonstrated in a precision-based clinical trial that a magnesium supplement increases gut bacteria in humans that have been shown to synthesize vitamin D and inhibit colorectal cancer carcinogenesis.”
“…Intestinal microbiome data and colonoscopy results were analyzed from participants who were randomized by whether they had the TRPM7 genotype, which plays a crucial role in regulating magnesium and calcium uptake. Previously, the investigators showed in the same randomized trial that magnesium enhances the synthesis of vitamin D and increases the blood levels of vitamin D. The findings from the current study suggest that magnesium also increases the gut synthesis of vitamin D, which does not go to the blood and takes effect locally. These results from the Personalized Prevention of Colorectal Cancer Trial were published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. “Our previous study showed magnesium supplementation increased blood levels of vitamin D when vitamin D levels were low,” said Qi Dai, MD, Ph.D., professor of Medicine. “The current study reveals that magnesium supplementation also increases the gut microbes which have been shown to synthesize vitamin D in the gut without sunlight and locally inhibit colorectal cancer development.”
