Letter regarding the article “The impact of hypomagnesemia on erectile dysfunction in elderly, non-diabetic, stage 3 and 4 chronic kidney disease patients: a prospective cross-sectional study”

Abstract

Pasquale Fatuzzo,* Luca Zanoli,* Viviana Scollo Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Section of Nephrology, University of Catania, Catania, Italy *These authors contributed equally to this work In an article published in a recent issue of Clinical Interventions in Aging, Toprak et al1 found that, among patients with stage 3–4 chronic kidney disease (CKD), the prevalence of erectile dysfunction was higher in patients with hypomagnesemia. This finding is clinically relevant because it supports the hypothesis that hypomagnesemia may lead to inflammation2 and endothelial dysfunction, two causes of erectile dysfunction. Toprak et al1 concluded that the detection of the serum magnesium level in non-diabetic elderly men with CKD could be useful to assess the risk of erectile dysfunction. Consequently, it is important to assess the causes of hypomagnesemia in patients with CKD, in particular the causes that are potentially reversible. With this in mind, hypomagnesemia could be caused by the long-term use of proton pump inhibitors,2,3 widely used in patients with CKD but not reported in the study of Toprak et al,1 alone or in combination with diuretics2 or cyclosporine.4 View the original paper by Toprak and colleagues 

Keywords

• Proton pump inhibitors
• hypomagnesemia
• erectile dysfunction
• chronic kidney disease