Determination of intestinal magnesium transport from mineral waters using a cellular in vitro system

The present study was designed to investigate the transport of magnesium fr om 13 different mineral waters across Caco-2 cells grown on bicameral filte rs. Our results indicated that the fractional transport rates for magnesium lied between 0.52-4.29% after 90 min incubation time. The absolute transpo rt values varied between 47.2-183.4 pmol/(min x cm(2)) and were in general not concentration dependent, showing neither signs: of saturation kinetics nor unsaturable uptake mechanisms. Furthermore the fractional transport rat es from mineral waters with similar magnesium concentrations were greatly d ifferent in some cases. Due to our results we conclude that magnesium trans port between mineral waters could be different.