Ghost Fitness/Magnesium/How to remove excess magnesium from body?
How to remove excess magnesium from body?
The short answer
At home, you do not remove it, the kidneys do: stop every magnesium source, drink normally, and healthy kidneys clear the surplus within a day or two while the gut clears the rest. Take no laxative or diuretic to hurry it. With kidney disease or systemic signs, hospital removes it.
- Who removes itthe kidneys, efficiently, in anyone with normal kidney function
- How longthe gut clears unabsorbed surplus within hours; the kidneys clear absorbed surplus within a day or two
- At homestop every source, including antacids and laxatives; drink normally; wait
- In hospitalkidney disease or systemic signs: intravenous calcium, fluids, and dialysis where needed
Our brand: the worked example on this page
Futuro Labs Magnesium Glycinate
- 22p a day
- 180 capsules, 2 capsules daily
- Lab tested
- Made in the UK
A dose that never needs removing: Futuro Labs Magnesium Glycinate on Amazon UK, bisglycinate, 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, under the level, £19.99 for 90 days at 22p. Full label breakdown. The signs page is here; the side-effects ladder on the too-much page.
The kidneys remove it, which is why the home answer is to stop, drink and wait, and not to hurry
How to remove excess magnesium from the body has an answer the body already knows: the kidneys remove it, efficiently and quickly, in anyone with normal kidney function, which is why hypermagnesaemia is rare outside kidney disease and why the home answer is not a technique but a pause. The two clearance routes run on their own: unabsorbed magnesium, the surplus a large dose left in the gut, leaves in the stool within hours, the osmotic loose stools of the too-much page being that clearance happening, and absorbed magnesium above what the body needs is filtered and excreted by the kidneys, serum magnesium returning to its normal range within a day or two of the intake stopping. The home instruction is therefore three steps. Stop every source: the supplement, and the sources readers forget, magnesium antacids and indigestion remedies, magnesium hydroxide laxatives, Epsom salts, magnesium in a multivitamin, and, for a reader who bathed in Epsom salts, the bath, though transdermal absorption is negligible. Drink normally, water to thirst and a little more if the stools were loose, replacing the fluid the gut clearance cost, without forcing volume. Wait, a day or two, for the kidneys to do their work, the gut signs settling within a day and the blood within two. What not to do is the paragraph the search variant asking about at home most needs: do not take a laxative to flush magnesium out, the common laxatives being magnesium themselves and adding to the load; do not take a diuretic, prescription or herbal, to hurry the kidneys, the loop and thiazide diuretics that raise magnesium excretion being medicines with their own risks and no place in self-treatment; and do not drink extreme volumes of water, which does not accelerate excretion and can lower sodium.
When the body cannot remove it, the hospital answer, and the excess filed
The body cannot remove excess magnesium in two situations, and both belong to hospital rather than home. Kidney disease: impaired excretion is the reason hypermagnesaemia happens at all, a reader with chronic kidney disease or on dialysis accumulating magnesium from doses a healthy adult clears, so that in kidney disease the question of removing excess magnesium is a medical one from the first sign, and the gut signs, loose stools, nausea, are treated as a warning rather than as clearance. Systemic signs in anyone: lethargy, muscle weakness, flushing, low blood pressure, a slow pulse, confusion or breathlessness, the signs page's second column, mean a raised blood magnesium that is affecting heart and muscle, an emergency in which hospital removes and counters the excess with intravenous calcium, which opposes magnesium's effects on the heart and neuromuscular junction, intravenous fluids and sometimes loop diuretics to increase excretion where the kidneys can respond, and dialysis where they cannot, the hypermagnesaemia literature's treatment sequence and none of it available at home. The excess filed: in a healthy adult, stop the sources, drink normally and wait a day or two while the gut and the kidneys remove it, hurrying nothing and taking no laxative or diuretic; in kidney disease, a doctor from the first sign; with systemic signs in anyone, urgent help and hospital; and the worked example being a dose that never needs removing, bisglycinate at 300mg elemental under the 400mg level, the kidneys clearing whatever a day's surplus was before the next dose, £19.99 for 90 days at 22p.
| The situation | Who removes it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Healthy adult, gut signs | The gut within hours; the kidneys within a day or two | Stop every source; drink normally; wait |
| The sources to stop | Supplements, antacids, magnesium laxatives, Epsom salts, multivitamins | All of them, not just the capsule |
| What not to do | Laxatives are magnesium; diuretics are medicines; water does not hurry it | None of the three |
| Kidney disease | The kidneys cannot | A doctor from the first sign |
| Systemic signs | Hospital: intravenous calcium, fluids, diuretics where kidneys respond | Urgent help |
| The extreme | Dialysis | Where the kidneys cannot clear it |
The verdict, stop and wait at home, hospital when the kidneys cannot
How to remove excess magnesium from the body: in a healthy adult you do not, the gut clearing unabsorbed surplus within hours and the kidneys clearing the rest within a day or two once every source is stopped, supplements, antacids, magnesium laxatives, Epsom salts and multivitamins included, with normal drinking and no laxative, diuretic or water-loading to hurry it, and in kidney disease or with systemic signs the removal belongs to hospital, intravenous calcium, fluids and, where the kidneys cannot clear it, dialysis. The dose that never needs removing: Futuro Labs Magnesium Glycinate, bisglycinate, 300mg elemental at 80% NRV, under the level, £19.99 for 90 days at 22p a day.
What to check on the label
- Let the kidneys do it: a day or two in a healthy adult.
- Stop every source: antacids and laxatives count.
- Drink normally: to thirst, a little more after loose stools.
- Hurry nothing: no laxative, no diuretic, no water-loading.
- Go to hospital for kidney disease or systemic signs: calcium, fluids, dialysis.
Our brand
The worked example: Futuro Labs Magnesium Glycinate
Futuro Labs Magnesium Glycinate is the worked example for magnesium reviews because its label states every number a review needs: 1500mg magnesium bisglycinate at 20%, 300mg elemental, 80% NRV, 2 capsules a day, 180 capsules for £19.99, 22p a day, UK made, vegan HPMC shell, batch tested for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium, and only the register's own magnesium claims printed.
- Elemental magnesium per serving
- 300mg (80% NRV)
- Form
- magnesium bisglycinate 20%
- Serving
- 2 capsules a day
- Bottle
- 180 capsules, 90 days
- Price
- £19.99 (22p a day)
- Capsule
- vegetarian shell, vegan product
Questions people also ask
How do you flush excess magnesium out of your system?
You do not need to: healthy kidneys excrete absorbed surplus within a day or two and the gut clears unabsorbed surplus within hours, so the home answer is to stop every magnesium source, drink normally and wait.
How long does it take for excess magnesium to leave the body?
Hours for the unabsorbed surplus in the gut, which leaves in the stool, and a day or two for the absorbed surplus, which the kidneys filter and excrete once the intake stops.
Can I take a laxative to get rid of too much magnesium?
No: the common laxatives are magnesium themselves, milk of magnesia and Epsom salts among them, and add to the load, while diuretics are medicines with their own risks and water-loading does not hurry excretion.
What if someone with kidney disease has taken too much magnesium?
A doctor from the first sign: impaired excretion is the reason magnesium accumulates, so the gut signs are a warning rather than clearance, and any systemic sign is an emergency.
How do hospitals treat magnesium toxicity?
Intravenous calcium to oppose magnesium's effects on the heart and neuromuscular junction, intravenous fluids and sometimes loop diuretics where the kidneys can respond, and dialysis where they cannot.
Sources
- The hypermagnesaemia literature: raised serum magnesium is rare with normal kidney function and occurs with impaired excretion or massive intake from magnesium laxatives and antacids, presenting with nausea, lethargy, low blood pressure, muscle weakness and slowed heart conduction, and treated in hospital with intravenous calcium and, where needed, dialysis. PubMed record
- The hypermagnesaemia literature: the kidneys excrete surplus magnesium, so supplementation is safe for healthy adults within guidance and warrants medical advice in chronic kidney disease, where impaired excretion allows magnesium to accumulate. PubMed record
- The magnesium and medicines literature: magnesium supplements reduce absorption of tetracycline and quinolone antibiotics, bisphosphonates and levothyroxine when taken together and are spaced from them, while proton-pump inhibitors and some diuretics lower magnesium status, a reason for medical advice in either direction. PubMed record
- Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals. Safe Upper Levels for Vitamins and Minerals. Food Standards Agency, 2003 (magnesium guidance level 400mg a day from supplements). https://cot.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/vitmin2003.pdf