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Magnesium
One of the two ingredients we use most: it is in 10 of the 29 formulas, tied with zinc. It carries ten authorised EU health claims, and because its upper limit sits close to our doses, it is one of the ingredients the engine adds up across your whole day before it adds another formula.
WHAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO SAY
Ten claims. All of them authorised.
These are the ten authorised EU health claims for magnesium under Regulation 432/2012. Our file holds them in Spanish, so the English here is our literal translation of that text, not a paraphrase into something that sounds stronger. The condition attached to all ten is that the product is at least a source of magnesium under Regulation 1924/2006. Our doses run from 100 to 200 mg per formula, 27% to 53% of the NRV.The ten authorised EU claims for magnesium, translated literally from the Spanish text of the register. All ten require the product to be at least a source of magnesium (Reg. 1924/2006).
Magnesium has no authorised claim for sleep, for anxiety or for cramps, however often you read otherwise. Where we use it in a sleep formula, the sleep claim comes from the melatonin next to it, not from the magnesium.
WHY BISGLYCINATE
The claim is the same. The stomach is not.
Every magnesium salt carries the same ten authorised claims, so the form is not a claim argument and we do not use it as one. We chose bisglycinate for tolerance: our file records it as less laxative than oxide, sulphate or chloride, and it dissolves in water and stays stable in liquid.
Our file puts its absorption at about 4%, marks it as strongly laxative and gives it the worst cost-to-benefit of the common forms. It is on our list of forms to avoid.
Better tolerated than oxide, mildly laxative at the top of the range. A reasonable default that we did not pick.
Magnesium bound to glycine. Our file records better gut tolerance for it, without the laxative effect of oxide, and lists it as tolerated without food.
There is no authorised claim that says bisglycinate absorbs better than citrate, and we are not going to imply one. It is a tolerance decision, based on the better gut tolerance our file records for it.There is no authorised claim that says bisglycinate absorbs better than citrate, and we are not going to imply one. It is a tolerance decision.
WHERE IT APPEARS
Ten of the twenty-nine carry magnesium.
The ceiling below is a daily limit, not a per-window one, so what counts is your total across the day. Almost every pair of these formulas taken on the same day would reach or pass 250 mg, and the engine blocks that. Low testosterone, Glucose & metabolism and Muscle damage (CK) are still in development.
THE CEILING
250 mg a day of supplemental magnesium, added up across all your formulas.
EFSA's limit covers magnesium from supplements, not from food, and it applies to your daily total rather than to each formula or each time of day. The engine adds up the magnesium in every formula of your plan and will not add one that would take that total to 250 mg or more. It is the kind of check a shelf of separate bottles cannot make for you.The limit covers supplemental magnesium and applies to your daily total. The engine will not add a formula that takes it to 250 mg or more.
The limit is daily, so the engine adds up your magnesium from every formula in your plan, whatever time of day each one is taken.
If adding a formula would take your daily total to 250 mg or more, the engine blocks it before it reaches your plan.
Of the ten formulas above, only D3 / K2 and Daily athletic fit on the same day, at 100 mg each, 200 mg in total. Every other pair reaches or passes 250 mg.
WHAT IT REACTS WITH
Documented pairs, not hunches.
Magnesium is one of the 140 ingredients in our library, so it has 139 possible partners. 20 of those pairs are documented, out of the 443 on file: 16 synergies, three that need spacing and one that must never share a dose. Three medicines are documented in our interaction tables. Our ingredient file adds more medicines, and the competition with calcium, iron and zinc, which are not yet counted in these figures.
Our only high-severity pair for magnesium. Charcoal adsorbs it and partly binds it, so the two never go in the same dose and are kept at least 3 hours apart.
Each can trap magnesium and lower how much of it you absorb, so our file keeps them at least 2 hours apart.
Calcium and magnesium share the same transport in the gut, and our file notes that more than 500 mg of calcium can lower how much magnesium you absorb. Bones & joints carries 800 mg of calcium with its 200 mg of magnesium, a 4:1 ratio, while our file puts the best ratio in the diet at about 2:1; it still lists the two as acceptable in the same dose at standard amounts. Iron shares a transport with magnesium too: our file suggests keeping them 2 hours apart when the iron dose is 25 mg or more, which applies to the 28 mg in Iron. Zinc only interferes at very high doses, around 142 mg a day; our formulas carry 15 mg or less, within what our file allows in the same dose.
Magnesium is a cofactor for the enzymes that turn vitamin D into its active form, and our file says to pair the two. D3 / K2, Bones & joints, Low testosterone and Daily athletic carry both. It is one of 16 synergies on file, with K2, B6, melatonin and L-theanine among them.
Magnesium binds bisphosphonates such as alendronate and tetracycline antibiotics and lowers their absorption: keep it at least 2 hours apart from them. With quinolone antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin or levofloxacin, take the antibiotic at least 2 hours before magnesium or 4 to 6 hours after it. Keep levothyroxine at least 4 hours apart from magnesium. Long-term proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole can lower your magnesium: if you have taken one for more than 3 months, ask for your level to be checked. Loop and thiazide diuretics such as furosemide increase the magnesium you lose in urine, and potassium-sparing diuretics such as spironolactone reduce it, so your level may need checking. If you take digoxin, low magnesium makes its toxic effects on heart rhythm more likely. Our file also lists aminoglycoside antibiotics, amphotericin B and calcium channel blockers. If you take any of these, talk to your doctor before a formula with magnesium.
Advanced chronic kidney disease: contraindicated, and below an eGFR of 30 ml/min there is a risk of too much magnesium in the blood. Myasthenia gravis: contraindicated at high doses. Advanced AV block or a slow heart rhythm without a pacemaker: caution. Cancer treatment: talk to your oncologist first, especially with cisplatin. Histamine intolerance: our file links it to the citrate form, not the one we use. Above 250 mg a day magnesium can have a laxative effect.
443 of the 9,730 possible pairs in our library are documented, which is 4.55%. The rest are not "safe", they are simply unchecked, and we would rather write that down than let the number look like a badge.443 of the 9,730 possible pairs in our library are documented, which is 4.55%. The rest are not safe, they are simply unchecked, and we would rather write that down than let the number look like a badge.
SOURCES
Everything on this page, with its reference.
Reviewed by VION nutrition team · last reviewed 16 September 2026
140 INGREDIENTS · 64 IN USE TODAY
Every one of them has a page like this.
What it is, what we are allowed to say about it, which formulas carry it, what it reacts with and where each of those statements comes from. No proprietary blends, no hidden amounts.