1 Kidney-function gate
The kidneys are the exit route for magnesium. Enter kidney function first — it changes what this tool will and will not show you.
Leave blank if unknown — the tool will treat unknown as a reason for caution.
2 What is actually in your product?
The front of a bottle shows the weight of the whole salt. This converts it to elemental magnesium — the number that matters clinically and the one your kidneys must clear.
The salt weight on the front label.
3 All 17 forms, side by side
Enter a target elemental dose to see how much of each salt would supply it. This is chemistry, not a dosing recommendation — see the gate above.
A comparison input only. This tool does not recommend a target.
| Magnesium form | Elemental % | Compound needed |
|---|
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Percentages are derived from each compound's molecular weight (magnesium = 24.305 g/mol). Hydrated salts carry water weight, which is why magnesium chloride hexahydrate and Epsom salt look so much weaker per gram than their anhydrous forms.
4 Dose and serum unit converter
Philippine laboratories report serum magnesium in mg/dL; much of the literature uses mmol/L or mEq/L. Magnesium is divalent, so 1 mmol = 2 mEq = 24.305 mg.
What this tool does not do. It does not estimate total-body magnesium and it does not calculate a magnesium deficit, because no validated formula for whole-body magnesium depletion exists — serum magnesium reflects only a small fraction of body stores, and most magnesium sits in bone and inside cells where routine testing cannot reach it. Any figure claiming to compute a total-body magnesium deficit is an assumption dressed as arithmetic. What this tool does is exact salt-to-elemental conversion and unit conversion, so that a clinician-set dose can be translated correctly between products. It is an aid to a prescribing decision, never a substitute for one, and it is not a recommendation to start magnesium.
