Your body naturally eliminates most arsenic within a few days, but the process can be accelerated and supported through medical treatment, nutritional strategies, and reducing ongoing exposure. Absorbed inorganic arsenic has a half-life of two to four days, and 60 to 80 percent of it is excreted through urine within that window. When exposure is heavy or prolonged, though, arsenic can linger in soft tissues for two to four weeks or longer, and it accumulates in hair, nails, and skin.
How you approach removal depends on your level of exposure. Acute poisoning requires emergency medical chelation therapy. Chronic low-level exposure, the kind that comes from contaminated drinking water or occupational contact, responds well to stopping the source and supporting your body’s own detoxification pathways.
How Your Body Processes Arsenic
Once arsenic enters your bloodstream, your liver does most of the heavy lifting. It converts inorganic arsenic into methylated forms using a methyl donor called SAM, which is produced through the folate and methionine cycles. These methylated forms are more water-soluble and easier for your kidneys to flush out. The process works well when your liver has enough of the raw materials it needs, but when the methylating capacity of the liver is exceeded, arsenic gets stored in soft tissues like fat and muscle.
Arsenic clears from the blood quickly, which is why blood levels (normally under 1 microgram per deciliter) aren’t the best way to track exposure over time. Urine testing is more useful. Total urinary arsenic above 100 micrograms per liter is considered abnormal, and some research links health risks to levels as low as 50 micrograms per liter.
Chelation Therapy for Acute Poisoning
For serious arsenic poisoning, chelation therapy is the primary medical treatment. Chelating agents are drugs that bind to arsenic in the body and pull it out through urine. Three agents have been used for more than half a century: dimercaprol (BAL), DMPS, and DMSA. The newer agents, DMPS and DMSA, are water-soluble and generally preferred because they’re taken by mouth and have a better safety profile.
The older agent, BAL, can protect against life-threatening effects but carries a significant drawback: it can redistribute arsenic into the brain, more than doubling brain arsenic levels compared to no treatment. DMPS, by contrast, reduced brain arsenic by 75 percent in the same comparison. Both DMPS and DMSA work by attaching to arsenic at the same molecular sites where arsenic does its damage, essentially prying it loose from enzymes it has disabled and escorting it to the kidneys for excretion.
Chelation is a clinical decision based on the severity of poisoning and isn’t something to pursue on your own. It’s reserved for confirmed, significant arsenic exposure.
Folate and Methylation Support
For people with chronic low-level exposure, supporting the liver’s methylation process is one of the most evidence-backed strategies. The key nutrient here is folate. Your liver needs folate to produce SAM, the molecule that attaches methyl groups to arsenic so it can be excreted. When folate levels are low, this process stalls and arsenic stays in your body longer.
A study of folate-deficient individuals in Bangladesh, a population with widespread arsenic-contaminated groundwater, found that folate supplementation significantly increased arsenic methylation and reduced total blood arsenic by about 14 percent. The effect was strongest in people who were already deficient because their SAM levels were low enough that even a modest increase had a large impact on the methylation rate. Folate also shifted the balance of arsenic compounds in both blood and urine toward forms the body excretes more easily.
Good dietary sources of folate include leafy greens, legumes, citrus fruits, and fortified grains. If your folate levels are low, supplementation with folic acid or methylfolate can meaningfully help your body clear arsenic faster.
Selenium’s Protective Role
Selenium and arsenic have a well-documented antagonistic relationship. In the liver, selenium reacts with arsenic to form a compound that the body then excretes through bile. This works in both directions: arsenic stimulates the excretion of selenium, and selenium stimulates the excretion of arsenic. Adequate selenium intake supports this natural detoxification pathway.
Brazil nuts are the richest food source of selenium, with a single nut providing more than a full day’s requirement. Other good sources include seafood, organ meats, eggs, and sunflower seeds. If you’re dealing with arsenic exposure, making sure your selenium intake is adequate gives your liver an extra tool for clearance.
Antioxidant Support During Detoxification
Arsenic causes significant oxidative stress, damaging cells through the production of reactive oxygen species. This is part of why chronic exposure leads to problems with the skin, blood, and circulatory system. Supporting your body’s antioxidant defenses helps limit this damage while arsenic is being cleared.
Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) has shown particular promise. In animal studies of chronic arsenic exposure, ALA supplementation restored antioxidant capacity and brought markers of oxidative stress and inflammation back to near-normal levels. ALA works in both water and fat environments in the body, chelates certain metals, prevents cell membrane damage, and recycles other antioxidants like vitamin C and glutathione. It’s available as a supplement and is also found in smaller amounts in foods like spinach, broccoli, and organ meats.
Glutathione, your body’s master antioxidant, also plays a direct role in arsenic metabolism. Foods rich in sulfur-containing amino acids (eggs, garlic, onions, cruciferous vegetables) support glutathione production.
Sweating as an Excretion Route
Your skin is a meaningful exit route for arsenic. A systematic review found that arsenic concentrations in sweat were 1.5-fold higher in men and 3-fold higher in women compared to blood plasma levels. In people with known arsenic exposure, dermal excretion was several-fold higher than in unexposed controls. In some cases, the amount of arsenic excreted through sweat in a 24-hour period matched or exceeded urinary excretion.
That said, urine remains the primary elimination route overall. Sweating through exercise or sauna use can be a helpful complement, not a replacement, for the strategies above. Staying well-hydrated during any sweating protocol is important to keep urinary excretion flowing as well.
Eliminating the Source
None of these strategies matter much if you’re still being exposed. The most common sources of chronic arsenic exposure are contaminated groundwater, rice and rice products (rice absorbs arsenic from soil more readily than other grains), certain seafood, and occupational contact in industries like mining, wood treatment, and electronics manufacturing.
The EPA’s maximum contaminant level for arsenic in drinking water is 10 parts per billion. If you rely on well water, testing is essential since arsenic is tasteless and odorless. Point-of-use reverse osmosis filters effectively remove arsenic from drinking water. For rice, rinsing thoroughly and cooking in excess water (then draining) can reduce arsenic content by 40 to 60 percent. Varying your grains also helps: quinoa, millet, and oats tend to carry much less arsenic than rice.
Identifying and cutting off the source of exposure is the single most impactful step. Once exposure stops and your body has adequate folate, selenium, and antioxidant support, the natural clearance process handles the rest efficiently for most people within days to weeks.