Need to Lower Your B6 Level? Here’s How

How to Lower B6

Taking this vitamin in very high amounts can lead to serious health problems.
How to Lower B6
Wavebreakmedia Ltd/Getty Images
By
Updated on August 6, 2025
by
Vitamin B6, also called pyridoxine, is an essential component for health. This vitamin aids in the conversion of food into energy. It maintains healthy hair, skin, and eyes. It’s also responsible for normal brain function and development as well as the production of red blood cells.

Vitamin B6 is abundant in a wide variety of foods, so deficiency is rare in developed countries. Consuming too much is more likely, which can lead to a condition called vitamin B6 toxicity.

Vitamin B6 toxicity is also uncommon, but it can develop from taking too many supplements. Symptoms include:

  • Nerve damage, including pain, tingling, and numbness in your hands and feet
  • Trouble walking or controlling your movements
  • Nausea and heartburn
  • Sensitivity to sunlight
  • Skin damage
The recommended daily amount of vitamin B6 is 1.3 milligrams (mg) for most adults. It’s slightly higher if you’re older than 50, pregnant, or breastfeeding. The National Academy of Medicine has set the safe upper level at 100 mg, while the European Food Safety Authority says it’s just 12 mg a day.

See your doctor if you have symptoms of B6 toxicity.

These three steps can help you bring down your B6 level.

Step 1

Stop taking any vitamin B6 supplements, including multivitamins, tablets, softgels, and lozenges. Check the label for other names for this vitamin, including pyridoxine, pyridoxal, and pyridoxamine.

Step 2

Limit your intake of foods high in vitamin B6, such as chickpeas, liver, yellowfin tuna, sockeye salmon, and fortified cereal.

Energy drinks can also be extremely high in B6.

Step 3

Drink water to help flush excess vitamin B6 from the body. Since this compound is water-soluble, what your body doesn’t use is eliminated through your urine.

Health experts recommend adults drink between 9 and 13 cups of water per day as part of a healthy diet.


The Takeaway

  • While it’s uncommon, it’s possible to consume too much vitamin B6, which can cause nerve damage and other symptoms.
  • Excessive use of supplements is usually the cause of B6 toxicity.
  • To lower your level of B6, stop consuming supplements or foods high in B6, like energy drinks, and drink plenty of water to flush the excess out of your system.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. Top 7 Benefits of Vitamin B6. Cleveland Clinic. December 30, 2022.
  2. Vitamin B6. National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements. June 16, 2023.
  3. Hemminger A et al. Vitamin B6 Toxicity. StatPearls. February 7, 2023.
  4. Barratt D et al. 7 Cases of Vitamin B6 Toxicity (P11-2.001). Neurology. April 8, 2025.
  5. How Much Water Do You Need? Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. May 17, 2024.
Meet Our Experts
See Our Editorial PolicyMeet Our Health Expert Network
kayli-anderson-bio

Kayli Anderson, RDN

Medical Reviewer
Member of American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Kayli Anderson has over a decade of experience in nutrition, culinary education, and lifestyle medicine. She believes that eating well should be simple, pleasurable, and sustainable. Anderson has worked with clients from all walks of life, but she currently specializes in nutrition therapy and lifestyle medicine for women. She’s the founder of PlantBasedMavens.com, a hub for women to get evidence-based, practical, and woman-centered guidance on nutrition and cooking, hormone health, fertility, pregnancy, movement, mental well-being, nontoxic living, and more.

Anderson is board-certified in lifestyle medicine and serves as lead faculty of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s (ACLM) "Food as Medicine" course. She is past chair of the ACLM's registered dietitian member interest group, secretary of the women's health member interest group, and nutrition faculty for many of ACLM's other course offerings. She is the coauthor of the Plant-Based Nutrition Quick Start Guide and works with many of the leading organizations in nutrition and lifestyle medicine to develop nutrition content, recipes, and educational programs.

Anderson frequently speaks on the topics of women’s health and plant-based nutrition and has coauthored two lifestyle medicine textbooks, including the first one on women’s health, Improving Women's Health Across the Lifespan.

She received a master's degree in nutrition and physical performance and is certified as an exercise physiologist and intuitive eating counselor. She's a student of herbal medicine and women's integrative and functional medicine. She lives with her husband in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, where you’ll find her out on a trail or in her garden.

See full bio

Skyler White

Author

Skyler White is an avid writer and anthropologist who has written for numerous publications. As a writing professional since 2005, White's areas of interests include lifestyle, business, medicine, forensics, animals and green living. She has a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from San Francisco State University and a Master of Science in forensic science from Pace University.

See full bio
See Our Editorial PolicyMeet Our Health Expert Network