If you’re a fan of hallucinogens, such as mushrooms or LSD, you may be worried about whether or not screenings can detect your use of these substances. To understand how these work, you first need to understand what happens in your body when you use shrooms.
Magic Mushroom Metabolism
Magic mushrooms are a specific family of mushrooms that can be found in many areas around the world. They can be harvested from wild areas or grown domestically. They can be either eaten fresh, dried or even infused in a tea.
There are two main compounds found in magic mushrooms that give them their effect: psilocybin [1] and psilocin [2]. Psilocybin is broken down into psilocin, which is then responsible for your wonderful trip. Psilocin is a serotonin analog, and it appears to influence serotonin levels in the brain. Psilocybin works on various areas of the brain, leading to decreased activity in some regions while promoting communication across many others, which leads to altered perceptions and the feeling of well-being usually found in mushroom trips. The body generally metabolizes these compounds within 24 hours. There are some reports of psilocybin being detectable for up to three days in heavy users.
The body only needs around 20 to 40 minutes to break psilocybin down into psilocin, which then increases in your bloodstream. As the concentration of psilocin increases, you start noticing the effects. These effects tend to peak at around an hour to an hour-and-a-half after eating magic mushrooms. The compounds then start being broken down by your body.
Both psilocybin and psilocin have short half-lives in the body. The half-life refers to the time required for half the amount of the compound to be removed from your blood. Psilocybin has a half-life of 160 minutes while psilocin takes 50 minutes to reach half its initial concentration. On average, it takes around 13 hours for the majority of psilocybin to leave your bloodstream and 4 hours for psilocin. Of course, these times can vary depending on your weight, your metabolism, and even your age.
Mushrooms and Screenings
The standard screening process that’s frequently used by employers and sports testing programs only looks for compounds found in cannabinoids, cocaine, amphetamines, opiates, and PCP. They don’t tend to look for either psilocybin or psilocin, meaning that you’re free to use as many mushrooms as you like, as long as you’re taking a standardized test.
However, there are also mushroom screenings that do look for psilocybin or psilocin. These are mainly used in school-related or probation-related testings. These kits are much more expensive to use, which means that they tend to be used mostly in specific circumstances, such as on probation-related cases where the person has a history of mushroom use.
What this means is that mushrooms and other hallucinogens, such as LSD, will only show up on specialized screenings that are looking for these compounds in particular.
If you’re wondering how long mushrooms stay in your system because you’re about to take a urine test, the answer is around 24 hours. Urine tests don’t generally look for psilocybin, but specialist tests can only detect very recent mushroom use. If you’re a heavy, regular user of mushrooms, the upper limit should be around three to four days of detectable psilocybin in your urine.
Factors Affecting How Long Shrooms Stay in Your System
How long shrooms stay in your system will depend on a lot of factors. While the typical answer is “around 24 hours,” there is a lot of variation that you need to be aware of. The more shrooms you eat, the more psilocybin will be in your body, and the longer it will take to be processed. If you’re a regular user, you may have a much higher concentration of psilocybin in your blood.
The second factor is the type of shroom you’re eating. Various magic mushrooms have differing amounts of psilocybin, ranging from 1.78% at the top range to lower than 0.16%. The more concentrated the dose, the longer it will remain in your body.
Your overall health also has an impact on how long mushrooms stay in your system. People who are older than 65 have decreased liver and kidney function, which decreases the rate at which psilocybin is processed out of the body. People with high BMI [3] counts tend to process psilocybin faster than those with lower body mass. People who are active process psilocybin much quicker than inactive people due to their heightened metabolism. Water is also commonly used to speed up psilocybin excretion. People with kidney or liver damage will process psilocybin much more slowly than people with a healthy liver and kidneys.
Many products on the market claim to help you flush out various toxins. If you want to get the last traces of psilocybin out of your body, your best option is to drink lots of water and move around a bit. The half-life of these compounds is so short that they’ll soon be flushed out of your system on their own.
Conclusion
Magic mushrooms don’t stay in your body for very long. In most users, they will have been metabolized within 24 hours of ingestion. The most common screens don’t test for psilocybin or psilocin, and the detection of these compounds requires specialized tests.
Resources
1. Psilocybine Compound Summary https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/psilocybine
2. Psilocin Compound Summary https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/psilocin
3. BMI https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/losing-weight/bmi-in-adults
