Guidelines on Use of Colloidal Silver

[Guest guest]

Below is an article from Dr. Mercola's newsletter detailing how to

identify safe ionic/colloidal silver.

 

Melly

 

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New Guidelines for Safe Usage of Colloidal Silver

 

 

The Silver Safety Committee has announced its creation of the Silver

Safety Pyramid, which is designed to enable anyone to easily

determine safe usage levels of any dietary supplement containing

silver, typically referred to as ionic silver or colloidal silver.

 

The Silver Safety Committee consists of doctors, chemistry professors

and world leaders in health-freedom advocacy.

 

According to Herbert Slavin, M.D., director of the Institute of

Advanced Medicine in Lauderhill, Florida, and a member of the

Committee:

 

" This is an area where confusion and concern developed needlessly.

Few things in life are as cut-and-dried as the fact that silver is

completely safe when used within normal limits. The U.S. government

provides a very clear guideline for the safe oral intake of silver.

We've simply provided an easy method for applying that guideline to

the safe use of any silver supplement product. "

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a guideline called the

Reference Dose (RfD) for safe limits on daily intake of silver. The

EPA's RfD guideline is specifically intended to keep a person's

intake of silver below the level that could possibly discolor the

skin.

 

Says Jeffrey Blumer, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Drug

Research, the world's largest clinical research center for pediatric

drugs, and former director of the Greater Cleveland Poison Control

Center:

 

" Common substances like table salt and aspirin are harmless with

normal use, but excessive intake can become toxic and even life-

threatening. With normal responsible usage, silver supplements are

entirely harmless to humans. "

 

The Silver Safety Pyramid is based on the Committee's Silver Safety

Guideline, which recommends that a person's intake of silver from

dietary supplements be limited to 25 percent of the EPA's recommended

limit for total daily intake of silver.

 

It utilizes the Silver Safety Calculation, a simple mathematical

formula that enables a person to easily determine how much to take of

any silver- containing product to remain within the safety

guidelines.

 

The EPA RfD guideline is expressed in terms of micrograms of silver.

Virtually all silver supplements, on the other hand, are labeled in

terms of parts per million (ppm), which is the concentration of

silver in the water, not micrograms. With the Silver Safety

Calculation, you just plug in your pounds of body weight and the ppm

of silver in whatever silver supplement you're using, and it

calculates the appropriate limits for you.

 

The Silver Safety Calculation is simple enough: 12 times pounds

divided by ppm equals drops per day.

 

The Silver Safety Pyramid provides guidelines for determining safe

usage limits from three perspectives:

 

Daily use

Short-term use

Entire lifetime

" This is useful information for everyone interested in using silver

for health, " Dr. Baird added. " If people follow these guidelines,

they can use silver supplements while remaining fully confident they

are not exposing themselves to any risks whatsoever. "

 

The Committee's website includes the Silver Safety Auto-Calculator,

which automatically performs the math in the Silver Safety Pyramid

for you. The site also has an Education & FAQ section, which helps

clarify the meanings of terms like ppm, ionic silver, colloidal

silver, and more.

 

The website is http://www.silversafety.org.

 

 

 

Sources:

 

SilverSafety.org

 

Market Watch January 8, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

 

 

 

There are several types of silver products on the market. Some are

healthy alternatives to antibiotics while others can be downright

dangerous to your health.

 

Three Types of " Colloidal " Silver – The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

 

 

 

According to a Commercial Product Report by silver-colloids.com, a

site that provides detailed laboratory analyses of colloidal silver

products, there are three distinctly different types of silver

products on the market that are all labeled and sold as " colloidal "

silver:

 

Ionic silver

Silver protein

True colloidal silver

This misrepresentation of colloidal silver by less scrupulous

manufacturers has no doubt led to some of the more negative

connotations to colloidal silver. When purchasing colloidal silver,

it's very important to make sure you're getting true colloidal

silver, because as you will see, the other two varieties of silver

may do far more harm than good.

 

Since there are health risks involved if you select the wrong

formula, I recommend you use colloidal silver only under the guidance

and supervision of a qualified alternative health practitioner, who

can help you select a high quality product.

 

Ionic silver solutions -- Silver solutions are typically clear like

water or have a slight yellow tint. The producers of ionic silver

solutions will tell you that colloidal silver should look like clear

water, but this is incorrect, so don't be fooled. The term colloidal

means particles, not ions.

 

To determine whether a solution is ionic silver, add regular table

salt (sodium chloride) to it. If silver ions are present, then the

chloride ions will combine with the silver ions and create a white,

cloudy appearance. For more detailed instructions on how to do this,

please see the Silver Colloids web site.

 

Ionic silver is not entirely without merit, but since ionic silver

products contain such a low percentage of silver particles, these

products will not be as effective as true colloidal silver, which has

a much greater particle surface area relative to the total silver

content.

 

Ionic silver is still a strong anti-microbial, and can be effectively

used in situations where chloride is NOT present. When chloride is

present – such as inside your body – then what little silver particle

is present in the solution will survive to produce benefit, but

again, not nearly as effectively as a true colloidal solution.

 

Please be aware that most all " colloidal silver " generators sold for

home use produce ionic silver solutions, and not true colloidal

silver.

 

Potential Danger – Low. If you take ionic silver products according

to the manufacturer's recommended dosage, ionic silver will not cause

argyria, a condition that causes your skin to turn blue-gray.

 

Silver protein -- Silver protein products are the second most

prevalent type of so-called colloidal silver products on the market.

These products are a combination of metallic silver particles and a

protein binder to keep the particles in suspension. One tip-off that

it's a silver protein product is if it claims to have high

concentrations of colloidal silver (typically in the range of 30 to

20,000 ppm).

 

Of the three types of colloidal silver, silver protein products have

the lowest particle surface area for a given silver concentration,

making the silver inaccessible for safe and effective absorption by

your body. Because of this, you want to avoid all silver protein

products.

 

To find out whether you have a silver protein product rather than a

true silver colloid, look for these characteristics:

 

Foaming: When shaken, a silver protein product produces foam above

the liquid that will persist for minutes after being shaken. This is

probably the single most reliable indicator.

Concentration: Silver protein products tend to have very high

concentration values, typically in the range of 30 to 20,000 ppm.

Color: The color ranges from light amber to almost black with an

increasing concentration of silver.

Potential Danger – High. Due to the high concentration of large

silver particles, silver protein products are known to cause argyria,

which turns your skin blue-gray color.

 

True colloidal silver -- True colloidal silver products are the least

prevalent type of colloidal silver on the market due to the high cost

of production. In true colloidal silver, the majority of the silver

content is in the form of silver particles. True colloids will

typically contain between 50 to 80 percent particles, while the

balance will be silver ions.

 

Because of the high concentration of silver particles, true silver

colloids are never clear like water. True colloidal silver with a

sufficient concentration of particles does not look like water

because silver particles -- even very small particles -- block light

from passing through, making the liquid appear darker.

 

Potential Danger – None. Due to the very low concentration of ionic

silver and small particle size, true silver colloids do not cause

argyria.

 

What is Colloidal Silver Useful For?

 

Colloidal silver has been known as a remarkably effective natural

antibiotic for centuries. But in past several decades, research has

shown colloidal silver can even eradicate antibiotic-resistant

microbes like MRSA , the Avian Influenza (bird flu), and Human Corona

virus (SARS).

 

In the mid-1970s, Dr. Robert O. Becker at Syracuse Medical University

began his groundbreaking research into colloidal silver. He later

concluded:

 

" What we have done was rediscover the fact that silver kills

bacteria, a fact which had actually been known for centuries ...All

of the organisms we tested were sensitive to the electrically

generated silver ion, including some that were resistant to all known

antibiotics...In no case were any undesirable side effects of the

silver treatment apparent. "

 

However, silver's innate anti-microbial effect was actually common

knowledge among doctors some 60 years before Becker's time. In fact,

in the early 1900's Alfred Searle, founder of the global Searle

Pharmaceutical Company, had already discovered that silver in its

liquid colloidal form could kill even the most deadly of pathogens.

In his book Colloids in Biology and Medicine, 1919, Searle wrote:

 

" Applying colloidal silver to human subjects has been done in a large

number of cases with astonishingly successful results...it has the

advantage of being rapidly fatal to microbes without toxic action on

its host. It is quite stable. It protects rabbits from ten times the

lethal dose of tetanus or diphtheria toxin. "

 

Unlike prescription antibiotic drugs, silver does not create

resistance or immunity in pathogens killed by it.

 

Recent Research Espousing the Virtues of Colloidal Silver

 

Over the past few years, several new studies have demonstrated the

fact that silver is one of the most effective agents in the battle

against MRSA and other deadly antibiotic-resistant super pathogens,

including the:

 

Brigham-Young Clinical Study -- This study, published in the journal

Current Science in 2006, found that a number of the antibiotic drugs

which had previously been able to kill MDR (multiple drug-resistant)

pathogens such as MRSA could be restored to full efficacy against the

deadly pathogens, but only if a liquid silver solution similar to

colloidal silver was used in conjunction with the drug.

 

 

Iranian Clinical Study – This study also found that silver increases

the effectiveness of antibiotic drugs against staph infections. The

researchers concluded:

 

" The antibacterial activities of penicillin G, amoxicillin,

erythromycin, clindamycin, and vancomycin were increased in the

presence of silver nano-particles (Ag-NPs) against both test strains.

The highest enhancing effects were observed for vancomycin,

amoxicillin, and penicillin G against S. aureus. "

 

 

Taiwanese Clinical Study – Published in the journal Colloids Surface

B Biointerfaces in 2007, this study demonstrated that colloidal

silver, by itself, eradicates both MRSA and Pseudomonas aeruginosa,

another deadly and extremely opportunistic superbug.

 

 

Czech Clinical Study – Likewise, this Czech study published in the

prestigious Journal of Physical Chemistry B in 2006, also

demonstrated that colloidal silver was a highly effective agent

against MRSA:

 

" …silver particles with a narrow size distribution with an average

size of 25 nm, which showed high antimicrobial and bactericidal

activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, including

highly multi-resistant strains such as methicillin-resistant

Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The study further demonstrated that

very low concentrations of silver could be utilized to destroy MRSA,

as long as the silver particles were very small, averaging 25 nm. "