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| Colloidal silver has been around for eons. But it's gaining in popularity again, despite health warnings. |
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Colloidal Silver
Is Colloidal Silver Helpful or Harmful?
BY MICHELLE
KONSTANTINOVSKY
Sometimes it's easy to tease out whether a much-hyped wellness regimen is more likely to be helpful or harmful.
Looking to
kick off a healthy eating plan? Maybe a whole
foods-based diet is worth a shot.
Hoping to curb
anxiety? Hey, why not try mindfulness?
Thinking a
celebrity-endorsed diet pill will solve all your problems? Might want to
rethink that one.
See? Simple!
But sometimes
it's a lot harder to discern if certain supplements and strategies purported to
boost your health will improve your overall well-being or actually take a
serious toll on it.
Case in
point: colloidal silver.
Typically
marketed as an oral dietary
supplement (though it also comes in topical and injectable
formulations), colloidal silver is a suspension of tiny silver particles in
liquid.
While silver
is commonly used as
an antimicrobial agent in drugs and wound
dressings, advocates of colloidal silver claim the solution has been
used for centuries to treat everything from pneumonia and
flu to skin rashes and even cancer.
Helpful?
"Silver
has been used for thousands of years for its antimicrobial properties," says New
York-city-based integrative medicine nurse practitioner and life coach, Victoria Albina, FNP-c, MPH.
"It's commonly used in hospitals, and NASA uses it to
disinfect water on the space station."
While NASA does use silver in the
potable water system of its International Space Station, the
agency acknowledges that "recent studies
have shown the possible toxicity of colloidal silver to
humans," and "researchers are currently developing and testing
a simple technique that will enable crew members to test silver levels in the
water system in less than two minutes."
NASA isn't the
only agency to take major issue with the supplement.
In 1999,
the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) stated, over-the-counter drug products
containing colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts for internal or
external use are not generally recognized as safe and effective and are
misbranded.
The FDA — and
the Federal Trade Commission — have even gone as far as taking action against
some colloidal silver manufacturers for making unfounded health claims.
And the Mayo Clinic suggest
colloidal silver "isn't considered safe or effective for any of the
health claims manufacturers make."
But despite the claims, health care providers continue to
integrate colloidal silver into their toolkits. "In my practice, I use
silver in the hydrosol form,
and I use it sparingly," Albina says.
"You have to be very careful to make sure you're using a
very good quality form."
Albina says
that if she does choose to treat a patient with silver, she uses Sovereign Silver, which has been producing
and distributing products in the U.S. since 1999.
Or Harmful?
"Colloidal silver is not something I recommend for my
patients," says naturopathic doctor, nurse practitioner, and founder
of Seven Senses
Integrative Medicine and Holistic Coaching, Erica Matluck.
"Patients have come to me complaining of skin discoloration
after using over-the-counter colloidal silver products for antimicrobial
purposes."
Matluck's
patients aren't alone: One common known side effect of the supplement is
argyria, a buildup of silver in the body's tissue that can cause skin to take on
a bluish-gray tint.
But that's not
the worst possible outcome — although rare, health problems like
kidney damage and neurological problems including seizures have also occurred
as a result of excessive colloidal silver doses.
"Colloidal silver is sometimes recommended for its
antibacterial properties, but unfortunately the scientific evidence is
lacking," says Washington D.C.-based family medicine physician, Shilpi Agarwal, M.D.
"The FDA has
deemed it likely unsafe and it is hard to know what you are
actually get in terms of percentage, potency, etc., because there are no
regulations. I would avoid it."
Depending on
the ailment she's trying to treat, Matluck says she relies on other
pharmaceutical alternatives for issues like upper respiratory infections or
infected skin wounds.
"In my experience, there are plenty of nonpharmacologic
antimicrobial agents that are safer and more effective than colloidal
silver," she says.
"It really depends what you are treating, but garlic,
oregano oil, and berberine are all potent options."
The bottom
line: there are no one-size-fits-all magic (silver) bullets that heal every
ailment in every person. Read up on all the government warnings, know the
potential risks of any medication or supplement you use, and work with a health
care provider you trust.
NOW THAT'S INTERESTING
Silver in its
pure form is too soft for things like jewelry and, well, silverware, so your
family heirlooms and best tableware is likely made of sterling silver,
which is 92.5 percent silver, and 7.5 percent copper or other metal.
Michelle Konstantinovsky is a San Francisco-based journalist who's written on everything from the Beagle Brigade and border walls to cricket farms and TV scheduling for HowStuffWorks. She earned her master's degree from U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and she's written on health and wellness topics for outlets including Cosmopolitan, O: The Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Teen Vogue and more. Michelle loves music, manatees and terrible teen movies from the early 2000s
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