Silver in health
Silver has been
used in the health field since, well, for as long as there has been
a health field. It was used in times of antiquity for fighting germs
and healing tissue, and those uses have continued to this day. It has
been undergoing a rapid resurgence in use in recent times in the medical
and industrial fields. However, in the field of human disease and, specifically,
the realm of internal or systemic use, silver has remained essentially
in the realm of alternative medicine. In that realm, it has become increasingly
popular and at the same time increasingly controversial, with a rapidly
growing number of people asking questions and decidedly few people providing
accurate and reliable answers.
We have observed
four primary factors contributing to the controversy and confusion
surrounding the use of silver in health. They are:
Claims of far-reaching
benefits
Proponents of silver
in alternative medicine, both business and consumers alike, often make
very far-reaching claims about silver and what it can do, and has done,
for conditions that are often not treatable with conventional medical
approaches. Just as often, proponents tout the safe and natural qualities
of silver over using drugs, and claim that silver is not only much safer
but far more effective than drugs. While it's most often used as an
alternative to antibiotics, proponents claim it also has broad-spectrum
antiviral and antifungal abilities, as well as being very powerful at
helping heal tissue. It's easy to see why some vested interests could
feel threatened.
Alternative medicine
As a naturally
occurring element, silver is not readily patentable except in very specific
situations and therefore cannot be protected by the pharmaceutical industry
on a carte blanch basis, making it less prone to be taken through the
drug approval process. In the absence of patents and drug approval,
silver products used for health are often in the realm of alternative medicine,
which by nature is a somewhat controversial area and too often subject
to unwarranted attacks (some feel as a result of pharmaceutical interests
and, they claim, influence those interests have over the government).
Complicated area
of science
Silver's efficacy
as an antimicrobial agent and as a tissue healing agent seems to come
from silver "ions." A silver ion is a silver atom that is
missing an electron. It has a "plus-one" electrical charge.
Being the size of an atom, it's very difficult for us to watch what
it does. The level of our understanding of the interaction of ions in
and on the human body today is far from conclusive, to say the least,
and this involves no less of a limitation when it comes to silver and
silver ions. Therefore, there are a great many conflicting claims being
made that have very little scientific data to back them up—whether
in favor of one silver product over another, and whether touting or
denigrating silver in general.
Cosmetic side-effect
from overdosing
Too much silver
in the body can cause a harmless but nonetheless undesirable skin discoloration
called "argyria." This factor has fueled a controversy where
passions and biases have greatly overshadowed facts, level-headedness
and the dissemination of reliable, useful information to foster safe
use of silver products. In our society today, we can tolerate cancer-causing
substances and a myriad of other very harmful things that go into our
bodies, that do their damage internally and therefore out of sight,
far more readily than we can tolerate an undesirable cosmetic effect,
providing powerful fuel for those who wish to denigrate silver. A picture
is worth a thousand words and, in this case, can overshadow scientific
rationality. See our Silver safety page for factual information on the safe—and unsafe—use of silver systemically.