I get a lot of emails asking me my opinion regarding taking Colloidal Silver to combat illness. Many people swear by the use of colloidal silver products claiming that they experience health benefits from its use. I can tell you that I would never use or suggest the use of colloidal silver products for a few logical reasons, which I will outline below.

First, let me address those who will immediately have a visceral reaction against my position because of their perceived benefit from taking colloidal silver products. I am sorry to tell you this but you really do not know whether taking colloidal silver helps you or not. The reasons are many. To make a determination as to whether or not taking silver prevented you from getting any illness you would need to have a crystal ball in order to find out if you were going to get sick in the first place. In that same way, you would have to use that same crystal ball to determine how sick you would have gotten if you had not taken colloidal silver. Since the virulence of any disease you contract depends upon so many variant factors like stress, diet, conditioning, your immune system and the specific infecting organism you never know how ill you will get when you get sick. You may get mildly ill or very sick. You have no idea which it would have been.

Taking colloidal silver and then experiencing only mild symptoms does not mean that the colloidal silver had any effect at all. Since this is the result you want it is the result you interpret. Claiming that in the past you experienced a higher degree of illness which has not occurred since you started taking silver is not convincing to me for the exact reasons stated in the previous paragraph. You may disagree with my position but you have to acknowledge that beyond your really wanting to believe that colloidal silver works, you really do not know if it does or not. The essence of my above description illustrates exactly why you can never accept testimonials as solid evidence for the benefit of anything.

So, let’s look at some facts to help you understand why I would never take or suggest that anyone take colloidal silver products.

Silver does have antibacterial effects but these effects are dependant upon the concentration of silver in solution. One study published in the Journal of Wound Care tested colloidal silver preparations and found that they had no effect in concentrations up to 413 ppm (parts per million) upon the tested bacteria. Here is the conclusion from the authors of this study:

“As the tested colloidal silver solutions did not show any antimicrobial effect in vitro on the microorganisms, claims of colloidal silver's antimicrobial potency are misleading and there is no place for it as an antiseptic.”

Now, advocates of taking colloidal silver commonly only consume 1 tablespoon in a concentration of 5 ppm. This would be the equivalent of taking about 75 micrograms of silver. Let me put that into perspective for you. Some of us take 1,000 mg of vitamin C a day for health. Stay with me here…1 mg equals 1000 micrograms. Thus, if you wanted to take only 75 micrograms of vitamin C you would have to first divide your 1,000 mg tablet into 1,000 smaller parts. That would give you 1 mg of vitamin C. Imagine how small that flake of the original tablet would be. But, we are not done yet. Then you would have to take that 1 mg piece of vitamin C tablet and divide that into 100 more equal pieces. That would give you 100 micrograms of vitamin C.

Imagine now if you took that extremely small amount and distributed that throughout the whole body. The amount of silver molecules available to attack any bacteria would be minuscule even if 100% of the ingested silver absorbed into your body (which it does not)! If a concentration in a small test tube of 413 ppm had no effect upon numerous bacteria, how in the world would this extremely small amount of silver concentration have any effect within the body against invading bacteria? The claim that it would makes absolutely no common sense at all. And, as you would expect there is not one study showing that taking colloidal silver has any bacterial killing effects within the body. Not even one!

Colloidal Silver Dangers

Silver is not completely safe to take. There are numerous documented cases of a condition called argyria (ahr-jir-e-ah) being caused by the oral consumption of silver. Silver deposition in the skin causes a discoloration resulting in a bluish-gray coloring. Keep in mind that this is a rare side-effect but it can become pronounced if silver is overdosed. To see the video of how long-term abuse of silver intake created the “Blue Man” click here:  See The Blue Man

The Bottom Line:

There are plenty of people out there who believe that colloidal silver helps them fight off infection and disease. Their belief is based on nothing substantial. There is no scientific evidence to support that drinking colloidal silver has any health benefit at all. Even though the risks are low we know for sure that taking silver can cause harm. I am sorry colloidal silver lovers. I am not trying to be insulting…just factual. Prove me wrong.