by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News
Could the use of colloidal silver, a natural antibiotic that has been used for thousands of years, be a key answer to today’s problem of pharmaceutical antibiotic overuse leading to drug-resistant pathogens?
The beginning of the end for pharmaceutical antibiotics is blamed on its overuse, both with overly prescribing for humans and overuse with Big Ag and Dairy livestock. This rising problem is known as antibiotic drug resistance.
Ironically, the more complex the chemistry of pharmaceutical antibiotics, the easier it is for pathogenic bacteria to figure them out and develop a resistance to them. This has been occurring with almost all pharmaceutical antibiotics. But this phenomena doesn’t exist with natural colloidal silver.
Pathogenic bacteria haven’t figured out a way around silver even after centuries of use. Before methods of suspending silver particles in distilled water as colloidal silver, silver coins and containers were used to prevent harmful bacteria from forming in the foods, beverages, and water contained.
Antibiotics are prescribed even when patients have viral infections, adding to their overuse.
Colloidal silver is not only an antibiotic, it is also anti-viral and anti-fungal. Antiviral pharmaceuticals tend to be ineffective and dangerous with huge side effects or long-term lowered immunity and sub-clinical issues created by upsetting the intestinal microbiome balance.
So why aren’t MDs recommending it? Why has the EU banned colloidal silver sales even as a supplement from January of 2010 on?
In the USA, after the FDA failed to ban colloidal silver sales as a supplement, the agency made it clear that colloidal silver products could not be promoted to cure anything. The FDA has a cooperating relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.
See:
Antibiotics are Among the Most Abused and Overused Pharmaceuticals that Contribute to Human Disease
See:
Warning: Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics May Cause Permanent Nerve Damage
No, You Won’t Turn Blue if you Take Colloidal Silver
Let’s get this out of the way first, since “yeah, but I don’t wanna turn blue” is the objection thrown out upon recommending the use of colloidal silver over taking antibiotics. It’s based on the mainstream media’s publicity of the “blue man” or “papa smurf” man who used excessive amounts of home-made colloidal silveron a daily basis for many years and developed a rare permanent skin condition called argyria (ar-JI-ree-a).
His homemade colloidal silver was crude with silver particulates larger than what commercial producers manage, and consuming a pint or more daily is way beyond what is recommended for even extreme conditions.
Despite his vivid blueness, he was otherwise healthy and never even had a cold for years. He passed away from heart failure and stroke in his 60s.
This type of colloidal silver negative press gets more play in Wikipedia and other pro-pharmaceutical industry anti-natural remedy media outlets than the large number of patients who suffer serious negative consequences from pharmaceutical antibiotics on a regular basis.
How Colloidal Silver Works
Silver’s antimicrobial is actually recognized by mainstream medicine, which uses silver-coated surgical instruments and catheters to inhibit infections, especially from antibiotic-resistant germs, such as MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).
The possibility of silver resistance developing with these topical applications has been a slight concern. But when it comes to colloidal silver suspended in distilled water solutions, Lucian Lucia, Associate Professor of Chemistry, North Carolina State University, and George John, Chemist, City College of New York agree that:
… bacteria cannot build up a resistance to silver nanoparticles as they can to antibiotics, because of the way the silver nanoparticle attacks — destroying the structure of the cells and killing them. Antibiotics, on the other hand, suppress the activity of bacteria
[dividing and multiplying]
but don’t necessarily kill them. That’s the beauty of silver. There’s no way to develop a resistance to it. (Source)
While using topical applications of silver for hospital bandages and instruments, mainstream medicine discourages ingesting colloidal silver. The easily consumed non-prescription “supplement” cellular absorbent form of colloidal silver competes directly with the pharmaceutical industry’s monopoly of chemically-derived antibiotics.
It’s appropriate to note the difference between antiseptic, which focuses on pathogenic microbes, and anti-microbial, which destroys helpful “good” or probiotic bacteria along with the pathogenic disease-causing microbes.
Pharmaceutical antibacterial drugs are anti-microbial. They kill bacteria indiscriminately, leaving users with compromised gut microbiome colonies that reduce digestion and immunity as well as the body’s second brain’s ability to create hormonal homeostasis for overall physical and mental health.
Colloidal silver contains a suspension of tiny silver nanometer particles that stay apart uniformly without clumping together due to their positive charges that repel each other. This also results in an electromagnetic intelligence to attract pathogenic microbes, which are mostly negatively charged.
Some researchers consider electrical charge bonding as the main factor for eliminating pathogens while sparing gut-friendly bacteria. Most friendly bacteria are positively charged, eliminating any attraction to the positively charged silver particles, which selectively attract the negatively charged pathogenic microbes.
Most pathogenic microbes are anaerobic, meaning they thrive without oxygen and if oxygen penetrates them they will die. (Source)
However, a very few pathogenic bacteria and other microbes can also be aerobic. It’s been observed that silver nano-particles neutralize the minority of aerobic pathogens by disrupting their ability to use oxygen. That begs the question will some aerobic probiotic bacteria be threatened even though they have positive charges?
The final or ultimate explanation to how probiotic bacteria are spared from silver’s microbial killing mechanisms is covered by Dr. Gordon Pedersen, Ph.D. in this video presentation.
How Should One Choose and Use Colloidal Silver
Most online sources of colloidal silver also provide ionic silver, which can be useful but not with the same potency and pathogenic microbe range as colloidal silver. They also sell inexpensive kits for making your own ionic silver solutions.
Usually colloidal silver will also contain some ionic silver, maybe around 10 – 15 percent, with the remaining 85 to 90 percent containing true colloidal suspensions of silver. The proper color of colloidal silver is a light greenish-brown. The solution should look like regular brewed tea. Clear solutions are indicative of mostly or completely ionic silver compounds.
Colloidal silver solutions require higher levels of production machinery that many, but not all, commercial silver producers use. But some may fudge a little and pass-off ionic silver for colloidal silver. An ideal colloidal silver solution you purchase should contain silver particles 2 to 10 nm (nanometers) in diameter with a parts per minute ratio of around 25 ppm.
The containers for colloidal silver should be glass tinted brown or blue. Exposure to extreme cold can cause problems to the solution’s integrity. Skin issues such as ringworm, dandruff, fungus, and more can be applied topically by spraying onto affected area directly. Lung issues can be addressed by breathing in a spray or by using a nebulizer.
Dosage for humans as maintenance and immunity should be around a teaspoon once daily. Acute situations or tough chronic ailments such as candida would require over an ounce two to three times daily.
Start slowly to avoid an extreme Herxheimer event, aka healing crisis, from a situation of too many dead pathogenic microbes temporarily overwhelming the body’s ability to eliminate them.
Many are curing their pets with colloidal silver, avoiding expensive office visits and veterinarians’ efforts at pushing vaccinations.
A few drops inserted into their mouths with an eyedropper and placed into their drinking water has elicited many testimonies from pet owners.
Also, spraying it topically on a dog or cat skin infections has proven effective.
There is probably no one antiseptic that has so many applications as colloidal silver.