Putting the words "silver" and "anti-micorbial" into google will produce a long list of articles on the use of silver compounds in medicine today. Here is a short one from PubMed:
1: Curr Probl Dermatol. 2006;33:17-34.Links
Silver in health care: antimicrobial effects and safety in use.
Lansdown AB.
Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, Charing Cross Hospital, London, UK.
[email protected]
Silver has a long and intriguing history as an antibiotic in human health care. It has been developed for use in water purification, wound care, bone prostheses, reconstructive orthopaedic surgery, cardiac devices, catheters and surgical appliances. Advancing biotechnology has enabled incorporation of ionizable silver into fabrics for clinical use to reduce the risk of nosocomial infections and for personal hygiene. The antimicrobial action of silver or silver compounds is proportional to the bioactive silver ion (Ag(+)) released and its availability to interact with bacterial or fungal cell membranes. Silver metal and inorganic silver compounds ionize in the presence of water, body fluids or tissue exudates. The silver ion is biologically active and readily interacts with proteins, amino acid residues, free anions and receptors on mammalian and eukaryotic cell membranes. Bacterial (and probably fungal) sensitivity to silver is genetically determined and relates to the levels of intracellular silver uptake and its ability to interact and irreversibly denature key enzyme systems. Silver exhibits low toxicity in the human body, and minimal risk is expected due to clinical exposure by inhalation, ingestion, dermal application or through the urological or haematogenous route. Chronic ingestion or inhalation of silver preparations (especially colloidal silver) can lead to deposition of silver metal/silver sulphide particles in the skin (argyria), eye (argyrosis) and other organs. These are not life-threatening conditions but cosmetically undesirable. Silver is absorbed into the human body and enters the systemic circulation as a protein complex to be eliminated by the liver and kidneys. Silver metabolism is modulated by induction and binding to metallothioneins. This complex mitigates the cellular toxicity of silver and contributes to tissue repair. Silver allergy is a known contra-indication for using silver in medical devices or antibiotic textiles.
PMID: 16766878 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
https://tinyurl.com/3cx8u8
Before the development of antibiotics, silver was widely used in medicine. As microbes have developed antibiotic resistance, silver is re-emerging as an antimicrobial of choice, due to the inability of microbes to develope an immunity to silver. Wound and burn dressings have contained silver for decades. Also, many water purification devices contain silver as a way to kill bacteria that would otherwise clog the filter so if you drink filtered water you may be ingesting tiny amounts of silver. People have been using silver eating with utinsels for a very long time and as anyone knows who has seen silver plate worn off, some of it ends up in our food and our bodies.
As was mentioned in a prior post, moderation is critical. One should not take silver on a daily basis but treat it as one would treat an antibiotic and only take it when you have an infection. Also, the smaller the particals of silver in a colloid, the more effective they are and the less is needed.
Ruth
Zeno, I seem to have better luck than you finding articles. Here you can read abstracts of 326 articles stating the clear, well understood toxicity of eating silver, squirting it up your nose, or dropping it in your eyes. Anyone using this stuff is asking for a lot worse than turning blue. It lodges in the brain people! It can cause psychosis and death. It's amazing what a little research will turn up. This is science folks, not politics and certainly not religion.
Put metals in your body with great care. Metals are toxic except in very very small quantities. Even iron is toxic. Iron pills are the number one cause of childhood poisoning.
Intentionally taking silver compounds into your body is dangerous. Don't do it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
I can provide full articles if anyone wants to know more.
A few quotes: "Cutaneous argyria was diagnosed in a 59-year-old woman. Manic depressive psychosis developed at about the same or a short time thereafter. The patient died 6 years later from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. At autopsy silver deposits were seen in skin, mucous membranes, heart, kidney, and liver. In the central nervous system the leptomeninges and choroid plexuses contained silver granules. In addition, silver granules were visualized in the walls of many intraparenchymal vessels, particularly of the basal ganglia, hypothalamus, substantia nigra, and cerebellum. Progressive glial changes and cellular gliosis were evident in many areas of the brain. With the electron microscope the deposition of silver granules in basal membrane structures of the choroid plexus and intracerebral vasculature was amply confirmed. Furthermore, silver deposition was seen in brain parenchymal cells inside bodies of apparently lysosomal nature. ..."
"...Besides argyria and argyrosis, exposure to soluble silver compounds may produce other toxic effects, including liver and kidney damage, irritation of the eyes, skin, respiratory, and intestinal tract, and changes in blood cells...."
"The case study of a schizophrenic patient with argyria which resulted from the chronic and excessive ingestion of antismoking pills contain silver, is presented. Convulsive seizures developed after the patient had been addicted to the pills for 40 years. An extremely high concentration of silver was detected in serum. This case provides support for the hypothesis that silver may cause convulsive seizures as a result of systemic poisoning."
-Jeff