Technical Data
Silver
Silver is a very ductile and malleable (slightly harder than gold) monovalent coinage metal with a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a high degree of polish. It has the highest electrical conductivity of all metals, even higher than copper. The malleability and non-toxicity of silver make it useful in dental alloys for fittings and fillings.
Silver-ions and silver compounds show a toxic effect on many bacteria, viruses, algae and fungi typical for heavy metals like lead or mercury, but without the high toxicity to humans that is normally associated with them. Its germicidal effects kill many microbial organisms in vitro. Its germicidal effects make silver utensils valued, and increase its value as jewelry.
Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, wrote that silver had beneficial healing and anti-disease properties, and the Phoenicians used to store water, wine, and vinegar in silver bottles to prevent spoiling. In the early 1900s people would put silver dollars in milk bottles to prolong the milk's freshness. Silver compounds were used successfully to prevent infection in World War I before the advent of antibiotics. Silver nitrate solution was a standard of care but was largely replaced by silver sulfadiazine cream (SSD Cream)[Reference] which was generally the "standard of care" for the antibacterial/antibiotic treatment of serious burns until the late 1990s. Now, other options such as silver coated dressings (activated silver dressings) are used in addition to SSD cream, and may present advantages such as pain reduction and capacity for treatment at home.
The widespread use of silver went out of fashion with the development of modern antibiotics. However, recently there has been renewed interest in silver as a broad spectrum antimicrobial. In particular, it is being used with alginate, a naturally occurring biopolymer derived from seaweed, in a range of silver alginate products designed to prevent infections as part of wound management procedures, particularly applicable to burn victims. In addition, Samsung has introduced washing machines with a final rinse containing silver ions to provide several days of antibacterial protection in the clothes.[Link] Additionally, Kohler has introduced a line of toilet seats that have silver ions embedded to kill germs. A company called Thomson Research Associates has begun treating products with Ultra Fresh, an anti-microbial technology involving "proprietary nano-technology to produce the ultra-fine silver particles essential to ease of application and long-term protection."[Link]
Ionic vs Colloidal Minerals
The following are excerpts from a website that explains the difference between Ionic and Colloidal minerals, and which is better for mineral supplements. It uses calcium as an example, but for all intents and purposes it is exactly the same for silver:
Links:
The difference between Ionic and Colloidal Minerals - Stress Management Institute, Middletown, NJ
Mission Falls Ionic Silver Solution comes in the form of Ionized Silver in a base of purified water. This water is tested regularly and we receive reports stating the levels of dissolved solids to make sure they are within our specifications. This means that each and every teaspoon you ingest will deliver millions of silver ions to all of your blood cells, and it's so small that it will be able to enter the cell and safely kill anything that is infecting it. In addition to our water reports, we have stringent testing protocols in place, with five separate silver level analyzers, which shut off our generators between 4.5 and 5.5 ppm. This ensures that you get only the best quality for your money.
Ionic Silver
An ion of silver is a atom of silver with one or more electrons removed, which means it is smaller then the smallest possible particle of silver - or 1/4 of a nanometer (a billionth of a meter), to be exact. All metallic ions cluster - silver in groups of 8-12 - so the smallest "particle" or cluster size for ionic silver would be about one nanometer in diameter.
Being so small, ions are absorbed sublingually and for oral applications it is best to swish it around in your mouth for half a minute to mix it with saliva; as we isolate metallic ions via metalloproteins, approximately 30% of our saliva surrounds the ion and it is isolated from unwanted chemical reactions in the stomach or blood, facilitating safe delivery to requesting cells. All minerals are isolated and carried in this manner, this is the reason we should chew our food 20 to 30 times, so metalloproteins isolate the soluble metallic ions for safe transport!
Silver is one of the few oligodynamic materials - a powerful biocide to primative life forms while safe and effective on mature life forms! Because of this effect, bacteria, viruses, prions, eggs and sperm (yes, an effective douche) can not survive in a solution of silver ions - yet the overdose level for us is hundreds of gallons! Our cells, which are far larger and more complexly developed through evolution are not damaged by ionic silver, but use silver ions to protected themselves from pathogens.
An ounce of 5 PPM ionic silver contains well over 1,000 trillion ions of silver while our body has less then 100 trillion cells, so a large dose is not required nor advisable as your body will adjust to an excess of any material or medicine, striving to reject it faster! Thus the need of drug addicts and alcoholics to keep taking more to get the effect desired.
The healthy liver filters out over 90% of silver ions within two hours, as part of its natural function to regulate body chemicals, so when you're ill it is important to take a small dose (4-6ml) hourly to assure maintaining a theraputic dose in the blood!
Cells are constantly pumping ions in and out through their plasma membranes. In fact, more than half the energy that our bodies consume is used by cells to drive the protein pumps in the brain that do nothing else but transport ions across plasma membranes of nerve cells. How can ions be transported across membranes that are effectively impermeable to them? Cells contain proteins that are embedded in the lipid bilayer of their plasma membranes and extend from one side of the membrane through to the other. Such transmembrane proteins can function to effect ion transport in several ways.
As to the action of silver in the body, while there may be some catalytic action, silver ions will adhere to the sulphydral groups on bacterial cell walls and thus compromise the action of enzymes and so on, silver has also been found bonded to the DNA and RNA of bacterial cells, having presumably disrupted the cell wall enough to gain entry. Interestingly, it has also been found that if one removes the silver bonded to the cell wall of bacteria, that the bacteria is able to revive.
Won't Stomach Acid Ruin Ionic Silver?
The popular theory that orally taken silver ions reach the stomach and complex with your stomach acid to form useless silver chloride is just plain not true!
In order to move mineral ions about your body, for delivery to the area where needed, your body uses proteins to envelope the ions and render them inactive, until they are delivered to the cell or area needing them. Numerous essential biological functions require metal ions, and most of these metal ion functions involve metalloproteins. One-third of all proteins are "metalloproteins", chemical combinations of protein atoms (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur) with ions of metals such as iron, calcium, copper, zinc, etc. Hemoglobin, for example, that carries oxygen in the bloodstream, is an iron-containing metalloprotein.
If this were not the case, few minerals would remain useable by your body, including essentials like calcium, iron, etc. as they would join other free ions and in many cases make insoluable salts (no bio-availability).
Your saliva has over 200 different proteins and thus they can capture metallic ions before they get near the stomach acid! Also, silver ions are so small they can be absorbed sublingually, thru your skin, to directly enter the blood stream, with the help of proteins.
Individual Tests
|
ANALYTICAL DATA |
TEST METHOD USED |
RESULTS |
PPM – Silver Concentration |
Concentration Analysis performed in accordance with Standard Analytical Procedures for Buck Scientific Model 210 VGP Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer |
7.45 ppm |
|
pH |
Beckman Model 350 Serial No: 6208 |
7.80 pH |
|
CONDUCTIVITY (µS) |
VWR Conductivity Meter Model No: 61161-362 – Serial 61542364 |
5.79 us/cm |
|
COLOR |
Visual |
Clear |
| Please note: The true PPM is always higher then the simple conductivity test we perform and control the machine with. In fact we even report a lower conductivity than this TEM shows. The real PPM test involves digesting all species of silver (ions and metallics and salts) with nitric acid (so all silver is reduced to ionic) and then measuring the real PPM of silver. I have always attempted to err on the safe side but it is the uS value (conductivity) that is important, and our levels are excellent. The non-soluble silver particles and salts do little good to the cells so the "True PPM" as I always say is meaningless - a simple measure of weight per weight and thus no relationship to the benficial ionic silver species. Our Ionic Silver's pH level is very close to the pH of water, unlike high voltage generated colloidal silver that many sell, which is acidic. |
