What is Colloidal Silver and Can it Provide Health Benefits?

What Is Colloidal Silver?

Colloidal silver consists of tiny silver particles in a liquid that is sometimes promoted on the Internet as a dietary supplement. However, evidence supporting health-related claims is lacking. In fact, colloidal silver can be dangerous to your health.

The first use of Colloidal Silver for medical reasons was by a surgeon in 1891, who used it to clean wounds. In the years that followed, some doctors believed that if you swallowed colloidal silver, it could cure a range of conditions like stomach ulcers, mental illness, and epilepsy. It got more popular until the 1940s, when doctors started using antibiotics instead. Today, you’ll see it marketed and sold as a dietary supplement.

Colloidal Silver Claims

Many companies market colloidal silver supplements as cure-all products. They claim it can boost your immune system, ease chest congestion, and treat or prevent viral infections like the common cold or COVID-19. You might also hear that colloidal silver helps treat conditions like cancer, HIV and AIDS, shingles, herpes, or eye problems. But these statements are not backed by research.

Silver is an ingredient in some treatments you put on your skin, such as bandages or creams that treat burns, wounds, or skin infections. But unlike colloidal silver supplements that you take by mouth or inject into a vein, these skin treatments are proven to work well and are approved by the FDA.

How Does Colloidal Silver Work?

Colloidal silver is said to have broad antibacterial and antiseptic effects when taken orally or placed on a wound.

It’s unknown exactly how colloidal silver works. However, research suggests that it attaches to proteins on the cell walls of bacteria, damaging their cell membranes.

This allows silver ions to pass into the cells, where they can interfere with the bacteria’s metabolic processes and damage its DNA, leading to the cell’s death.

It’s thought that the effects of colloidal silver vary depending on the size and shape of the particles of silver, as well as their concentration in a solution.

A large number of small particles has a greater surface area than a lower number of large particles. As a result, a solution that contains more silver nanoparticles, which have a smaller particle size, may release more silver ions.

Silver ions are released from the silver particles when they come into contact with moisture, such as body fluids.

They are considered to be the “biologically active” part of colloidal silver that gives it its medicinal properties.

Potential Health Benefits

Some people claim that colloidal silver can help treat bacterial, viral and fungal infections.

Antibacterial

Before the discovery of antibiotics, colloidal silver was a popular antibacterial treatment.

Test-tube studies have shown that colloidal silver can kill a wide range of bacteria.

This has translated to its use in some healthcare products like wound creams, wound dressings and medical equipment.

Antiviral

Proponents of colloidal silver also claim that it can have antiviral effects in your body.

Some studies have suggested that different types of silver nanoparticles may help kill viral compounds.

However, the amount of nanoparticles in a colloid solution can vary, and a recent study found colloidal silver to be ineffective at killing viruses, even in test-tube conditions.

Antifungal

Colloidal silver is also said to be capable of treating fungal infections.

One test-tube study showed it may stop the growth of some strains of fungi.

However, many things can kill fungi in a lab, and this doesn’t mean that colloidal silver can treat fungal infections in humans.

Summary

Colloidal silver is claimed to have antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. However, there is currently no evidence that colloidal silver has any of these health benefits.