http://www.wellnessresources.com/health/articles/hi_ho_silver_powerful_immune_sup****t/?source=Email&camp=news082508
Friday, August 22, 2008
Byron Richards, CCN
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A new study published in JAMA is sure to have an unintended result –
dramatically boosting the sales of colloidal silver around the country
as a powerful immune sup****t mineral. The study was actually about the
use of silver-coated tubes in hospital patients, and it showed a 36
percent reduction of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), with a 48%
reduction over the first 10 days (the common length of tube use for many).
Silver has been used in Greece, Rome, and Europe for centuries as a
medicinal germ-killing metal to prevent food spoilage, enhance wound
healing, and protect against nasty infections like the plague. Various
antibiotic silver preparations were in widespread use in the United
States prior to the invention of the FDA, meaning that silver has been
grandfathered in as a natural remedy the FDA has little control over.
Nevertheless, the FDA routinely attacks makers of colloidal silver –
especially when products are associated with claims of curing AIDS or
some other nasty infection. In fact, the FDA makes an effort to
discredit silver as an effective antibiotic even when there is a
mountain of evidence and consumer use that says otherwise. Naturally
there are higher quality silver products, but the overall tone of the
FDA is more like the mafia trying to protect turf.
The new JAMA study is interesting for several reasons. Tube-related
infections are life-threatening and cause many unnecessary deaths every
year. Bacteria and Candida form biofilms on tubes, which is actually an
effort on the part of one’s body to reject a foreign substance that has
come into close contact with living tissue. Such infections cause your
immune system to go and look at the tube, and if your immune system had
its way it would dissolve the tube to get rid of it. This natural
defense against the tube poses a serious treatment challenge when a tube
has a medical necessity to be there – especially for any length of time.
The silver-coated tubes were designed to steadily release silver ions,
not much different than taking colloidal silver as a dietary supplement.
The researchers explain how this works, “Silver kills bacteria and
yeast by sticking to the organisms’ enzymes, genetic material and other
molecular components, preventing basic functions and interfering with
reproduction. These organisms very rarely develop resistance to silver,
and the metal has no known side effects in humans. The new endotracheal
tubes are coated with a silver-containing polymer, created by C.R. Bard
Inc., that releases silver ions to the surface of the tubes. There,
silver exerts a broad-spectrum antimicrobial effect, reduces adhesion of
bacteria to the tube and blocks the formation of biofilms, communities
of microorganisms that build up special protective structures on
surfaces… this is just the beginning for this kind of technology.“
A silver renaissance is now under way.
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