Silver does more than kill bacteria

[Gaby]

From http://www.skysong.eu/2007/01/silver-does-more-than-kill-bacteria/

Scientists in Hong Kong uncover the biological mechanism behind the age-old treatment of wounds with silver.

Silver has for centuries been used to treat and prevent infection, and its wound-healing properties are well known. Less well understood is exactly how the metal acts as such an effective antimicrobial and healing agent. Kenneth Wong and others at the University of Hong Kong recently investigated the wound-healing properties of silver nanoparticles, and have shown that they do more than simply kill bacteria.

Wounds heal following a complex combination of blood coagulation, tissue inflammation and remodelling, and the best medical interventions are those that prevent or at least minimise scarring. Silver has long been used to treat a variety of diseases, and silver’s antibacterial effect is thought to be due to its penetration of cell walls and alteration of microbial DNA.

But the new research, published in the journal ChemMedChem (subscription required), indicates that silver goes further than this and modifies cytokines – the enzymes involved in cell growth and movement – leading to reduced inflammation and an increased rate of healing.

Wong and his colleagues describe wounds treated with silver nanoparticles healing in around 25 days, whereas it takes 29 days with common antibiotics, and 35 days with wounds left untreated. This translates into considerable cost savings in medical care.

With a scale size of around 10 nanometres, Wong says that silver can be used in a pure form and made into a stable solution, and also has the advantage that with a large surface area, the dose can be reduced. “The next step is to evaluate whether there is a receptor for silver, and what signalling pathways are affected," says Wong. “Furthermore, we are going to investigate if other nano-metals or compounds can be applied in disease models such as haemostasis and tissue regeneration."

MIT-based medical scientist Rutledge Ellis-Behnke regards the Hong Kong group’s research as groundbreaking, saying: “Silver has been used for over a thousand years in traditional Chinese medicine for wound healing, but this is the first time that a hint of the true mechanism has been shown."

 

[johnw]

Do you know water the benefits on electronically modified water are?

I have a device that electrictronically charges the water with silver but I'm having trouble finding people who have true experience with obivous benefits from taking it etc.

Apparently it is suppoesed to alkalize it at the same time so a person said a few days ago.

 

[the_hammer]

Today someone at work was talking about some new research (haven´t read it or seen it so don´t know wether the result is trustworthy or was misunderstood) which showed that if the amount of silver in the wound dressing was too low, the wound itself would act as if it was resistant to silver when a larger dosage was applied.

Normally what we see at the ward where I work is that a wound which has a hard time healing, gets "irritated" into healing when silver is applied. A process which normally lasts some weeks untill the healing rate slows down again, and after a couple of weeks without silver, starts reacting to silver again.

The only wound dressings we have are quite low on silver and doesn´t allow any silver to seep into the wound, but encapsules the bacteria instead, supposedley because the companies are scared the silver does some harm to the body, despite research which showed that the more silver in the dressing itself, the better the healing.

 

[johnw]

I have heard that to much silver could be bad for the liver or kidneys, I can't remember which.
Thats if it is taken orally.
Have you heard of this?

 

[the_hammer]

No, only that if too much in particle form is taken orally, it turns the skin blue (Argyria). It was once said that silver was stored in the Kupfer cells in the liver, but recent research hasn´t found this. But yes, silver particle consumption doesn´t seem to be as effective as colloidal silver.

http://en(dot)wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria