Hi-Ho Silver Away!

 Oh the rabbit holes I go down sometimes...

A person sent me a friend request on Facebook.  I checked out his wall.  It was filled with a lot of those guru inspirational quotes.  Definitely not my thing as I find them problematic (that's a topic of discussion for another day).  I then saw he had multiple posts about a holistic dental service.  I was aware of this dental service before.  

The person running the service is not a dentist.  She is a dental hygienist.  While she gives some good advice on her FB business page wall (I actually really like her idea of recycling plastic products and acknowledges that sometimes, those are the best options for her patients), there is also a lot of nonsense and misinformation as well.  Take for example this:

So there is a lot to unpack here.  I'm going to focus just on the liquid product.

"The silver supplement can be taken as a vitamin" Well first off, silver is not a vitamin or anything even close to one.  By definition:  A vitamin is an organic molecule that is an essential micronutrient which an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism.  The body doesn't need silver for proper functioning.  Silver has no known purpose in the body. It's not an essential mineral.

"..to support immunity" is a meaningless phrase.  It is too ambiguous to mean anything.  "Support" is what I call a red flag word.  It doesn't clearly define what it means.  It's just like "helps", "assists" and so on.  The question next would be a big "How?"   That of course is rarely answered.

"..added to mouthwash or water pick, and diffused into a room to eliminate viruses."  No, don't do it.  Silver should not be taken orally.  Putting in mouthwash or water pick, a person might accidentally ingest (especially a child).  While colloidal silver does have some antiviral/antimicrobial properties, it is most effective used directly on surfaces.  A diffuser would promote ingestion of the particles which is not a good idea.

When taken by mouth, silver builds up in your body. This can result usually in a permanent blue-gray discoloration of your skin, eyes, internal organs, nails and gums. This is called argyria. Colloidal silver can also interact with some prescription medicines.  Severe side effects from high doses can include organ damage and seizures. 

"Designed to help boost the immune system"  Any product that uses this phrase is almost guaranteed to be making misleading claims.  My friend Harriet Hall has multiple articles as to why this idea is silly.  Here's a recent one that covers it nicely: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/06/how-you-can-really-boost-your-immune-system/  

"Safe for children"--again as mentioned above, children are more likely to swallow mouthwash or water from a water pick.  Not a good idea to have an unsafe substance in there.

"All natural"  Irrelevant.   Being natural does not make a substance safe or effective.  It's an appeal to nature which is a common trope used by nonsense pushers.

"Powerful 10 PPM nano silver solution"  Say what????!!!???   OK, this is an odd statement. 10 parts per million is powerful.   This sounds like homeopathic quackery.  I now have to look at the ingredients so I go to the company website. 

Ingredients:  Purified Silver 50 mcg and Deionized Water.  It's definitely homeopathic-like.

I also notice on the bottle that it states "gluten free" and "non-gmo".  It's water and silver.  Of course it's gluten free and non-gmo!  There's no DNA at all!  This is just pandering to the uneducated who seem to think GMOs and gluten are bad.  Gluten is only bad of course to those with celiac. Genetic modification is simply a tool.  Just silly.

Further looking through their website I see this claim "SilverSol particles leave the body within 24 hours."   OK, so that seems to go against the idea of bio-accumulation.  Let's see the proof.  They claim to have "Over 400 independent studies and test reports performed by more than 60 leading laboratories and universities, all using our SilverSol Technology®. 30 safety reports and studies. 3 published and FDA cleared human ingestion studies.20+ peer-reviewed and published scientific and medical journal articles. Thousands of case studies on SilverSol Technology."

A look on their research page shows...

Well that's a far cry from those numbers they boast about.   The wound studies are mostly just single person case studies.  Pretty much useless as far as evidence goes.  Let's look at the safety data as that's the only other stuff they provide.  

The first "Selective Inaction of ASAP on Probiotics" is not even a study.  It provides no information on how they did the "study".  Utterly useless.

The cytotoxicty report is similar as it gives very little info.

The third is "In vivo human time-exposure study of orally dosed commercial silver nanoparticles".  It's interesting that they don't give the pubmed link but just a pdf of printed out paper.  Probably because if you look for it on pubmed you get links to studies that cite this study like

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32235542/ which states "in vivo biodistribution studies have reported Ag accumulation and toxicity to local as well as distant organs."  

So their own study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23811290/  states "In vivo oral exposure to these commercial nanoscale silver particle solutions does not prompt clinically important changes in human metabolic, hematologic, urine, physical findings or imaging morphology."  To me that means it doesn't do anything to help out.  

The fourth study link is a real kicker!  https://a2p2l4daysk2lcyxv62818v6-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ABL_Pubmed_P450-Drug-Interaction-Study.pdf as it states "Oral ingestion of a commercial colloidal silver nanoproduct produces detectable silver in human serum after 14 days of dosing"   So their own link to a study discredits their claim of it leaving the body in 24 hours.

Well I've had enough, I'm not even going to bother with the other two.  It's safe to say this is just nonsense up the wazoo.  I do have a further question though.  Who is the head honcho of this company?

It took some searching but I found it!  "Dr. Keith Moeller is a Managing Director and CEO of American Biotech Labs (ABL).  Prior to his position with ABL, Keith served as Director of Property Development for 3 different mining companies. Keith has almost 30 years of experience working in the silver industry, and holds a B.S. in Business Management, Finance and International Business from Brigham Young University. He is also a Certified Natural Health Practitioner and holds a Doctorate in Naturopathy."   Naturopaths are not doctors.  He has no actual medical credentials.

So would you trust a dental person who is promoting quackery like this?