When the early Greeks and Romans were wrapping their wounds with silver foil, the body fluids coming into contact with the silver oxidised the silver slightly. This leads to the release of silver ions and it was these ions that were attacking the bacteria and killing them.

In the same way, the water storage containers were slowly oxidising the silver and releasing silver ions, helping to keep the bacteria count in the water low. The royals of England were drinking wine, which has a very low pH, out of silver goblets and this was accelerating the release of silver ions into the wine and also into the food on the silver plates and cutlery. As they ingested these ions it helped to control not only bacteria but virus and fungus as well.

Silver ions inhibit the growth of bacteria by deactivating the bacteria’s oxygen metabolism enzymes. In turn, this destroys the bacteria’s cell membranes, stopping the replication of the bacteria’s DNA and preventing the bacteria from multiplying.

Virus

A single virus will invade a living cell and then this insidious pathogen will take over the nucleus of the cell and alter its reproductive mechanism to replicate that of the virus instead of the enzyme, hormone or other chemical the cell would normally have produced for the body. Later, the newly produced viruses will be released from that cell into the bloodstream to infect another cell and so on.

Ionic Silver

Silver ions have distinctly different properties when compared to metallic silver (Colloidal). They carry a positive electrical charge, being short an electron and have the unique ability to disable the enzyme system of Bacteria, Virus, Yeasts and other harmful parasites. They are actually water-soluble and thus extremely bioactive. The only real measure of the quality of any silver product is its effectiveness or bioavailability and bioactivity.

Optimum bioavailability is obtained from the ionic form. Put another way, you would need large doses of ‘regular’ Colloidal Silver to obtain similar benefits to those that Ionic Silver delivers. A single 10ml dose of 15-PPM Ionic Silver has more silver ions than the number of our body cells.

Colloidal Silver

When Colloidal Silver is manufactured, silver ions are generated as a by-product. The more silver ions there are, relative to the silver colloids, the more effective the product is. The silver colloids in Colloidal Silver are atoms of metallic silver clustered together, suspended in water as metal and are not water-soluble.

As a result, Colloidal Silver is inherently unstable and is prone to ‘dropping out’ — the colloids will drop out of suspension eventually and collect as small particles on the sides or bottom of the container. They can sometimes be seen drifting down when the bottle is inverted and held up to the light. This is an indication that the product is poorly made or has hit its ‘use by’ date. These colloids have no antibacterial or antiviral properties and are simply miniature chunks of silver that carry a negative or neutral electrical charge.

The silver ions that are produced as a by-product of electrolysis, however, are the key to why some colloidal silver products do have some benefit.

Multi-Drug Resistant Germs

Multi-Drug Resistant (M.D.R.) germs are now at near epidemic proportions through the overuse of antibiotics, responsible for an ever-growing number of ‘untreatable’ strains. Antibiotic resistance is quickly becoming a public health nightmare. Traditional antibiotics continue to lose their ability to kill certain strains of bacteria. To date, nearly every disease-causing organism known has become resistant to at least one antibiotic, and several are immune to more than one. Scientists have known since the dawn of the antibiotic age that the more an antibiotic is used, the quicker it tends to become ineffective due to bacterial resistance.