We live in a sea of potential enemies threatening our gastrointestinal micro flora. As mentioned above, we carry both beneficial and potentially pathogenic bacteria in our gut, but it is the balance that is imperative for good health. When the “bad guys” multiply due to poor diet, antibiotics, chlorinated water, food poisoning or medical drugs, this is called “dysbiosis.” It is the result of polluting a pristine environment.

If health is your goal, then reversing this situation becomes imperative. Dysbiosis contributes to more serious conditions including Crohn’s disease, Diverticulitis, colitis, leaky gut and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Chronic gut inflammation can also lead to malabsorption, metabolic shifts and obesity. One of the really interesting new outcomes of research on silver hydrosol is its ability to

benefit gastrointestinal health. Silver can be delivered internally to the gastrointestinal tract and offer important assistance for genuine recovery of tissue integrity. In fact, silver is essential for much more than its extraordinary antimicrobial activity. Its anti-inflammatory and tissue- regenerative properties are equally, if not more important, for recovery from chronic intestinal diseases.

Although a number of companies use the term “silver hydrosol” for marketing purposes, there are very strict scientific criteria to determine whether a colloidal silver is, in fact, a hydrosol or not.

Are you ready for this? Technically, a silver hydrosol is an inorganic suspension of very pure (99.999%), three dimensional, homonuclear or elemental silver nano-particulates ≤ 10 nanometers (nm) in size as the dispersed phase, stabilized by water as the continuous

phase.

Particle size is a critical criterion of definition as this relates directly to inherent properties, changes in extensive properties, stability and efficiency (surface area availability).

It has a CAS Registration Number (CASRN) assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service distinct from elemental, generic colloidal and ionic silver. Demand photographic proof via electron microscopy if you are unsure if a manufacturer’s claims are substantiated.

  

Bacterial imbalances and Candida overgrowth in the gut (dysbiosis) most acutely affect the epithelial tissue, including the villi. The intestinal villi are tiny, finger-like projections in the wall of the small intestine and have additional extensions called microvilli that protrude from epithelial cells lining the villi.

What do they do? As related generically (but accurately) by Wikipedia,

“Theyincrease the absorptive area and the surface area of the intestinal wall. It is

important that the food is absorbed at a considerably fast rate so as to allow

more sustenance to be absorbed. If the process is too slow, the concentration of

the nutrients in the blood vessels and the food will be equal, thus, diffusion will not

occur. Digested nutrients (including sugars and amino acids) pass into the villi

through diffusion. Circulating blood then carries these nutrients away.”

 

Gut dysbiosis and inflammation damage the villi.

What substances contribute directly and indirectly to manifesting this unpleasant situation?

Antibiotics, vaccines, additives, preservatives, colorings, flavorings, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, heavy metals (mercury), “plastifiers” (BPA), GMOs and radioactive elements, just to name more than a few. In these cases, simple probiotic replenishment and fermented foods are not sufficient because the damage is too significant.

The toxic, inflamed, infected and deficient terrain can no longer sustain healthy microbial life forms. How do you expect life forms that are designed to live in the Brazilian rain forest to survive in the Gobi Desert? Even the best probiotics will have a great deal of difficulty colonizing such an inhospitable terrain. We’ll get to the repair protocol later.

Why should you care if your villi are damaged? Nutrient absorption becomes highly impaired. Pathogenic (bad) bacteria and fungi (yeast) complicate and retard the healing process from within as they flourish in this corrupt environment.

Inflammatory cytokines follow. The messengers keep sounding alerts as the imbalance does not self-resolve. The inflammation spirals out of control.

Medical doctors are trained to see this as a reason to prescribe antibiotics. When the first prescription fails, even stronger antimicrobials are prescribed. When there are no more to prescribe, the docs pull out their pads once again, this time for prednisone, a powerful steroidal drug that suppresses inflammation and immunity, while intoxicating the liver.

Unfortunately, for every symptom these FDA approved medicines may suppress, additional collateral damage is the higher price paid by your intestinal lining. Rather than balance or biosis, new levels of dysbiosis result. Many in the medical profession and millions of

Americans are waking to the dangers of this standard-of-care antibiotic and steroid treatment regimen. Unfortunately, many wake up too late.

How do I define “too late?” Unfortunately it is when parts of your intestinal tract and colon are removed and you have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of your life. I was confronted by just such a circumstance years ago in my homeopathic practice when a teenager came to me as a patient already wearing a colostomy bag. He had followed the medical standard-of-care to the letter after a Crohn’s diagnosis. Even with all that had transpired in his young body – after all the drugs and surgery – he was still on daily doses of the antibiotic Cipro. You cannot live a long and healthy life on such a dangerous drug, with side effects including the rupturing of tendons and worse.

He was unable to form a solid stool. Even with an external pouch, chronic diarrhea is something that cannot be ignored for long. Malabsorption and dehydration are bad at any age, but hard to fathom for a 19-year-old wanting to go to medical school.

Shortly after starting a homeopathic protocol and interspersing doses of allicinstabilized garlic and silver hydrosol, he ceased the Cipro and was able to form solid stools for the first time since undergoing medical treatment. My protocols for restoring gastrointestinal health have improved exponentially during the subsequent decade. I would like to see a time when no other teenagers are butchered by modern medicine with such needless interventions. Actually, I would like to see the same for humans of all ages!

 

When considering a protocol for success, you want something more natural, even intuitive, which works with your body rather than against it. Wouldn’t you rather have side benefits, instead of side effects? Natural medicine offers more than hope. The trace element, silver, is already well known for its broad-based antimicrobial activity.

Less well understood are its remarkable anti-inflammatory and regenerative properties. Its ability to perform both functions on and in the body is actually well established, as silver is used in a wide range of medical applications from catheters and stents to antimicrobial adjuncts, antibiotics, even socks and undergarments – all for promoting protection against a sea of pathogens.

For anyone suffering from any kind of gut dysbiosis, it is important to do a thorough cleansing. In my decades of experience, silver may be the missing ingredient among all of

nature’s many herbal/botanical/homeopathic options. They are preferred to antibiotics for dealing with manyconditions.

Antibiotics have their important life-saving role in medicine when all else fails, but they have been overused and abused to the point of creating dangerous resistance within the microbial world. There is no resistance to the form of silver that I utilize.

Silver hydrosol, as used clinically, provides all of the antimicrobial power of drugs

without the side effects. Side effects are actually direct effects of a drug, but are labeled as such to minimize patient resistance to pharmaceutical treatment. Please remember that abruptly stopping prescription drugs can be dangerous.

The use of silver provides a nondrug option that also helps to support and modulate healthy immune activity.

Although silver can eradicate beneficial bacteria if given in large enough quantity, it certainly does not cause the collateral damage endemic to antibiotics nor does it breed microbial resistance.

Silver, as a trace mineral and normal constituent of the mammalian diet, is as aligned with the body as any natural nutrient or herbal medicine can be. After all, it is found naturally in mammalian (including human) breast milk, whole grains, medicinal mushrooms, spring water and even tap water in measurable trace amounts.1,2

1Murthy GK, Rhea U. Cadmium and Silver Content of Market Milk. (Food Protection Research; National Center

for Urban and Industrial Health - US Public Health Service)

Journal of Dairy Science 1968;51(4):610-613.

2Silver in Drinking Water; Background Document for

Development of WHO Guidelines for Drinking- Water Quality.

Geneva 2003. (WHO/SDE/WSH/03.04/14)

The normal physiologic pathway in humans and animals for the metabolism and elimination of ingested silver occurs in phase II liver glutathione conjugation, which leads to normal excretion as solid waste through the colon.3

3Rentz EJ. Viral Pathogens and Severe Acute Respiratory

Syndrome: Oligodynamic Ag+ for Direct Immune

Intervention. Journal of Nutritional and Environmental

Medicine (June 2003) 13(2), 109-118.

Indeed, a strong case can be made that silver is a necessary trace element since two receptor sites for it have been identified on the myelin tissue surrounding the nerve cell, indicating benefit for the peripheral nervous system.4,5

This is in marked contrast to heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, lead, aluminum and arsenic, which all have deleterious impact on the neuron.

4Gallyas, F., “Physico-Chemical Mechanism of the Argyrophil I Reaction,” Histochemistry (1982) 74:393.

5Gallyas, F., “Simultaneous Determination of the Amounts of Metallic and Reducible Silver in Histologic

Specimens,” Histochemistry, (1979) 64:77-86.

Why do we want to direct silver into the G.I. tract during recovery? We are looking to soothe the epithelial lining with its inflammation modulation activity and to clean and regenerate healthy new tissue at the site of infection and chronic injury. Silver reduces tissue inflammation.6 I’ve found that silver hydrosol, followed by a quality pre- and probiotic, easily helps to eliminate all pathogenic microflora, assisting the body on its journey back to perfect balance.

6Wong KY, et al., “Further Evidence of the Anti-inflammatory Effects of Silver Nanoparticles.” Chem Med Chem

2009, 4, p1129 – 1135.

Are you still wondering why silver is the missing component for rapid intestinal recovery? Silver accelerates tissue healing and prevents scar tissue formation.7,8 It took me two full years to achieve recovery years before I learned of the profound healing properties of silver as manifested in silver hydrosol. I can now help others accomplish in two months or less what took me two trips around the sun to achieve when I was 26 (having started at 24). I still recommend much of what helped me over 20 years ago, but I regard the silver-aloe protocol as the most direct natural path to intestinal epithelial integrity available to everyone.

7Becker, RO, “Induced De-differentiation; A Possible Alternative to Embryonic Stem Cell Transplants.”

Neurorehabilitation 17 (2002):23-31.

8Jun Tian, Dr. et al. Topical Delivery of Silver Nanoparticles Promotes Wound Healing 31 Oct 2006

ChemMedChem Vol. 2 Issue 1, P. 129-136.

 

When I am helping people with chronic gut issues and Candida overgrowth, I have them take the silver with a very good quality Aloe vera juice, away from meals. Ideally, the aloe should be of organic quality and free of any synthetic preservatives. The only company I know of that ships such quality frozen is Stockton Aloe1 (http://www.aloe1.com/). Their phone number is (866) 691-0201. The silver-Aloe vera combination has powerful synergy, especially in carrying the active silver further along the GI tract where it is needed. I have found that silver greatly facilitates epithelial tissue and villi recovery without inflammatory side

effects or creating microbial resistance. It is a great front-line defender of your health. After intestinal recovery, a sublingual maintenance dose of silver hydrosol (one to three teaspoons per day) can be very helpful in assisting the body to guard against falling back again into bacterial disarray.

Please remember that we only recommend the use of bioactive silver hydrosol. Generic colloidal silvers tend to have too many compounds (salts and proteins), inactive agglomerations and inefficiently large particle sizes. What we are seeking is to maximize surface area, which only a pico- and nano-particle silver hydrosol such as Sovereign Silver® supplies.

This, along with Argentyn 23® for health professionals (Natural-Immunogenics Corp.) is the only product that we use for our families and

recommend to those in need. By including it, we have not seen a more rapidly acting intestinal-health recovery protocol.

Adult dose: Take 1 ounce of silver with 1 ounce (or more) of aloe, swallowing directly on an empty stomach 3 times daily, followed by probiotic replenishment every evening for 1 to 2 weeks for mild dysbiosis or candida overgrowth. Those who weigh less than 120 pounds can use half the dose.

For those dealing with more serious, chronic gut inflammation, including Crohn’s, IBS, leaky gut, colitis and diverticulitis, please consult with your chosen health care provider. The protocol may require 4, 6 or even 8 weeks for completion.

Considering the toxic drugs and surgical butchery of allopathic medicine, this method may be much more preferable, both for economic reasons and desired outcome. Although I do not support the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, the only class of said drugs contraindicated with the use of silver are sulfonamides

(Bactrim, Septra, etc) due to the strong affinity that silver and sulfur have for one another.

Maintenance: 1 teaspoon daily

Immunity-building: 3 teaspoons daily

Chronic immune support: 5 teaspoons daily

Gastrointestinal health: 1-2 tablespoons with aloe 3 times daily

Acute immune support: 7 teaspoons daily

Teaspoon (5 mL/cc) doses, even when taken multiple times on a daily basis, do not disrupt normal healthy gut flora. An oral dose has to exceed 2 tablespoons (30 mL/cc) of volume, which means more than one ounce. There is a silver hydrosol preference toward pathogens because these bacteria have a negatively charged surface or negative zeta-potential.

Good bacteria, such as Lactobacilli sp. have a more positively charged surface. If the dose is light enough, mostly pathogenic species will be selectively killed. With a larger dose, all species are killed. So, oral dosage becomes a fine line scenario. By mixing the silver with aloe gel / juice, the silver is carried farther along the lumen to kill micro-organisms lower in the gut.

Bonus Benefits from Aloe – Immune Joy!

Aloe Vera (Barbadensis Miller) contains a phytochemical called Acemannan. Acemannan is known to cause the macrophages to release TNF (Tumor Necrosis Factor… or “cancer death factor”), Interleukins, and Interferons in the body. These cytokines are chemical mediators of the immune system that act as cell signalers; that is, they help direct the immune system to identify and prevent viral and cancer cell replication, among other things.

Aloe Vera And Tissue Regeneration

Aloe vera has been used traditionally to speed up the healing process of damaged skin due to burns, cuts, scrapes, and more. Much research has been done to confirm the efficacy. And now you know that it can also help heal the gut!

The skin and gut are actually quite similar. Many naturally-focused healthcare providers view the gut as a continuation of the skin that is carried through the body as the alimentary canal, separating its contents from the actual inside of the body. That is, it is a barrier that goes from the mouth to anus and separates the outside world from the inside of the body - just like the skin. The nutrition you consume is actually still outside of your body until it passes through the gut wall being absorbed into your blood stream. Both the gut and the skin are made of “epithelial tissue” which plays a crucial role in the selective absorption and excretion of nutrients and waste. That is why physicians can use patches and roll-ons to deliver chemicals through the skin causing a physiological effect. The skin, has been scientifically demonstrated to heal faster with the application of aloe vera. The gut has been clinically

demonstrated to symptomatically improve with the ingestion of aloe vera. We need to differentiate between the inner and outer leaf parts of the aloe vera plant. The inner leaf heals… the outer leaf can actually irritate the gut and make things worse; though some people use the outer leaf parts to relieve constipation. So if you are going to consume aloe vera for an irritable bowel condition, make sure you choose an inner leaf source such as from Stockton Aloe 1 and not a “whole leaf aloe vera” which may irritate the very lining you

are trying to heal.

For those interested in the other adjunctive remedies and supplements that I utilize in order to further accelerate comprehensive recovery for those most in need, see the following:

1500 mg vegetal Silica 4x (100% whole food) daily during 4-week loading

phase (ALTA Health Products); reduce dose by 50% after 4 weeks; maintenance dose thereafter 500mg 3x daily ** Purpose: Connective tissue integrity, epithelial lining regrowth

3-5g L-glutamine per day (or as directed on label) ** Purpose: Gut lining repair support

Essential fatty acids EPA and DHA 3-5g daily ** Purpose: Inflammation reduction and modulation; cellular repair