Hveragerthi wrote:

---If this were a bacterial infection then this may help. Silver has ben shown to kill bacteria, but does not work on viruses, which are not living microbes and do not respond the same.---

There is ample evidence and legitimate research that conclusively proves "silver" (in various forms) to be effective against many viruses. The following link yields a compilation & overview of some of the research showing the virotoxicity of silver: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15038128/Colloidal-Silver-and-Viral-Infections

This is a sales type site for a particular silver product.  I don't put credibility in such sites.  Especially when they are discussing particular studies they never cite in order to 1.  See if the study actually exists,  2.  See how the study was done,  3.  Find out how they came to their conclusion and if they interpreted the study properly and 4.  Who was funding the study.

But let's say for a second that the study was independent and interpreted properly.  There are still some issues.  First of all, simply binding the receptors does not destroy the virus.  Secondly the studies appear to have been done in culture, not the human body.  This brings up a number of other issues.  First of many things compete for receptors.  Isolated silver has no competition.  In the body it would have competition.  In addition, we have no idea how long the binding is in culture or how long it would be in the body.  Since the silver is not destroying the virus, even at concentrated levels in culture this means the virus still has the potential to cause problems if the receptor is freed up or the silver is displaced by a more reactive metal.  Also keep in mind that the viral load may be more than the amount of silver that can be safely ingested can bind IF it can get to the virus.  I will get the "IF" in a second.  Something else that also needs to be mentioned is that again silver in Petri dish culture is not the same as ingested silver.  How much of the "colloidal silver" reacts with things like stomach acid forming larger compounds such as salts?  How do these new compounds affect the virus in the body?  Getting back to the "IF" there is something else that is very important to keep in mind.  The are testing the pure silver on isolated virus.  The HIV virus though is not going to be out in the open somewhere in the blood.  The virus hides within cells and vacuoles where even the immune system has a hard time finding it.  So the obvious question would be can the silver get inside these cells and cell vacuoles to even bind the receptors.

As an analogy to this studies have shown that vitamin C will kill semen in culture.  Does this mean that taking vitamin C will make a man sterile?  Of course not.  Again, there can be big differences between how something works in culture and how something works in the body.

As for their little statement about the viral load dropping, the "viral load" is a complete joke!   Viral load (polymerase chain reaction, PCR) CANNOT prove neither the presence of any particular virus nor its activity.  I have also posted in detail on why previously.  As far as I am concerned the PCR is really nothing more than a sales tool since it is highly prone to error, but more importantly can be easily manipulated to obtain whatever desired result.

Finally, they also use a silver based antibiotic as "evidence" of silver being effective against viruses.  If this study exists they still should not be using it as "evidence" to the effectiveness of silver.  Simply being present does not mean something is the active component.  All antibiotics contain carbon.  This does not mean carbon will kill bacteria or destroy viruses.

The article above does appear to be an advertisement; the studies referenced are legitimate, regardless of rhetoric.

I take it you never actually read the studies they present.  For example, one study is for silver nitrate, not colloidal silver.  And the study states "AgNO₃ did not affect the attachment of HSV to host cells".  And at the beginning of the study they also make a list of viruses for which the silver nitrate was shown not to affect.

This is something I have brought up before.  These sales sites like to reference studies that generally do not back their claims.  They count on people being too lazy to read the studies or not being able to understand what is being said.  People just see there are references and therefore assume the studies are backing their sales claims.  Otherwise why would they reference these studies?

By the way, the last study was also done in culture and they specifically state effectiveness in a dose dependent manner.  In other words there was some effect when concentrated silver was placed directly on the cultures.  Unfortunately you cannot concentrate silver in the body.  So this goes back to my earlier statement about culture studies not reflecting actual use in the body.  How much colloidal silver would you have to ingest in one dose to reach the same concentrations of silver that were used in the culture studies to obtain any significant effect?  And how safe is that concentration?

Here is another showing that silver nanoparticles inhibit hepatitis B virus replication:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18505176

You mean this cultured cell test again that tells us nothing about the effectiveness in the body?  Again, how much of the silver would you have to ingest in a single dose to reduce the level of DNA?  And what side effects would that dose cause?

This is why it is so important people actually read the studies they are using as "evidence".  And why people should actually read these studies to see if they even apply if they are going to accept them as evidence.  Again, several of the studies they are using as "evidence" for the efficacy of colloidal silver had nothing to do with colloidal silver in the first place.  And the studies are culture studies, which really don't us much of anything.   As I mentioned earlier these studies prove that the silver does not destroy the virus even in high concentrations.  And the one study showed the silver had no effect on a number of viruses.  This is why they are speculating that silver may be used as a treatment for some viral infections.  Until they can show that high enough levels of silver can be safely ingested to bind the receptors, and that this a permanent binding, or that it can destroy the viruses in the body there is no real evidence of effectiveness.