Re: Pinworms:Parasites and Colliadal Silver

Why Higher PPM Is Not Always Better

The so-called "ppm" (i.e., parts per million) of colloidal silver is a widely used, but also equally as widely misunderstood, designation.

For example, many people believe that ppm somehow designates the strength, or the microbial killing power, of colloidal silver. Others believe it represents the number of silver particles in a certain volume of water. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The ppm designation is also very often referred to as a representing the concentration of silver in the water. But even this is not completely accurate.

What Is PPM?

So what exactly is "ppm," as applied to colloidal silver, and what does it designate?

By definition 1 ppm of colloidal silver is one milligram of silver deposited in one liter of water (1,000 ml), otherwise designated as 1 mg/l. So it is, in reality, a measurement of the overall weight of the silver in a liter of water, not the number of silver particles!

Why is this so important to understand? Because the actual weight (i.e., ppm) of silver in a colloidal silver solution has very little bearing on its effectiveness. Instead, it is how finely divided the total silver content is, that ultimately determines its effectiveness. Here's why...

Finer Silver Particles for Increased Reach and Potential Killing Power

For example, an American Eagle silver dollar weighs about an ounce, which is approximately 28,349 milligrams (mg.). In a liter of water, that would be 28,349 ppm. Now relatively speaking, that's one heckuva lot of silver. But if you dropped a silver dollar into a one liter glassful of water and drank it, swallowing the silver dollar along with the water, it would have very little therapeutic value, except perhaps as it made its way through your intestinal tract where it would likely come into contact with a few colonies of pathogens and kill some of them. But overall, it would simply make its way through the intestines, and be excreted through the normal channel of elimination, coming out essentially whole in the feces. Because it is one whole piece, rather than being finely divided into many thousands or even millions of sub-microscopic pieces, it has zero absorbability into the body's cells, tissues and organs, and therefore only a comparatively miniscule opportunity to kill pathogens.

But what if you took just a tiny fraction of that one ounce pure silver coin, and finely divided it up into many thousands of tiny silver particles? For example, let's say you were to take just one milligram of silver from that silver dollar mentioned above. That's just 1 ppm of silver in a liter of water. And it represents just 1/28,349th of the total weight of that silver dollar. And let's say you were to divide that relatively tiny 1 mg. piece of silver into 500,000 miniscule particles. Since it only takes one particle of silver to disable one pathogen, you would now have 500,000 different opportunities to kill pathogens. So even though this is only a tiny fraction of the amount of silver contained in the silver dollar, it represents 500,000 times more anti-microbial killing power in the human body!

What's more, by finely dividing that 1 mg. piece of silver, it can now be easily absorbed by the body, and rapidly distributed throughout the body, which is to say, it can much more easily travel through the body, reaching into the organs and tissues and cells where pathogens colonize.

So by finely dividing that tiny 1 mg. piece of silver, you gain many multitudes greater opportunities to kill pathogens than you would have from placing the full one-ounce (28,349 ppm) coin into a liter of water and swallowing it whole!

So while the one ounce silver coin gives you a much greater level of silver by total weight in a liter of water (which is the definition of "ppm"), the dramatically smaller 1 mg. piece of silver that has been finely divided into 500,000 tiny pieces gives you literally five hundred thousand times more anti-microbial "killing power." This is what we mean when we say the ppm - or total weight of the silver in the colloidal silver solution -- does not matter nearly as much as how finely divided that silver is.

Now, let's say you divide that 1 mg. piece of silver even more finely, into five million tiny silver particles instead of only 500,000. Since smaller silver particles are more easily absorbed by the body and distributed into the body's organs, tissues and cells, you have now made the silver ten times more efficient than before. Instead of only 500,000 opportunities to kill pathogens, you would now have a full five million different opportunities to kill pathogens in the body. Yet you would still have the same exact amount of silver in your body - 1 mg per liter of water, or 1 ppm!

And if you further divided up that 1 mg. piece of silver into ten million very fine silver particles, you would achieve absolutely phenomenal absorbability by the body, and distribution throughout the body's organs, tissues and cells. And you would give yourself a whopping ten million different opportunities to kill pathogens. Yet you are still using the exact same amount of silver by weight - 1 mg. per liter of water, or 1 ppm!

Obviously, a 1 ppm (1 mg. per liter) colloidal silver solution in which the silver has been finely divided into ten million silver particles is going to be far more effective than a 1 ppm (1 mg. per liter) colloidal silver solution in which the silver was only divided into five million silver particles. So you see, the finer you divide that tiny 1 mg. piece of silver, the wider its reach throughout the body, and the more anti-microbial killing power the same amount of silver provides!

Do you see now why we say that the "ppm" designation can be quite misleading? Instead of "ppm," you really need to know what the particle size of the silver is, in conjunction with the ppm.

The Importance of Knowing the Size of the Silver Particles in Your Colloidal Silver Solution

The particle size of silver in a colloidal silver solution is usually (though not always) expressed in terms of a measurement known as microns. We will use the micron designation here, simply because it is more widely used. Another popular designation is "nanometer." A micron is simply 1,000 nanometers. So one nanometer is .001 microns.

To help put this in perspective for you, a human hair is about 100 microns wide, while a typical red blood cell is only about 7 microns wide. Most bacteria are somewhere between 4 and 15 microns wide. A virus, on the other hand, can be as small as .01 micron. Most colloidal silver products are measured in fractions of a micron. For example, a properly constructed conventional colloidal silver generator can produce silver particles as low as .05 microns in size...a very high-quality commercially produced colloidal silver product might contain silver particles as low as .005 microns in size...and the new Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator can produce silver particles as low as .0008 microns, which is eight ten-thousands of a single micron - many times smaller than a tiny virus!

Okay, let's say you are looking at two different hypothetical colloidal silver solutions. Both of them boast 10 ppm, which as you have now learned, is simply 10 mg. worth of silver in a liter of water. But one of these hypothetical colloidal silver solutions says its particles are .05 microns in size, and the other says its particles are .005 microns in size. Everything else being equal (price, amount of colloidal silver solution in the bottle, etc.) which of these two colloidal silver solutions represent the best value in terms of absorbability into the human body, and potential antimicrobial killing power?

Obviously, the colloidal silver solution with the more finely divided particles is the best choice, everything else being equal.

Why? Because silver particles measuring .005 microns are ten times smaller than silver particles measuring .05 microns. What's more, there would be approximately ten times as many silver particles in the .005 micron solution, since we know these two colloidal silver solutions contain the same silver weight (i.e., they are both 10 ppm). So you get ten times more silver particles, and ten times smaller silver particles, in the colloidal silver solution with silver particles designated as being .005 microns in size. Yet both colloidal silver solutions have exactly the same amount of silver in them, by weight!

This is why we say that knowing the particle size as well as the ppm is absolutely crucial in terms of being able to judge the potential value and effectiveness of a colloidal silver solution.

Why a Higher PPM Batch of Colloidal Silver Can Be Less Effective Than a Lower PPM Batch!

It should be obvious by now that the more tiny "slices" of silver you have in the same volume of water, the more opportunities you have to kill pathogens, and the greater reach throughout the human body those tiny silver particles will have, due to the simple fact that smaller particles are far more easily absorbed by the body, distributed throughout the body's organs, tissues and cells, and excreted afterwards. So you can have the same amount of silver by weight, but by dividing it into finer and finer particles you vastly increase its reach and effectiveness!

It should also be obvious by now that the designation of a higher ppm on a colloidal silver solution does not by itself equate to greater effectiveness. You can have a much lower ppm (i.e., much lower weight of silver in a liter of water), but if that silver is divided many times more finely than a colloidal silver solution carrying a much higher ppm, it is the lower ppm solution that will provide you with the greater benefit, rather than the higher!

This is not double-talk. It may sound counter-intuitive. But it is simple, irrefutable science.

Let's say you have two colloidal silver products: Product number one is 20 ppm (i.e., 20 mg. total weight of silver per liter of water) with silver particles that are .01 microns in size. And product number two is only 10 ppm (i.e., 10 mg. total weight of silver per liter of water) but has silver particles that are .001 microns in size.

The 20 ppm colloidal silver solution obviously has two times more silver by weight than the 10 ppm solution.

But...the silver particles in the 10 ppm colloidal silver solution are 10 times smaller than the silver particles in the 20 ppm solution. So while a one ounce dose of the 20 ppm colloidal silver solution would contain twice the total silver by weight than a one ounce dose of the 10 ppm colloidal silver solution, the one ounce dose of 10 ppm would actually contain five times more silver particles!

This means you would get five times more potential anti-microbial killing power, and five times greater absorption and assimilation throughout the body, by taking one ounce of the 10 ppm solution, than you would by taking one ounce of the 20 ppm solution.

It is amazing. But it is absolutely true. And it is a testament to the fact that depending solely upon the "ppm" of a colloidal silver solution to judge its effectiveness is ignorance at best.

As stated by well-known colloidal silver researcher S.E. Foran in his landmark white paper on the therapeutic properties of silver:

 

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