Anyone use or heard/read regarding silica for skin and bones? (scoliosis, hormones)

[Felix C]

I admit it is my line of work but not trolling only asking.....a minority of health food store owners and even large volume wholesalers know what I am speaking of regarding benefits when I contact them. But the majority, particularly if they are not West Coast USA do not. The research has been available since the early 1970s and the mineral is quite popular in Europe. I do not understand why less so in the USA.

Wondering if the store owners and presumably their staff do not know then perhaps the populace at large do not as well and so asking here.

[AnonChick]

I'm not seeing any research showing why anyone would want to ingest silica. Inhaled, it can cause scoliosis, bronchitis, and cancer. Ingested, it passes through the intestine unchanged and is considered an "inert" ingredient in some pills, where it is used along with other materials as a coating. It has no nutritional value, the human body doesn't produce it naturally.

Or are you referring to psyllium, which is used as a digestive?

Edited to add: I did see a mention of its use for treatment of dimentia, one study indicating that it decreases symptoms by around 10%.

[Felix C]

Different form of silica. Well, there are articles of course otherwise we would have a flood of toxically affected users. Thanks for the response. I have received that one as well.

[Felix C]

I should add I can email you some of the studies done in the UK and USA. Former by a USDA researcher and a University of Wisconsin reasercher. Just send me a PM.

[AnonChick]

No, I'm seeing that this is still silicon dioxide, aka silica, which is one of the components of quartz crystal. I'm seeing advertisements touting its use for bone, and I'm seeing websites devoted to the "instruction" of its use for bone, and claiming a particular Nobel Prize winner of 1939 by the name of Adolf Brutenant, constructed experiments in 1972 which showed the essential value of silica in the human body.

I'm also seeing that Columbia University shows no such person conducting experiments there in 1972 on any subject at all. I -am- seeing that this Nobel Prize winner's study, for which he won his prize, was on sexual chemistry; namely, esterone and progesterone. I'm also seeing that he continued studies on sexual chemistry for decades, made some remarkable progress in the field, and went on to do other studies about moulting in silk moths. I'm not seeing anything about any studies he did after his retirement in 1972, and he died in 1995.

So basically, I'm seeing a lot of claims made by marketing companies that this product does awesome things, and using a dead guy's non-existent research to prove their claim. I am -also- seeing studies about organic chemistry that mention this chemical compound and the mineral in general, that are very specific in that the human body has no use for it, and it serves no nutritional or systemic function in the human body, with the *possible* exception, still unproven, that it *might* be of benefit in dementia patients.

[Felix C]

I have never heard of that person or seen that particular claim. There are studies done by legitmate organizations and proper scholarly articles in question are at SILICON AND BONE HEALTH and other scholarly sites.

I do agree there is much rubbish in the supplement field.

BTW, Bayer has silica impregnated fibers for wound healing and silicon has been used topically for at least two decades for scar diminishment. There are other benefits other than for bone density.

[AnonChick]

Oh - yes I know definitely silica has use for the *exterior* surface of the human body; I had silica fibers applied to my surgery scars. I'm talking about internal use. I'm reading this study - which looks like a Doctoral Thesis (which is fine - valid research).

What I'm seeing, is that the author says that:
1. Silica exists in all kinds of things we consume, and things we don't consume. It's basically a component of pretty much everything on the planet.
2. The human body has no particular *known* use for silica, and the digestive system mostly rejects it, or absorbs it quickly and then passes it out in the urine (depending on the specific type of silica).
3. There is evidence that suggests silica *might* be useful in bone support, however..
4. Silica and calcium don't mix, therefore someone attempting to take silica for bone support, should NOT take calcium - which is one of THE primary bone support minerals in the human body. So you'd have to give up the "known" good - in an effort to make use of the "unknown possible good."

Sounds like a bad bet to me. I'd rather take calcium, which I know will support the bones, rather than go on a low calcium diet, and hope that the silica actually works for me.

It's a very interesting study though, and I hope that if they can come up with something a little more substantial and conclusive, it'll catch on in the USA. There are lots of people who for whatever reason, are not able to use calcium supplements. Silica could prove to be a viable alternative.

[Felix C]

He actually says much more. I appreciate your interest and skepticisim but there is much more in the article than your above points and you are drawing misleading conclusions. This is also one of a considerable body of research done in the previous twenty years on the topic.

I have not reason to press this as I was only asking what I intended in the OP. I always find responses interesting. But thank for your time.

[AnonChick]

I think the trouble, is that you're not posting this on a peer-review board. You're posting it on a public internet forum filled primarily with laymen and potential consumers. As a result, we (the consumers and laymen) will (if we actually care, which I did) read the post, do some quick googling to see what other parts of the WWW say about the subject, and respond.

My googling, as a potential consumer, was on the word "silica" which I knew already, was the material used to make commercial glass, among other things. When I added the word "health" to my search, I found dozens of websites - primarily in two distinct camps:

1. those websites devoted to warning about the toxicity of *inhaling* silica in powdered form
and
2. companies that claimed that silica was the next modern miracle, secretly kept from the public since the Nobel guy discovered its miracles in 1972, and now available from their company with free shipping if you act now.

So I dug a little further into the claims made by the supplement sellers, and discovered that the Nobel guy really did win the Nobel prize for science, but only as it relates to sex hormones and not to silica. And that furthermore, I didn't see any indication that he had been working on -any- research in 1972, and in fact had retired that year as the director of some scientific organization.

I dug even further, and found that this claim that the -one- nutritional supplement manufacturer made, was duplicated verbatim, by several other nutritional supplement manufacturers on their websites claiming silica was the next modern miracle and everyone must have it.

Then, you directed me to some actual research, which I was unable to find by just typing a few words into the google search engine.

While I -did- understand most of it, I am not a biochemist, nor a geologist. I have studied organic chemistry but this is beyond the scope of my understanding. It is also beyond the scope of most laymens' understanding, and most consumers only have advertisements to go by. Unfortunately, most of the advertisements are making claims that simply are not true, which casts the entire product in a dubious light.

I find that unforunate because from what I was able to understand of that research thesis, silica *might* very well have benefit. But as long as the majority of advertisers lie about it, the product will not have much credibility with me, or anyone else who does search engine searches to look up interesting topics on the internet.

The only thing we -can- understand, in short, are the lies. The truth in the actual research is hidden by terminology and scientific explanation that the average person will simply not understand.