September 2009

Colloidal gold is a form of liquid gold solution, in which gold particles rather than gold ions are suspended in a liquid. The sizes of gold particles are normally in the order of 10 nanometers. Like other group III metals such as silver and copper, gold has its own medicinal use. Since the civilization came into being, liquid gold has been used as a therapeutic agent for treating rheumatoid arthritis, internal heat, loss of consciousness, delirium, agitation, red tongue, sudden fainting, furuncles, smallpox, skin ulcers, measles and baby's sudden convulsion. This article presents an overview of colloidal gold.

Brief History of Colloidal Gold

Gold has been used in medicine for many thousand years. The earliest application of gold as a therapeutic agent was recorded in China. Back in 2500 BC, compounds made with gold were used in China to treat diseases in joints, internal heat, loss of consciousness, delirium, agitation, red tongue, sudden fainting, furuncles, smallpox, skin ulcers, measles and baby's sudden convulsion. Records also suggest that medicinal gold was used for removal of mercury from human bodies.

China was the first country where cinnabar was used to extract gold from gold ores. In China, medicinal gold was once a part of a very important Taoists' medicine, called "紫金丹" in Chinese, or "purple gold distillate" in English. For some unknown reasons, the medicinal gold in China is similar to "Aurum Potabile“ in Paracelsus' teaching. It is unclear if the Taoists' medicine "purple gold distillate" is equivalent to "Electrum" documented in modern alchemists' writing.

The knowledge of medicinal gold did not remain in China forever and it began to vanish after the Tang Dynasty. Instead, the Taoist religion was later influenced heavily by mercury-based alchemical concepts. Ironically, by 11th and 12nd centuries, much of the knowledge of medicinal gold was lost to Arab, and then to Europe and the British Isles.

E175, an Additive Containing Gold

Nowdays, there are many ways whereby gold can be ingested into human bodies. Gold is one of the food additives with E-number E175. In many countries, one can legally and unknowingly consume gold by consuming foods containing E175. Another way to ingest gold is to take gold salts or colloidal gold. This article focuses on colloidal gold, with emphasis on its science only.

Use of Colloidal Gold as Therapeutic Agent

Colloidal gold has been successfully used as a cure for:

1/ Alcoholism and addictions:

In the nineteenth century, colloidal Gold was commonly used in the United States to cure alcoholism (then called dipsomania, defined as the uncontrollable craving for alcoholic liquors). Colloidail gold has been used with success to reduce dependency on alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, additive drugs and carbohydrates.

2/ Rheumatoid arthritis:

Colloidal gold has been successfully used as a therapy for rheumatoid arthritis in dogs, rats and humans. According to the experience of adults with arthritis, the effects of colloidal gold on joint pain and swelling are usually positive and noticable within a week. There is no published clinical evidence of gold toxicity on any arthritic patients taking colloidal gold .

3/ Mental illness, like depression:

Paracelsus (1493-1541), a physician and a pioneer of gold drugs, wrote a treatise on "Diseases that deprive man of his reason," quoting potable gold as one of his medicamenta comfortativa. According to his writing, potable gold is useful in many forms of mental illness, including epilepsy, mania, St. Vitus dance (Sydenham’s chorea), melancholy, and "suffocation of the intellect" (hysteria).

4/ Tuberculosis:

In 1980, Robert Koch, a bacteriologist from Germany, successfully demonstrated that compounds made with gold suppressed maturation of the bacilli that caused tuberculosis. In eighteen hundred ninety, Koch was awarded a Nobel Prize in Medical science for this work. Since then, Gold is also known to retard prostate cancer in men. Women with ovary cancer are treated with natural colloidal gold, and in surgical operation to patch impaired nerves, blood vessels, bones, and membranes.

5/ Cancer:

In a paper published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry, scientists documented the use of an anticancer plant chemicals, or phytochemicals, found in Darjeeling tea as a reducing agent to turn gold salts into nanoparticles of gold. The process turns the tea from purple-red to pale yellow. The scientists believe that the gold nanoparticles in the tea could be used to zap tumours [1 ].

6/ Toothache:

So far, two persons have successfully used colloidal gold against toothache. Me and my friend. We need some more "guinea pigs".

Use of Gold to Unbind Mercury-containing Compounds in the Human Body

For some unknown reasons, most of the health problems that can be improved through the use of medicinal gold are associated with mercury poisoning. UPI has previously reported that a child diagnosed with autism appeared to improve markedly (and unexpectedly) after being treated with gold salts for an attack of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Boyd E. Haley, a biochemistry professor at the University of Kentucky, who strongly supports mercury poisoning as the primary cause of many neurological disorders, tested gold salts in his laboratory following the report by UPI. He suggests that gold salts can "reverse the binding" of mercury to a chemical compound.

In regards to this story, Haley further says, "This does lend support to the possible removal of mercury from biological proteins in individuals treated with gold salts." He suggests that gold might pull mercury off the enzyme it's inhibiting and reactivate that enzyme. However, he warns, “This issue needs research as it has good possibilities for helping the older autistics but it is also replete with danger if used ignorantly. Also, consider the thiols that are part of the gold salts, namely thioglucose and thiomalate, both analogs of natural compounds. It might be that the delivery of these thiols to the appropriate areas of the body is what reverses any possible mercury effect instead of the gold itself,”

At the time of this writing, Haley did not offer further hint on the role of gold in mercury poisoning. However, it is not difficult to guess how gold works in the presence of mercury toxicity. Elemental gold is known to amalgamate with mercury even at room temperature. In effect, this process unbinds mercury from the body enzymes, thus mobilizing the accumulated mercury in the human body. Though not formally proven in any clinical trial, this process has already been tested and reported in another study[2], in which gold colloids in acetonitrile were used to catalyze the disproportionation of (Hg-Hg)2+ to Hg2+ and Hg0. Chemically speaking, the process looks like:

[Hg1-Hg1]2+ --> Hg2+ + Au0 Hg0

Mercury is highly volatile at room temperature. The radiations from the sun or some other high energy sources can drive off the elemental mercury Hg0 from the mercury-gold amalgam Au0 Hg0, resulting in a release of mercury vapor from the human body. This explains why many victims of chronic fatigue syndrome experience a significant relief following an exposure to the sunshine.

Since the gold particles Au0 cannot evaporate at such a low temperature, they will remain in the body for a week or so and continue to unbind the remaining mercury ions from the body enzymes. It is unclear if these gold particles will unbind Hg2+ as well. If they do, then the overall mechanism should continue to lower the mercury burden in the human body until all the gold particles are excreted.

On the other hand, since colloidal gold can cross the blood brain barrier, it should not be difficult for gold to mobilize mercury in the body. Now, the following questions deserve some answers from the scientific community:

1/ Since mercury itself has strong affinity for sulfhydryl-groups, it bonds firmly with the protein tissues in the central nervous system. The bonded mercury will remain and accumulate with newly added mercury day after day in the central nervous system for a very long period. The half-life of the bonded mercury in the central nervous system can be anywhere between 15 and 30 years. The presence of gold can change this situation, because of the likelihood of formation of mercury-gold amalgam. Then, what is the half-life of the mercury-gold amalgam in the central nervous system?

2/ Does this mercury-gold amalgam as a result of this process have any negative impact on the central nervous system? This is a very tricky question. It is widely believed that the presence of selenium and other trace minerals in the food can mitigate the toxicity of mercury in fishes and other seafoods. It is unclear if gold plays a role similar to the detoxicification activities of selenium and other trace minerals in human bodies.

3/ After zapping (or unbinding) the mercury particles, the colloidal gold particles would contine to attach to the mercury particles and remain trapped somewhere in the human body until the sun heat is present. It is widely believed that DMPS can chelate gold from the human body. To prevent excessive build-up of gold-mercury amalgam in the human body, is it possible to remove this mercury-gold amalgam through the use of DMPS or other similar chelating agents?

Colloidal Gold/Silver mixture and Stem Cell Growth

There is a speculation that stem cells can be cultivated with a proper mix of colloidal silver and colloidal gold [3 ,4 ]. According to some online literature, Dr. Robert Becker discovered stem cells on people on bone fractures after a silver laced bandages was placed. Also, another study has proved excellent results in the Parkinson cases when wet cells batteries combined with colloidal gold and silver solutions have been used during a four-month treatment.

There is likely some more knowledge yet to come. Right now, I am still looking for the original publication in this field for further clarification.

Reference

[1] "Straight from the teapot, a golden anti-cancer brew ", Daily Mail, 25th March 2009

[2] Horst Kunkelya and Arnd Vogler, "Dismutation of Hg2+ catalyzed by colloidal gold ", Elsevier B.V. , 6 October 2004.

[3] Parkinson's Disease - Colloidal Silver or Colloidal Gold 

[4] Cerebral Palsy Remedies 

(Disclaimer: This article is provided as a research tool for the purpose of education only. Most of the information in this article is pieced together from a variety of Internet and non-internet sources (including the results of my own experiments). Not all the sources are unbiased, accurate, reliable, current and complete. It is also important to understand that the Internet environment is variable and dynamic.

This article will be actively updated whenever correction is warranted and/or new information on colloidal gold becomes available. If there are any errors found in this article, please let me know and I will be happy to correct them. Meanwhile, I recommend that my readers exercise good judgement when reading this article.)