Silver has a remarkable ability to selectively destroy pathogenic bacteria while not causing harm to healthy probiotic bacteria. This web page presents data showing silver’s efficacy against bacteria, explores which silver technologies are the most effective against bacteria, and provides answers to the most commonly asked questions surrounding silver and bacteria.

Does silver really work against bacteria?

Study: Structured Silver on Seven Pathogens

Recent tests of silver technologies were performed at Nelson Laboratories, a pharmaceutical grade lab located in Salt Lake City. Nelson Laboratories is FDA registered and third-party accredited to ISO 17025 standards (ACLASS). Nelson Laboratories is a GLP, GMP, and GTP facility.

This Silver Health Institute study provides primary research to answer questions frequently asked by today’s doctors as well as the general public. The primary goal of this study was to test structured silver’s ability to kill pathogens from each of the major categories of pathogenic bacteria along with one common yeast. A secondary goal was to test the efficacy of the 2011 structured silver technology with the leading silver aquasol technology of the previous decade. This comparative test only included experimentation on two bacterial strains.

The results of this test were clear: the 2011 structured silver technology is effective with all major categories of pathogenic bacteria as well as Candida.

Kill Rate (5 minutes)

Pathogen	Control	Silver Aquasol	Structured Silver
Staphylococcus aureus	0%	92.00%	99.90%
MRSA	0%	92.00%	99.89%
Pseudomonas aeruginosa	0%		99.93%
E-coli	0%		99.91%
Salmonella	0%		99.99%
Candida albicans	0%		99.97%
Streptococcus	0%		99.99%

Based on the data, the conclusions are as follows:

“Structured silver destroys all categories of bacterial and yeast pathogens within 5 minutes and does so at a level of 99.99% while the acidic silver aquasol only destroyed 92% in 5 minutes. This means there were 1,400,000 living MRSA bacteria left alive in the acidic silver aquasol after five minutes and none in the structured silver.”

Watch structured silver eliminate bacteria

Structured silver kills some pathogens on contact.

This Silver Health Institute video shows staph and strep bacteria meeting structured silver and being killed on contact: Microscope View of Silver Killing Bacteria (click to see the video.)

Answers to four common questions

The following four questions are frequently asked by doctors and the general public when learning about silver’s ability to kill pathogenic bacteria:

1. Why is silver itself anti-bacterial?
2. How can silver kill “bad bacteria” but not “good bacteria”?
3. What about silver and normal healthy cells?
4. How can new forms of silver outperform older silvers?

Each question is answered below in a video with Dr. Gordon Pedersen.

Question #1: Why is the element silver anti-bacterial?

Video transcript

“What is it about silver? I’m seeing silver coins kill bacteria, even in a water jug. I’m seeing silver in many different forms destroy stink and odor, viruses, bacteria… What is it about silver and why does it work?

I’m Dr. Gordon Pedersen, and I’m the Medical Director of The Silver Health Institute, and this is why silver works.

In a chemical diagram, this is what silver looks like. We have two electrons in an inner orbital, 8, 18, and then in the outer orbital we only have one electron. I have signified it there. This is significant and this is why silver works. It has only one electron here, and it rotates like a wheel that’s out of balance. It can’t ever get itself, even as dense as it is, in balance until an electron is placed into this placement.

Where is it going to get an electron? One single electron? It’s going to steal it from bacteria. It’s going to steal it from viruses. It’s going to steal it from yeast. Yeah! Here is a single-layered, cellular organism. Meaning, there’s only all these little, teeny electrons around here, and that makes up a cellular wall. It is an incomplete cellular wall because it’s only one electron thick. As soon as this silver particle, which is magnetic, gets anywhere near this bacteria, it’s going steal that bacteria and make silver completely in balance. Stealing an electron from bacteria, viruses, and yeast balances silver. That’s why silver works.

There’s other mechanisms of action, but silver steals an electron to balance itself out, thus destroying pathogens.

The question is, “now that silver has stolen an electron from a bacteria, causing its death, it’s now balanced. What good is it, medically, to us now?”

The point is that once it steals an electron and it is balanced, that’s an ionic silver. That is a colloidal silver of the past. Those are the inferior silvers that literally need one particle of silver, to steal one electron, and now it’s neutral and it’s balanced and it can’t steal any more.

Until it comes into the same proximity with multiple silver molecules. Then, in a crystalline structure, it has the ability to give, take, give, take, and even shoot electrons in a way that kills pathogens.

This is important because we have found that this single can become multiple, and it can come in a tetrahedral circle or a tetrahedral framework, and we call that a crystalline structure. So if we take silver, which is “Ag,” and we take four of them, and we put all the oxygens that make it balanced on here as well, then each one of them has an oxygen and each one has a hydrogen, and all of a sudden we get a crystalline structure, with hydrogen, with oxygen, and with silver. We call this a crystalline structure, and this silver particle can easily steal an electron, and then recharge this one, and then it can steal an electron, and recharge this one, and then it can steal an electron, recharging this one. As you can see, a crystalline structure, is like a rapid-fire machine gun, killing killing killing killing, while the ionic and the inferior forms of silver only kill one particle for every silver molecule that exists.

That’s why the old silver fell out of solution and could cause argyria. The new forms of silver don’t nearly have the possibility of doing that because all the silvers stay bonded to the water, how can it fall out of solution to cause argyria? Which is the bluing of the skin.”

Question #2: How can silver kill pathogenic bacteria but not healthy bacteria?

Video transcript

“The question is, ‘how can silver destroy bad bacteria and yet selectively spare the good bacteria?’

In other words, why does it kill pathogens like strep and staph and pseudomonas and yeast, yet, it doesn’t kill our good intestinal flora.

Here’s why: if this is my silver, and it’s in a crystalline complex or a structure, this structured silver is significant because it’s going to steal one electron. And we talked about that in an earlier video. So what happens if I steal an electron from this bacteria is that that actually ruptures and the contents pour out; the bacteria dies. Because this membrane is one electron thick, it’s easy to steal one electron, rupture it like a water balloon, and it just gushes out, the immune system cleans it all up.

Now, healthy bacteria is different. When you talk about healthy bacteria, we talk about bacterial classifications or nomenclature. What that means is, is that a bacteria is labeled by a genus, or its genetic makeup, and then its species. So we have lactobacillus and then acidophilus, that would be a good healthy bacteria.

The genetic label, lactobacillus, all bacteria labeled lactobacillus, are labeled because they secrete a milkfat around themselves to protect themselves. So from their inner lining, they secrete, like an excretion coating themselves, so what you’ve got is like an M&M, here is the soft milk chocolate, and an extra coating around it to protect it from the acid that’s in your stomach. You see, these are healthy, and they lie in your intestines and they need to have protection from the acids of your stomach. They have learned to do so, evolved or created to be such, by making this milkfat go around them.

Silver is water-soluble. Water and fats don’t mix. They separate. Now, a bacteria with only one layer of electrons around it, easily loses an electron and dies, but, the good, healthy bacteria are genetically different with a second coating. And any water, or any silver, that comes in contact with it will not penetrate the fat.

The fat layer is a barrier to silver penetrating it. It’s that simple.

The same thing can be said about every cell in your body if it’s healthy. All of our healthy cells are made of a lipid bi-layer. Lipid meaning fat, bi-layer meaning two. So every cell in your body doesn’t just have one layer, it has two, and they’re made of fats so water doesn’t penetrate.

The simple answer to why silver liquids and gels don’t kill good, healthy bacteria, is because they can’t penetrate a double fat layer because they’re water-soluble, but easily steal electrons that are only one electron thick, in the unhealthy, pathogenic bacteria.”

Question #3: What about silver and healthy cells?

Video transcript

“How does the silver, in its water-soluble liquid form, actually enter a healthy red blood cell, or a healthy cell? Because some people are worried that if it cannot get into a fat-coated cell that’s in the intestines, it might not get into a cell that’s in the regular part of healthy tissue, so here’s what happens there.

Let’s take a red blood cell, for instance. A red blood cell is manufactured by the bone marrow and it consists of a lipid bi-layer. What that means is, is you’ve got two layers, and it protects all the contents. Nothing, in a water form, can get in there. It’s going to be blocked, it’ll be rejected, and it can’t get in.

So how does silver get in? Silver is a mineral. Silver is the most active of energetic minerals, meaning it transfers more electricity than any other metal.

Now, what is the manufactured element, mineral element, of a red blood cell? Iron. You’ve heard it said: ferratin, which is ferrous, or ferrous oxide. All these words mean that this cell is made of iron. So, if you have iron that makes up one-fourth of that entire cell, they’re gonna be scattered through this cell and in the hemoglobin, which means iron, there will be iron. Iron is at a specific charge that attracts silver.

Maybe you’ve seen this in the wiring in your house, where you have a wire, that one is copper, right next to it, after the insulation, is a silver wire. Why? These are the two best conductors of electricity, and since your body is an electromagnet, these copper particles attract the silver particles, so when silver comes up and butts up against it, it now wants to be drawn into that cell, yet it still isn’t until it’s actively transported, and what actively transports across the membrane of a red blood cell?

You have enzymes. Several enzymes that basically open up pores and allow the silver to come in because it helps to balance, or make whole, this electromagnet called hemoglobin.

Silver is actively transported into the iron, and it bonds with the iron inside the cell, and that’s how come silver, in its small particle form, can enter into a red blood cell and it doesn’t enter into the healthy bacteria, because the healthy bacteria doesn’t have any iron or other metal to draw it in.

In fact, if you take copper, and you put it in the same area with silver, and you put it in an acid, that is what makes a battery. Two separate metals, in an acid, forms a battery. That’s how come the energy of your cells goes up with silver.

Now, those of you who are medical doctors and want to test this on yourself, it’s very simple. If you swallow silver and take four times the normal dose, if it destroyed your good, healthy, lactobacillus, or good flora, in your intestines, you would know so because it would cause diarrhea. Evidence is, when you take tetracycline or when you take other antibiotics, it kills your good bacteria and it results in, within about 12-24 hours, diarrhea.

So if you want to take a quadruple dose of silver, swallow it, and when you do not get diarrhea, you know that these are facts, not just theories.”

Question #4: Do all silvers work the same way – ionic, colloidal, hydrosol, and structured silver?

Video transcript

“The question is, ‘why is silver in a structured form more valuable than silver in an ionic or colloidal form?’

It’s this simple: if I were to take silver, and one atom of silver, and let’s call that this right here. That’s silver.

Now, let’s say that that can steal one electron from this bacteria. That’s terrific, that dies, but this is now neutral, unless, we add enough energy to this simple silver particle that it now becomes energetic enough that there are four silver particles bonding together, and they bring with it an entire structure of oxygen and hydrogen because two hydrogens and one oxygen is water, you’re now structuring the silver into a situation where you have hydrogen, oxygen, and by doing so on every one of these, you end up with a structure where they share electrons.

So they bond together, and because normally the silver is missing one electron, now by binding together they’re sharing. And, they’re sharing with oxygen, so it becomes a crystalline structure. And in certain scientific papers by Rustum Roy, he lists that Ag, or silver, 4O4, which is this right here, is a very valuable killer of pathogens. But, because it’s in water, and there’s all this hydrogen and oxygen everywhere else, and other silver particles, it only exists for about a second, maybe, and then it becomes Ag6, or Ag5, or Ag12, or Ag1, because there’s so much water, it’s pulling it apart, sticking it back together, pulling it apart, sticking it back together.

But when we add enough energy, right here, that this becomes structured water, it makes a matrix that holds this into place longer, so 40 percent of the time, we have these crystalline structured silvers ready to kill as opposed to the other hydrosols that only kill for like a ten-thousandth of a second and then they fall out of solution and they go back in.

Now, as opposed to single silver that only kills one bacteria at a time, it becomes totally neutral after one kill, so – I’ve said this before – ionic, colloidal, and other silvers, are basically a single-shot revolver. One shot, one kill, they’re neutral. But when you put it into a structure that includes oxygens and hydrogens, you now have the ability to steal an electron, right here, and it sends a charge to this, which then can steal an electron, sends a charge, sends a charge, all these have charges…

Where does the extra electron end up going? It actually ends up going into the oxygen, and the oxygen is already saturated and it actually fires off like a rapid-fire machine gun, one silver electron at a time, as well as steals one.

So now this crystalline structure is stealing an electron and, a ten-thousandth of a second later, it’s firing one off into a bacteria. Stealing, firing, stealing, firing, making this structure more energetic all the time, exposing oxygen, which kills pathogens like cancer cells, like virus cells, like bacteria cells…

All the time these single oxygens are being released, and you’re getting multiple methods of killing with a structured silver. And place it in an alkaline system that your body recognizes and can use every single day.

This is why structured silver is far better than just a single silver or an ionic silver or a colloidal or even the hydrosols of the past. This is new and improved silver.“

Application information

There are many ways that silver’s anti-bacterial effect can impact people’s health. The main issue is how to get silver in contact with the pathogens so that the silver can eliminate them.

Depending on the location of a bacterial growth, different delivery strategies are needed for silver to be helpful. For a list of many ways to apply silver, including numerous health conditions caused by pathogenic bacteria, see this list of 83 applications.

For more complete information, see the book A New Fighting Chance.