Silver Dietary Supplements Essay

With the introduction of silver dietary supplements, the user is exposed to larger concentrations of silver. The human body under normal conditions is able to remove a majority of silver ingested due to the hydrochloric acid in the stomach that causes the silver to become insoluble and no longer a threat to the individual. However, dietary supplements using higher concentrations of silver in various forms expose the human body to higher concentrations and may result in kidney damage, complications with other medication currently used and in extreme cases argyria (bluish-gray discoloration of large areas of skin especially when exposed to sunlight) [1]. Silver dietary supplements do not always inform the user of its composition on its packaging. These supplements can contain various concentrations of silver ions, silver nanoparticles, and silver particles suspended in solution. Table 6 indicates the silver form concentration of silver nanoparticles and silver ions available in some of the available silver …show more content…
Activated carbon, ceramic ball and KDF-55 were able to reduce 0.2 mg L-1 silver ions to safe levels of silver concentration is drinking water. Activated carbon is the only filtration media able to remove enough silver ions when the concentration entering the filter is 1.5 mg L-1. KDF-55 is the only filter media able to remove enough silver nanoparticles from the 0.2 mg L-1 initial concentration. Overall, at higher concentrations, all the filters are unable to remove enough silver to safe levels for drinking water and silver nanoparticles were difficult to remove despite the porosity of the activated carbon and ceramic ball filters. Therefore, any effective removal of silver nanoparticles or high concentrations of silver ions would be more reliant on other methods of chemical removal or