I have a friend who completely cured severe neuropathy of her hands and feet using colloidal gold. Apparently it works by resetting the nervous system. She said she felt as if she was being mildly shocked after taking it and then the nerve pain completely went away. Has anyone heard of it being used for RSD/CRPS?

Hi Becca,

While I support many alternative therapies, one must always be careful with treatments that aren't backed by data. (as well as ones that are sometimes!)

Gold is a heavy metal. My concern would be for the potential for problems as heavy metals are known to be neurotoxic.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...1780301022/pdf

I am glad your friend is doing better but please be cautious if you pursue the colloidal gold. Gold does have medical uses for drug delivery and cancer detection but articles regarding its use for neuropathic issues were not apparent on Google Scholar. I'd hope if it was a fix for nerve problems the research community would be on it.

said with hugs,

I agree with Littlepaw. * Especially seeing as there are a lot of people on here with irreversible disabilities due to RSD. *

I don't want to offend anyone but this is the kind of pseudo-science that has no place in medicine or therapy, mainstream or complimentary.

Gold is completely inert. It is not unsafe to consume in small quantities and is routinely used in the catering trade, typically in high-end restaurants in the form of gold leaf - usually in desserts, cakes and chocolates. It is also added to a few super-premium and ultra-premium alcohol brands - vodka typically, again in the form of gold leaf or flakes.

As it is completely inert, it won't react with your body. It simply passes straight through the whole digestive tract and comes out the other end unchanged. The only thing eating it will do for you is give you very expensive crap!!!

Please if you are considering alternative or complimentary therapies, do your research thoroughly using only highly reputable web-sources. Always compare the advice and information about any particular 'therapy' from multiple, reputable websites so that you build a reliable knowledge base and don't waste your time, energy and money on this kind of thing. There are thousands of snake oil salespeople out there who are only too willing to part the desperate and uninformed from their cash. Eating some gold leaf will not cause you any physiological harm but there are plenty of other things out there that could cause real harm.

No offense taken Neurochic. Thanks for making sure the record was straight on the gold coated goodies. Yes, those are okay...and pretty.

I was concerned about the colloidal since they could potentially be gold "salts" like those used to treat arthritis, which can be unsafe. And with treatments/preparations that aren't regulated it can be very difficult to know what you're really getting. There's been enough of a problem even with supplements and herbals to warrant caution. I agree about doing your research. Always wise.

The gold used medically in treatment scenarios, is ionized,and therefore dissolves in the body.

The heavy metals that are toxic in tissues are also ionized.
Arsenic, chromium, mercury are examples of heavy metals, that are solubilized also.

Here is a study showing neurotoxicity in rats causing a polyneuropathy:
The neurotoxic effect of gold sodium thiomalate on the peripheral nerves of the rat. Insights into the antiinflammatory actions of gold therapy. - PubMed - NCBI

This link explains the chemistry in more detail:
Ionic Gold & Monatomic Gold - Health Hazard | Purest Colloids

I'll come back and post the chemistry explanation of the points about inert gold and the fundamental difference with other gold compounds when I have some more time.

This link is representative of using nano gold particles (aka colloidal inert gold) as a possible delivery system medically for chemo agents or antibiotics in living systems. I am finding basically only "drug delivery" studies on PubMed for nano gold particle use medically.

The influence of the route of administration of gold nanoparticles on their tissue distribution and basic biochemical parameters: In vivo studies. - PubMed - NCBI
This article is from 2015.

Now, the following link is an example of the confusion about gold mentioned in the first post I made here about ionized
gold. (gold chloride which is soluble gold)

Colloidal Gold Benefits

It appears to me that the second link here, in this post is confusing ionic with colloidal (inert gold).

One needs to be very careful looking up things on the internet, as lay articles can be misleading.

Adding to this discussion:

As Neurochic and mrsD have pointed out, gold metal (Au) is quite inert. That is why it is sometimes used in dental fillings and as an (expensive!) additive to some food products. Some allegedly beneficial health products are marketed as being "colloidal gold". Roughly speaking, what colloidal means in this context is "containing very small bits of gold metal". This does not change the fact that gold metal is chemically inert so I think that it is very unlikely that these products will provide any benefit.

Gold cations (Au(I) or Au(III)) are different. They are soluble in water (gold metal is not) and are chemically quite reactive. As mrsD has explained, there is evidence that ingesting gold cations (in the same way as ingesting cations of other heavy metals) can have adverse health effects.

In my view eating gold metal is pointless from a health perspective but eating heavy metal cations potentially leads to significant health risks.