Minerals, Colloidal

Claims, Benefits: Cure-all.

Bottom Line: These are of no value. They are marketed by dozens of companies as "Mineral Toddy," "Mineral Formula," "Micro-Min," and so forth. Get minerals from food instead or from a standard multivitamin/mineral supplement.

Full Article, Wellness Letter, June 1997:

Dead doctors don't lie, but people who sell minerals...

Last year people started sending us copies—dozens of copies—of Dead Doctors Don't Lie, a taped lecture by a veterinarian/naturopath named Joel Wallach, which promotes a "colloidal mineral" elixir. "Should we buy this stuff?" our readers asked. It's sold by dozens of companies under names such as Mineral Solutions, Clark's Mineral Formula, Mineral Toddy, Micro-Min, Colloidal Silver, Essential Minerals. Testimonials have flooded the Internet. The warning signs were clear right away:

Uh-oh. The products cure/prevent everything: AIDS, cancer, TB, malaria, lupus, syphilis, scarlet fever, herpes, pneumonia, typhoid, tetanus, rheumatism, parasites, chronic fatigue, whooping cough, hemorrhoids, ringworm, candida, bubonic plague, obesity, liver disease, thyroid problems, acne, sunburn, menstrual cramps, memory problems, and on and on. Testimonials are the sole support. Cure-alls seldom cure anything.

Hmm. They are sold primarily via multi-level marketing, which turns customers into salespeople. That is, if you buy the product, you can become a distributor and then sell it, via altruistic pitches, to your friends and relatives, who sell it to their friends, etc., with profits passing up to the top of the pyramid, at least in theory. Such "network marketing" of health-related products should always make you suspicious.

Huh? The promotional materials repeatedly state that we can't get the minerals we need from vegetables, fruits, and grains grown on our "depleted" soil. This is not true (see below). The real problem is that Americans simply eat so little produce.

What? Printed on the cassettes was the claim that "the average life-span of an M.D. is only 58 years." That's supposed to prove that doctors don't know much about health. But doctors actually have an above-average life expectancy—more than 75 years.

A prophet brings profits

The story starts in a pseudo-mythic haze. In 1925 Thomas Clark, a rancher in central Utah, finds a legendary spring that Indians claimed had healing powers. Following the spring, he discovers the mineral remains (sometimes called humic shale) of a prehistoric rain forest. He extracts the minerals and passes on the "miracle liquid" to friends and neighbors. This "original" product has spawned a mini-industry, with various companies claiming that their product is the real thing and that the rest are useless, bogus, or dangerous imitations. The elixirs, which often look like muddy water, cost $25 to $50 for a one-month supply. Colloidal minerals are also sold in capsule form.

The array of minerals varies greatly from product to product: silver, arsenic, cadmium, lead, aluminum, lithium, titanium, and dozens of others. The colloidal marketers claim that you absorb only 5% of the minerals you normally consume, while their products allow you to absorb nearly 100%. Their minerals supposedly have a natural negative electrical charge that allows them to enter cells easily, as well as to flush out "toxins" that are attracted to them. (A colloid is, like milk and purées, simply a suspension of particles in a liquid.) Minerals from foods and from ordinary supplements are poorly absorbed, they say, because these have a positive charge and can build up to toxic levels in the body. This results in virtually all the debilitating diseases of today. Says them.

A closer look

All the nutrition experts we spoke with dismissed the claims made for colloidal minerals. According to Dr. C. J. van Oss, a specialist in microbiology, geology, and chemical engineering at SUNY Buffalo Medical School, the charge on a mineral should not affect its absorption. The fact that the minerals are in a colloidal suspension also wouldn't matter. Dr. Sheldon Margen, chairman of our Editorial Board, says that even if these minerals were better absorbed, that wouldn't necessarily be desirable, since some of them are potentially toxic and many are of no known use to humans. Moreover, some brands are contaminated by bacteria, according to Dr. Ellen Kamhi of the Corsello Center for Complementary Medicine in New York City. There's no evidence that colloidal silver products, in particular, are safe or can prevent/treat any disease, according to the FDA.

Some of the companies claim that clinical tests have been done on their products, but we have not been able to find a single published study. The conclusion is clear: No one should take colloidal minerals. Fruits and vegetables are the way to go.

Is our soil depleted of minerals?

The claim that American soil has been ruined for growing food is often used to sell nutritional supplements, including colloidal minerals. But, convenient as it may be for salespeople, this idea is a figment of the colloidal imagination. One study by Firman Bear of Rutgers University in 1949 has been relentlessly misquoted in support of this point. The study simply compared the mineral content of several types of vegetables grown in different areas. Because of soil type and fertilizer use, some vegetables had more minerals than others—not a surprise. According to Dr. W. Shaw Reid, director or the Cornell Nutrient Analysis Lab at Cornell University, improved farming methods and fertilizers have made our soil richer than ever. The claim that fertilizers contain synthetic minerals as opposed to the "organic" ones found in colloidal mineral products is also meaningless, since all minerals are inorganic. To a plant, and to the human body, it doesn't matter where the minerals come from.

Plants just won't grow in depleted soil. Vitamins in foods are created by the plants themselves. Minerals—such as phosphorus, potassium, iodine, calcium, copper, iron, selenium, fluoride, molybdenum, and zinc—must come from the soil. If the soil lacks any of these, fertilizers compensate. Climate, weather, amount of sunlight, and other factors also affect overall nutritive value. But if the fruits and vegetables you buy look healthy, you can be certain they contain the nutrients they should.

UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, June 1997