# "If your body PH is alkaline, it won't get cancer or other diseases!" - a woo debunking thread **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 25, 2014, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592 "2014-11-25T14:19:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/21 "2014-11-25T15:39:53Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Actually, I doubt whether cancer is very vulnerable to bullets. Bullets don’t kill bodies by harming them at the cellular level, but by disrupting their structural integrity. Cancer is a problem at the cellular level, and tumors do not have very much structural integrity to be disrupted. Smashing them up physically will probably only make them metastasize all the faster. [whispers]I think he was joking, njtt[/whispers] ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/22 "2014-11-25T15:43:46Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I think the “blood pH” thing goes back to about 2007 Lordy, no. This nonsense is decades old. The idea that it’s possible to manipulate your body’s pH (through diet or supplements) is a founding principle of woo. It appeals to the sort of mind that wants to think there’s a simple yet profound and safe way to treat or prevent all manner of diseases without resorting to them nasty allopathic drugs (or, for that matter, making painful but valuable lifestyle changes, something the allopathic satanic medical community long has preached in vain). As previously noted - your body (in particular your kidneys and lungs) are very good at maintaining blood/tissue pH within a very narrow range. Go outside that range to any significant degree (i.e. during serious illness or through getting poisoned), and all those metabolic reactions that depend on normal pH levels start going haywire. One thing (out of many) that I’ve never understood about the pH-is-key-to-health crowd: why would anyone think that alkalinity is better than acidity? “Acid” apparently has bad connotations for a lot of people\*, but you can certainly burn yourself as badly with a strong base as with a strong acid. A couple of good links for countering acid-base and water woo: > **[Your Friday Dose of Woo: Acid, base, or woo? | ScienceBlogs](https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/09/15/your-friday-dose-of-woo-acid-base-or-woo-1)** > > It's about time it was Friday. No, it's not because it will mean any less work for me; in fact, this weekend will probably mean more, as I have to go to a workshop that's more like boot camp. > **[Water pseudoscience and quackery](http://www.chem1.com/CQ/)** > > Index to water pseudoscience and quackery site; index \*not for _my_ generation, man. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/23 "2014-11-25T16:08:57Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I’ll nominate colloidal silver and MSM for the most stupid woo shit I see regularly promoted. I cannot for the life of me figure out why some people refuse actual science and replace it with scientific looking stuff. I can understand the “natural is better!” mindset (although I don’t share it), but colloidal silver and MSM…these are not natural, either. And they can be actively harmful, not just encourage people to avoid actual effective treatment. Colloidal silver actually did have a medial use prior to the development of antibiotics, and silver compounds still have a role in medicine due to anti-bacterial action, so it’s not _entirely_ woo but really, antibiotics are safer, more effective, and don’t have the potential to turn your skin corpsey-blue-grey. It’s like people who promote “black salve” or bloodroot for skin cancer instead of modern medical treatment - in the 19th Century bloodroot salve that literally burned off the skin cancer with chemicals _was_ the medical treatment but we’ve got much, much better stuff these days! It’s as if people decided to give up electricity, synthetics and plastics, and go back to living at medieval standards. WHY? Even the _Amish_ utilize modern medicine and synthetic fabrics. They’re _better_ than what we had before in many applications. Colloidal silver I can understand - there is a history of silver being used in medicine. It’s woo because we’ve got much better treatments these days. MSM? WTF? No long history or cultural importance. Likewise the pH thing - who the hell knew what the pH of the human body was before the 20th Century? ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/24 "2014-11-25T16:13:49Z")
I dated a guy who was all about this. I was fine with it until he started giving his dogs specially filtered “alkaline” water. :: roll eyes :: I didn’t think they needed to be subjected to his woo bullshit. But yeah, he had spent dog knows how much on this contraption that hooked up to his kitchen tap. You had to turn all these dials and flip switches just to get a damn glass of water in his house. I’d sneak off to the bathroom sink and drink straight tap water; he’d lose his damn mind over that. I tried to explain that you cannot eat and drink your way to different body chemistry. If you rendered the acids in your stomach alkaline, you wouldn’t be able to digest anything. And, as was mentioned upthread, there’s this thing called “stasis” where the body keeps its pH around 7.4. In reading debunking sites about this particular stripe of woo, I understood if the body pH varies by more than 0.2 in either direction, you die. He didn’t want to hear it. He explained to me it works and it’s true because he gets up every morning and pees on a pH test strip and he had clearly reached alkalinity. I explained to him that pee is the body’s waste and he was filtering OUT all that alkaline crap – changing the pH of your pee is not the same thing as changing the pH of your blood. Whatever, he wasn’t having it. I stopped dating him (for other reasons), and he touched base with me a few months later and told me he’d had eight kidney stones and had been really miserable. EIGHT kidney stones. So I googled that and my theory is (IANA Doctor) he gave himself kidney stones from that water filter thing. What I think it actually does is calcifies the water – or somehow neutralizes the acidity of the flouride in the tap water or something. Any container (glass, dog bowl, pitcher, what have you) he had that special filtered water in was coated with white residue – exactly like what happens in your water heater. We have very calcified water here because the water comes from a limestone aquifer. Excess calcium can cause kidney stones. I think the dumb fucker gave himself kidney stones and I am waiting to hear the news that one or all three of his poor dogs has them. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/25 "2014-11-25T16:33:13Z")
Colloidal silver is not the same thing as metallic silver, though. The silver in modern wound care dressings (usually what I hear is “they use silver cream for infected wounds, see?!”) is metallic silver, not colloidal silver. Metallic silver is antibacterial. Colloidal silver isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/26 "2014-11-25T17:01:25Z")
When people talk about foods being “alkaline” or “acidic”, I assume they are referring to the food’s Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL), which is thought to be a factor in osteoporosis (calcium salts in the bones can be depleted in order to buffer the acid load): > **[Potential renal acid load of foods and its influence on urine pH - PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7797810/)** > > The purpose of this study was to calculate the potential renal acid load (PRAL) of selected, frequently consumed foods. A physiologically based calculation model was recently validated to yield an appropriate estimate of renal net acid excretion... > [@](#): > > The purpose of this study was to calculate the potential renal acid load (PRAL) of selected, frequently consumed foods. A physiologically based calculation model was recently validated to yield an appropriate estimate of renal net acid excretion (NAE); the model depends primarily on nutrient intake data. **When nutrient data from actual food composition tables were used, the calculation model yielded PRAL values that ranged from an average maximum of 23.6 mEq/100 g for certain hard cheeses over 0 mEq/100 g for fats and oils to an average minimum of approximately -3 mEq/100 g for fruits and fruit juices and vegetables.** By means of these PRAL data (summed according to the amounts of foods and beverages consumed daily and by an estimate of excretion of organic acids [based on body size]), the daily NAE can be calculated. This calculation methodology, primarily based on PRAL, allows an appropriate prediction of the effects of diet on the acidity of urine. For practical applicability in dietetic prevention of recurrent urolithiasis or in other fields of dietetics, the additionally determined correlation (r = .83; P \< .001) between NAE and urine pH can be used to ascertain NAE target values for a desired urine pH modification. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/27 "2014-11-25T17:24:21Z")
It seems to me that woo alkalinity has as much to do with actual pH as Chinese “heating” or “cooling” foods have to do with actual temperature. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/28 "2014-11-25T17:35:56Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > It seems to me that woo alkalinity has as much to do with actual pH as Chinese “heating” or “cooling” foods have to do with actual temperature. In the latter case, it becomes the Wu factor. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/29 "2014-11-25T17:40:32Z")
I’m not angry, just very disappointed. I need you to sit there and think about what you just did. ---
**Author:** ![Turpentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Turpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/30 "2014-11-25T19:05:09Z")
Oh dear. The first time I’d ever heard about this alkaline-woo thing was under some ironic circumstances. I work in a bio lab among several brilliant and talented scientists. One day one of our grad students was presenting his dissertation defense, and our whole department had planned on coming, along with his mother who had flown in from out state to see the defense. Our grad student was busy in the morning and awkwardly had to leave his mom in our breakroom while he got ready and set up. Several of us in the lab kept her company while we waited. And she went on and on and on about how acidity in the body causes illness and cancer and uh, prawn flu or whatever. then she moved on to how much healthier she became and how much weight she lost with her alkaline diet etc., etc- we must know all this because we study this all day, right?..while a roomful of scientists smiled politely and gritted their teeth, trying not to be jerks to our grad student’s mom who’d come all this way to see her son become a PhD. She was very proud of him, but I doubt she understood much of the defense. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/31 "2014-11-25T20:24:35Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > When people talk about foods being “alkaline” or “acidic”, I assume they are referring to the food’s Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL) Nah, virtually everyone who goes on about an “acid” or “alkaline” diet is under the impression that your overall body pH is significantly affected by what you eat. It’s rare to find a member of wootopia who talks about osteoporosis in this context (and it should be noted that any dietary pH connection to osteoporosis remains speculative). You can of course alter the acidity of your urine through diet and drugs (and for that matter you can do the same for saliva) but that’s a far different matter from affecting blood and tissue pH. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/32 "2014-11-25T21:24:19Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Actually, I doubt whether cancer is very vulnerable to bullets. Bullets don’t kill bodies by harming them at the cellular level, but by disrupting their structural integrity. Cancer is a problem at the cellular level, and tumors do not have very much structural integrity to be disrupted. Smashing them up physically will probably only make them metastasize all the faster. Follow my simple treatment protocol (patent pending!) Step 1: identify a patient with cancer Step 2: shoot said patient right in the cancer with a bullet - the bigger the better Step 3: ask patient if they’re still worried about cancer I’m preparing a paper for publication showing a 95.0% success rate. (Thanks to that one incredibly snarky little bastard) ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/33 "2014-11-25T21:48:09Z")
Hey now. My cancer was cured with a knife. Why not a gun? You probably don’t even have to sanitize it first. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/34 "2014-11-25T21:53:07Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Colloidal silver is not the same thing as metallic silver, though. The silver in modern wound care dressings (usually what I hear is “they use silver cream for infected wounds, see?!”) is metallic silver, not colloidal silver. Metallic silver is antibacterial. Colloidal silver isn’t. Actually… no, the wound dressings usually aren’t metallic silver, they’re usually [silver sulfadiazine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_sulfadiazine) cream. Even there, the use of it apparently does slightly delay healing time vs. not using it according to Cochrane review. There have recently been some uses of “nanoparticle” silver, but that’s really recent and I doubt the average woo-seller has the capability to produce the real thing. Also, the nanoparticle thing doesn’t really have that good of results, and much of the particles wind up being some sort of oxide of silver due to large surface area and exposure to the atmosphere. There is some indication that silver coatings of tubes entering the body (endotracheal tubes, urinary catheters, etc.) may help reduce infections but the studies showing that are typically small and of limited utility from a research standpoint. Really, the BIGGEST use of silver in medicine through the 20th Century was in x-ray films, the emulsions being based on silver compounds. That is largely falling to the wayside with digital x-rays although they’re still in use in some places. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/35 "2014-11-25T22:03:38Z")
On water molecule size: The woo-meisters are not actually claiming that the size of water molecules changes. Their claim is that water forms bonds between individual molecules, as a string of ±±± and so on. We know this does actually happen in water, but the woo-sters would tell you that these bonds turn the water into big clumps that cannot get into your cells. Obviously, that’s total BS, but their idea is that smaller clumps means better hydration. Sometimes they’ll even talk about “[hexagonal water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagonal_water)” as some optimal or minimal size for these water clusters. (That Wikipedia link also has some information about general water clumping claims.) ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/36 "2014-11-25T22:13:17Z")
Just to clarify on the kidney stone front-the reason that the gentleman mentioned above got kidney stones probably had nothing to do with the filtration per se; it was likely because his urine was too alkaline. Different compounds precipitate at different pH levels. A high pH tends to favor calcium phosphate stones. From [here](http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/KUDISEASES/pubs/kidneystonediet/index.aspx): > [@](#): > > Calcium stones are the most common type of kidney stone and occur in two major forms: calcium oxalate and calcium phosphate. Calcium oxalate stones are more common. Calcium oxalate stone formation may be caused by high calcium and high oxalate excretion. Calcium phosphate stones are caused by the combination of high urine calcium and alkaline urine, meaning the urine has a high pH. > •Uric acid stones form when the urine is persistently acidic. A diet rich in purines—substances found in animal protein such as meats, fish, and shellfish—may increase uric acid in urine. If uric acid becomes concentrated in the urine, it can settle and form a stone by itself or along with calcium. I suggest we change the above title to: “If your body PH is alkaline, it won’t get cancer or other diseases- **except kidney stones** ” ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/37 "2014-11-25T22:26:25Z")
> [@Turpentine](#): > > Oh dear. The first time I’d ever heard about this alkaline-woo thing was under some ironic circumstances. I work in a bio lab among several brilliant and talented scientists. One day one of our grad students was presenting his dissertation defense, and our whole department had planned on coming, along with his mother who had flown in from out state to see the defense. > > Our grad student was busy in the morning and awkwardly had to leave his mom in our breakroom while he got ready and set up. Several of us in the lab kept her company while we waited. And she went on and on and on about how acidity in the body causes illness and cancer and uh, prawn flu or whatever. then she moved on to how much healthier she became and how much weight she lost with her alkaline diet etc., etc- we must know all this because we study this all day, right?..while a roomful of scientists smiled politely and gritted their teeth, trying not to be jerks to our grad student’s mom who’d come all this way to see her son become a PhD. She was very proud of him, but I doubt she understood much of the defense. That’s funny. There is one person in my workplace who believes this. She singlehandedly runs the QC lab. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/38 "2014-11-25T22:28:36Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Actually… no, the wound dressings usually aren’t metallic silver, they’re usually [silver sulfadiazine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_sulfadiazine) cream. Even there, the use of it apparently does slightly delay healing time vs. not using it according to Cochrane review. > > There have recently been some uses of “nanoparticle” silver, but that’s really recent and I doubt the average woo-seller has the capability to produce the real thing. Also, the nanoparticle thing doesn’t really have that good of results, and much of the particles wind up being some sort of oxide of silver due to large surface area and exposure to the atmosphere. The cream contains ionic silver, but I don’t like it much. As you say, it doesn’t actually seem to speed wound healing. I’d rather use Medihoney, if the doctor will let me. But I was referring more to silver _dressings_, which use metallic silver fibers or silver nanoparticles in the pads, which release silver ions when it gets wet with wound exudate. SilvaSorb and 3M’s silver alginate are the ones I’m asked to use most often, but there are others: > [@](#): > > Silver dressings > > Metallic silver is relatively inert but the presence of liquid leads to the release of the silver ion responsible for its biological activity. Silver ions are biocidal at very low concentrations due to the ability of microbial cells to absorb and concentrate silver from very dilute solutions. However, the presence of organic matter significantly diminishes the efficacy of silver[92]. In complex organic biological fluids, concentrations greater than 50ppm [93]and as high as 60.5ppm are needed[94]. Once in the cell the silver binds to and denatures proteins, including DNA and RNA, inhibiting cell replication. Silver in solution exists in three oxidation states: Ag+, Ag++ and Ag+++. Each of these is capable of forming inorganic and organic compounds and complexes, although the Ag++ and Ag+++ forms are unstable or insoluble in water [91]. Ionic silver is active against a wide range of pathogenic organisms but not all forms of silver exhibit antimicrobial activity. Colloidal preparations in which the silver is complexed with albumin or other proteins were once used as antimicrobials, but their use was abandoned as they were shown to be ineffective. Nevertheless, preparations containing colloidal silver are still promoted on the internet and elsewhere as ‘health foods’, accompanied by extravagant and unsubstantiated claims of their beneficial effects on clinical disorders ranging from influenza to skin conditions such as cuts and warts [95]. > > In a laboratory-based study, van Hasselt et al [96] examined the antimicrobial properties of three types of colloidal silvers against a range of test organisms, showing a complete lack of activity and concluding that ‘claims of its potency are misleading and that there is no place for it as an antiseptic’. > > Commercially available silver-containing dressings > > A brief review of some of the silver dressings currently available clearly indicates that considerable differences exist between them in terms of their overall structure, and the concentration and formulation of the silver compound responsible for their antimicrobial activity. > > Acticoat - Smith and Nephew > > Acticoat consists of two layers of a silver-coated, high-density polyethylene mesh, enclosing a single layer of an apertured non-woven rayon and polyester fabric. These three components are ultrasonically welded together to maintain the integrity of the dressing while in use. Silver is applied to the polyethylene mesh by a vapour deposition process which results in the formation of microscopic crystals of metallic silver. Acticoat-7 is similar to the above but consists of two layers of a fine silver-coated mesh enclosing an inner core consisting of two layers of an apertured non-woven fabric made of rayon and polyester. Between the two layers of non-woven fabric is an additional layer of silver coated polyethylene mesh. All five layers are ultrasonically welded together to maintain the integrity of the dressing. Upon activation with water, Acticoat provides a rapid and sustained release of silver ions within the dressing and to the wound bed for three or seven days depending on which dressing is chosen. An absorbent version of Acticoat has recently been introduced in the UK. > > Actisorb Silver 220 - Johnson and Johnson > > The first silver-containing dressing to make a commercial impact in the UK consists primarily of silver-impregnated activated charcoal cloth. > > Arglaes - Unomedical / Medline > > Arglaes comprises a mixture of an alginate powder and an inorganic polymer containing ionic silver. In the presence of moisture the alginate absorbs liquid to form a gel and the silver complex breaks down in a controlled fashion, releasing ionic silver into the wound. There are currently two arglaes products available in the UK - a polyurethane film dressing and a postoperative dressing. The alginate powder described above is only available in the US. > > Aquacel Ag - ConvaTec > > Aquacel consists of a fleece of sodium carboxymethylcellulose fibres containing 1.2% ionic silver. In the presence of exudate, the dressing absorbs liquid to form a gel, binding sodium ions and releasing silver ions. > > Calgitrol - Biomedical Technologies Inc > > Calgitrol is described by the manufacturer as a silver alginate wound dressing. It consists of an absorbent foam sheet, one surface of which is coated with an alginate matrix containing ionic silver together with a ‘cleanser, moisturizer and a superabsorbent starch co-polymer’. > > Contreet Foam - Coloplast > > Contreet is a polyurethane foam dressing that contains silver, which is released as the foam absorbs exudate. > > Contreet Hydrocolloid - Coloplast > > The Contreet hydrocolloid dressing, which is based on established standard hydrocolloid technology, also contains a silver complex that is released by wound fluid absorbed by the dressing. This mechanism ensures a sustained release of silver ions as long as the dressing continues to absorb fluid. > > Silverlon - Argentum Medical > > Silverlon is a knitted fabric dressing that has been silver-plated by means of a proprietary autocatalytic electroless chemical (reduction-oxidation) plating technique. This technique coats the entire surface of each individual fibre from which the dressing is made, resulting in a very large surface area for the release of ionic silver. > > SilvaSorb - Medline > > SilvaSorb is composed of a synthetic, polyacrylate hydrophilic matrix in which is dispersed or suspended microscopic silver-containing particles. On exposure to moisture the silver is released into the wound in a controlled fashion. > > Urgotul SSD - Laboratoires Urgo (Parema) > > Urgotul SSD consists of a polyester mesh impregnated with carboxymethylcellulose, white soft paraffin and silver sulfadiazine (SSD). [MRSA and the use of silver dressings: overcoming bacterial resistance](http://www.worldwidewounds.com/2004/november/Thomas/Introducing-Silver-Dressings.html) While “they” will claim that their homemade and internet available colloidal silvers are ionic nonoparticle suspensions, they’re mostly not. I particularly love the “nanoparticle” ones with visible bits of silver flake floating in them. :rolleyes: But hey, if they want to use them for wound care, have at it. At least it’s unlikely to turn them blue when used topically. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/39 "2014-11-25T23:02:52Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > . . . They’re going to kill some kids with that shit, and then essential oils will get regulated pretty damn fast, and I’m gonna be pissed when I have to order black market lavender. :rolleyes: You need to stock up a lifetime supply now, while you still can. ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592/40 "2014-11-26T00:28:19Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The cure is worse than the disease! :eek: What doesn’t kill you makes you sicker! Wooo! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-body-ph-is-alkaline-it-wont-get-cancer-or-other-diseases-a-woo-debunking-thread/705592.md?page=3)