Ten Things Worth Knowing About Colloidal Gold

Gold is one of the oldest substances people have reached for in the name of health, and one of the least understood. Here are ten things worth knowing before you decide whether colloidal gold belongs in your routine, including the parts the research does not yet support.

1. It is one of the simplest things you can take

Two ingredients. Pure gold particles suspended in distilled water. No fillers, no binders, no flavourings, no preservatives. In a supplement aisle full of twenty item labels, there is something clarifying about a product with nothing to hide behind.

2. Gold in medicine is not a new idea

Ayurvedic practitioners have prepared gold as swarna bhasma for centuries. Chinese physicians added gold flake to drinks. Medieval European apothecaries sold gold tonics. Long tradition is not the same thing as proof, and we will not pretend otherwise, but it does mean humans have been taking gold deliberately for a very long time.

3. Gold is already in modern medicine, quietly

Gold turns up in pacemakers, stents and dental work. That pink line on a home pregnancy test is colloidal gold doing the signalling. Gold nanoparticles have also reached human clinical trials in imaging and oncology, which is documented in this review of gold nanoparticles as therapeutic devices in clinical trials.

4. Researchers are studying it as an antioxidant

A 2022 review in the Journal of Inflammation Research describes gold nanoparticles behaving like antioxidants, helping neutralise reactive oxygen species, with reductions in inflammatory messengers such as TNF alpha and IL 1 beta in animal models. The authors are clear that human studies are still needed. Read the review.

5. It quiets inflammatory signalling in the laboratory

In a 2021 paper in Scientific Reports, gold nanoparticles reduced production of major inflammatory signalling molecules in immune cells, and did it without causing toxicity or impairing normal cell function. The researchers call it an early demonstration and say the mechanism needs more work. Read the study.

6. The skin research is the most relevant to ageing

Skin ages in large part through collagen loss, driven by an enzyme called MMP-1. In a 2021 study in Pharmaceuticals, gold nanoparticles coated with gallic acid were applied to human skin cells stressed with high glucose. The treated cells produced significantly less MMP-1, collagen breakdown dropped, and free radical levels fell. Cultured cells, not human skin, but a careful look at the tissue that keeps skin firm. Read the study.

7. The brain studies are the most talked about, and the most misread

This is the one people quote at you. In a 2020 paper in Molecular Neurobiology, rats were given a chemical that induces Alzheimer's like brain damage. Long term gold nanoparticle treatment prevented the neuroinflammation, kept mitochondrial function and ATP synthase activity normal, and prevented the loss of spatial memory. That is a real and interesting finding. It is also rats, injected, in a laboratory. It is not a person taking drops, and it is not a treatment. Read the study.

8. There is antimicrobial work as well

Gold nanoparticles have been tested against drug resistant fungal pathogens, and against bacteria, with researchers looking at them as a possible answer to resistance. Again this is laboratory work on surfaces and cultures, a long way from something you swallow. Read the study.

9. Purity and particle size are the whole product

With a two ingredient supplement, quality lives entirely in how pure the gold is and how finely it is dispersed. Ours is 99.99 percent pure gold in distilled water. Ask that question of any colloidal gold you are considering, ours included, and be wary of anyone who will not answer it plainly.

10. What the research does not show

This is the point most articles leave out, so we will say it plainly. There are no human clinical trials showing that oral colloidal gold as a daily supplement treats any of the conditions in the research above. Nearly all of that work is cells and animals, often at doses and by routes that look nothing like a dropper under the tongue. Anyone telling you colloidal gold cures a disease is ahead of the evidence, and you should discount everything else they say accordingly. We would rather you buy from us knowing exactly where the science stands.

Our Colloidal Gold

Pure gold and distilled water, 2 oz, $60, crafted and shipped from our own apothecary. See the product page.

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. The research referenced here is provided for educational purposes and describes early scientific findings, many of them from laboratory or animal studies. It is not a claim about the effects of any specific product.