Mineral Therapy and the Use of Gold

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Mineral Therapy and the Use of Gold

The Age of Autism: Gold standards, by Dan Olmstead of United Press International says, “A published scientific paper suggests gold salts -- the treatment that may have prompted improvement in the first child ever diagnosed with autism -- can affect mental conditions,” Before we set off on a gold rush it would be good to see the name of this emerging branch of medicine, mineral therapy, brought clearly into focus. Mineral therapy does offer a hope for autism children, their families, as well as the entire human race threatened with plagues of chronic and infectious diseases.

To focus on only one of the minerals (gold, one of the more toxic minerals in this instance) and not on the entire form of mineral therapy will not serve our hopes and the needs of humanity. I have been following the trail of mineral therapy, the practice of using minerals as medicines like a blood hound. It’s a faint trail with only hints offered to the potential medical power waiting. I have concentrated on two minerals in the arsenal of possibilities, on magnesium and selenium.

Magnesium is the single most needed (in terms of quantity and strategic cellular importance) and most helpful mineral (in a broad and specific sense). Selenium takes its strategic importance living as we do in the age of the rising tide of mercury because it binds so strongly with mercury before it gets a chance to cause damage. Now we are hearing that gold salts are potential agents that actually pull mercury off of other chemical compounds, something selenium and magnesium are not known for.

Dr. Boyd Haley has looked into this and has said, "This does lend support to the possible removal of mercury from biological proteins in individuals treated with gold salts." Gold, he thinks, might pull mercury "off the enzyme it's inhibiting and reactivate that enzyme." Dr. Haley though is adamant about the down side of using gold salts. “This issue needs researched as it has good possibilities for helping the older autistics but it is also replete with danger if used ignorantly. Also, consider the thiols that are part of the gold salts, namely thioglucose and thiomalate, both analogs of natural compounds. It might be that the delivery of these thiols to the appropriate areas of the body is what reverses any possible mercury effect instead of the gold itself,” he warns.

So it seems that selenium is a mineral that binds with mercury in one way and gold “possibly” in another. Using minerals as a medicine is already very important in emergency medicine where magnesium chloride and sulfate save lives. Now we have on the table the suggestion that minerals are indicated for neurological disorders. To treat with gold[ii] and not magnesium would be foolish though for gold deficiencies would not be in anyway related to the cause of autism but deficiencies in magnesium and even selenium could be. Meaning in mineral therapy we understand that certain minerals are both the cause and cure of many diseases. So if we are going to experiment with minerals on adults or children we do need to be careful about paying attention to the whole picture if we want to remain within the confines of medically sound principles and practices. Mineral therapy with magnesium is considered exceedingly safe because of its exceptionally low toxicity. Selenium is more toxic and doses need to be regulated, gold breaches another level of toxicity that preaches for extreme caution.

Side effects of gold salts can occur any time during treatment or months after treatment has been discontinued. The most common adverse reaction to aurothioglucose (gold salt) is inflamed skin. An itching sensation can be an early warning sign of skin reaction (dermatitis). Aurothioglucose is used in treating inflammatory arthritis. Exactly how gold salts work is not well understood. In patients with inflammatory arthritis, such as adult and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, gold salts can decrease the inflammation of the joint lining. This effect can prevent destruction of bone and cartilage. Gold salts are called second-line drugs because they are often considered when the arthritis progresses in spite of anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs and corticosteroids).

In seawater gold occurs at 0.000004mg per liter.

Aurothioglucose can cause grayish blue discoloration of the skin. It can also cause a metallic taste and mouth sores. Because gold salts can cause serious kidney and bone marrow problems, all patients require regular blood and urine test monitoring. An unusual side effect of injectable gold is flushing, dizziness, and fainting immediately after the injection. Patients starting injectable gold are observed after the first dose for this problem. Rarely, patients can have severe allergic reactions to aurothioglucose resulting in shock.

If we are going to use the more toxic minerals we are going to want to set up the situation where we will need to use the least amount possible. The mistake we commonly make in medicine is to rely too heavily on one particular drug (with its list of side effects and potential for collateral damages) and not supply foundation nutritional support. In mineral therapy when we use the safer minerals like magnesium we set the stage for the “safer” use of a mineral like gold if we are going to try and use it for mercury removal and neurological regeneration. Minerals are without doubt effective medical agents that must be used with care.

"Chrysotherapy" or "aurotherapy" is the name used for treatment with gold compounds. Use of gold compounds, take up to two months to reach a "steady state" in the body....and have a fairly long half life.....in 10 days, only 70% is excreted .......this makes any gold toxicity problems that might occur, more difficult to deal with, more difficult to overcome rapidly. The rates of reaching steady state are faster when injectable gold is used, than when oral gold is used. the effects of oral gold are both slower and said to be less effective in rheumatoid arthritis.:Pharmacokinetics: In 5 rheumatoid arthritic patients, the oral administration of a single 6 mg (equivalent to 1.74 mg of gold) dose of a solution of radiolabeled auranofin demonstrated that approximately 25% of the oral dose was absorbed. Peak plasma radioactive gold concentrations of 0.039 to 0.11 µg 95u/mL were reached in 1.5 to 2.5 hours. The mean plasma terminal half-life was 17 days, while the mean total body terminal half-life was 58 days. By day 10 post-administration, 77% of the initially administered labeled gold had been excreted, 73% in the feces and 4% in the urine. Six months after this single dose, approximately 99.6% of the initially administered labeled gold had been excreted, with 0.4% retained in the body.

[ii] The potential benefits of using auranofin in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, skin rash or history of bone marrow depression, should be weighed against: 1) the potential risks of gold toxicity on organ systems previously compromised or with decreased reserve, and 2) the difficulty in quickly detecting and correctly attributing the toxic effect. Chrysotherapy is beneficial in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, but gold-induced aplastic anemia may be fatal. Absolute identification of patients at risk of having this hematologic side effect is not possible, but dosage reduction and intense monitoring of laboratory and clinical signs may prevent its occurrence.