Colloidal Minerals: Fact or Fiction?

The following is an excerpt from a lecture presentation delivered by Parris Kidd, Ph.D. on November 5, 1996 at Mineral Resources International's facilities in Ogden, Utah.
 

Currently, there is a lot of controversy about colloids. The dictionary definition of a colloid is as follows: "Aggregates of atoms or molecules in a finely divided state dispersed in a gaseous, liquid or solid medium and resisting sedimentation, diffusion and filtration." The clear thrust of this meaning, then, is that colloids are stable aggregates, that is, they are super atomic. They are aggregates of two atoms or more so that even if the colloid is in the ionic form, it still has two or more ions at a time. We don't need colloids for that. All we have to use is good, affordable ionic sources of minerals and we get single ions. So, rather than having to deal with colloids, which can be two or fifty, or even 200 at a time, we have just one mineral at a time. That is what the body is looking for.

There's absolutely nothing special about colloids. But there are lots of things about colloids that aren't special. You can almost predict that aggregates of ions are not going to be absorbed. There are also no studies to be found. I can not find one study in the literature on colloid absorption or metabolism. Nothing to do with colloid digestion, absorption or metabolism. The reason for that is that colloids were never meant to be a dietary supplement.

Colloids were a fad during the course of medicine between the early 1900's until about 1936. Certain physicians found that if they could get silver into a state of dispersion they could use it as an antibiotic. This was before conventional antibiotics were known and that's what colloids were for. When more efficient antibiotics showed up about 1935-36, colloidal literature falls off a precipice. There were a few scientific papers through the early 30's but there are no papers beyond 1936. So, colloids were a passing interest. However, it remains to be known how efficient colloids are as antibiotics. For sure, colloids are not going to be absorbed well and they're likely going to prove toxic if taken on a daily basis.

There are some ridiculous claims out there regarding colloidal minerals. One claim is that colloidal minerals are 98 percent absorbed. This claim has no support whatsoever. It is a bald faced lie. Having looked through the literature myself back to 1905, I can not find one shred of evidence that this was the case. The people who make this claim have given two reasons.

The first claim is that the colloid particles are so small they are readily absorbed. Colloids are not as small as ions. It is unlikely that as aggregates they are going to be readily absorbed because the transporter uptake proteins are looking for single ions. People who claim that colloids are 98 percent absorbed and that ionized minerals are only 8 to 10 percent absorbed even in the most healthy people either haven't looked at the literature or are purposely misrepresenting the literature because the literature quite clearly shows the ionic form [absorption rate] ranges from 20 to 90 percent depending on how hungry their system is for the mineral at that time. So the absorption efficiency goes up when the body is hungry for the minerals and goes down when the body has enough of the mineral.

Secondly, these people claim that their minerals carry a negative charge and that the gut is positively charged and, therefore, the two attract each other. Even a high school text will tell you the gut carries a major negative charge. It does not carry a positive charge. It is simply ridiculous to make that kind of assertion about colloids.

 

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