Doctors at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong were at a loss after examining an 84-year-old man who was admitted due to complications related to an enlarged prostate. But medical experts weren’t perplexed by his prostate problems; they were surprised by the unnaturally silver skin, fingernails and even the whites of his eyes.
A subsequent skin biopsy revealed gray granules in the man’s blood vessels, sweat gland membranes, hair follicles, and skin fibers. Further blood tests confirmed the hospital staff’s suspicions: a silver concentration of 423 nmol/L, more than 40 times the normal amount. The octogenarian suffered from a rare case of generalized argyria, an often permanent condition caused by a build-up of silver in the body.
If Ars Technica explains, the New England Journal of MedicineAccording to the recent case report, argyria occurs after a person ingests large amounts of silver for an extended period of time, during which time the metal particles enter the bloodstream in their ionic form. Ultimately, the silver ends up in the tissues of the muscles, organs, skin and possibly even the brain.
Swallowing the silver is not noticeable in itself. But after exposure to ultraviolet light (something that happens every day thanks to the sun), the metal ions turn into atomic silver and begin to oxidize into silver selenide and silver sulfide. This is what gives argyria patients their telltale blue-gray color. Their skin can become even darker thanks to silver’s tendency to stimulate melanin production.
Practitioners of alternative medicine (en at least one sect) have long promoted the use of doses of silver, either in capsule form or suspended in a liquid known as ‘colloidal silver’. Doctors sometimes prescribed it even before the advent of antibiotics. But as it stands now, there is no reliable evidence to support the intake of silver to treat any health condition. In any case, too much silver can poison you and cause irreparable damage to your liver, kidneys and bone marrow. In some cases it can kill you.
However, in the case of the octogenarian in Hong Kong, the cause of his argyria remains a mystery. He was reportedly only taking the finasteride prescribed to him by doctors for his prostate, and did not admit to regularly or intentionally taking silver. And because he had an entire career waiting, work-related exposure also seemed unlikely. No one else in his apartment building also showed similar symptoms. Doctors ultimately discharged the mysterious silver man from the facility with a referral for additional toxicology testing.
But whether anyone ever gets to the bottom of their illness or not, let it at least serve as a valuable reminder never to take silver home remedies.
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