Silica – The Miracle Mineral Everyone Needs & Almost Everyone Is Deficient In

It is quite easy to be passionate about the mineral silica — in the right form, which is that which is grown, and when taken in the right amount — as I see almost routinely what others call miracles.  The passion is rather catching among those who have had long term problems that nothing helped, and those problems are then significantly helped or even disappear with this common yet so uncommonly known miracle mineral.

You know, Greg, it is so encouraging the way this has worked out with the previous two interviews and now this third one as it fits so perfectly with the other two.

One name noted in the previous interviews was that of Dr. Klaus Schwarz – but just barely, almost as a passing mention.  Dr. Schwarz deserves so much more remembrance than a mention.

It was Schwarz who established the nutritional essentiality for life – first of the mineral selenium that we discussed in the last issue, and then of the mineral chromium that we covered in the issue prior to that one.  Well, Greg, Dr. Schwarz is credited with establishing the nutritional essentiality for life with six different elements.  That is more than any other man, and yet the name of Klaus Schwarz is barely known.

The mineral silicon is the last of those six elements established as essential for life by Dr. Klaus Schwarz, and all of them while he was in the employ of the federal government – first at the National Institutes of Health, then through the Veterans Administration Hospitals.  He was in the midst of further major research on silicon when he died in the late 1970s.  The government just disbanded his laboratories rather than follow up with his work.

The first two nutritional items established as essential by Schwarz (chromium & selenium) and the last, silicon, together make up a triumphant triumvirate of beneficial nutrients.  These three not well known elements together make up a more common deficiency, and when finally learned about positively, effect more benefit to the body than any other three elements.

In the first interview, I noted that whole wheat is a rich source of chromium but that 91 per cent is removed during the refining of whole wheat into bleached, white flour.  Well, whole wheat is also a rich source of selenium but 92 per cent is removed during refining into bleached, white flour.  Whole wheat is a rich source of silicon as well but 95 per cent is removed during refining into bleached, white flour.  Silicon has an important, harmonious role with selenium and chromium, and its deficiency has severe consequences from before you are born until the day that you die.
According to a U.S. government report last year, 20 per cent of Standard American Dietary (S.A.D.) choices are for white flour so that the substantial removal of these vital nutritional elements is quite a serious matter.  

Silicon is important for what literally holds us together, and for the blood circulatory system, as well as for transmission of nerve signals throughout the whole body.

Collagen is connective tissue that literally holds the body together.  Though many nutrients through the years have been discussed as involved or helpful with regard to collagen health, it is in fact the mineral silicon that is the key to collagen, and subsequently both strength and elasticity of the tissues.  Declining collagen health leads to degradation of skin, hair and nails externally, which is an indicator of internal status of bone, blood vessel, and nervous system health.  All of this has been well established by multiple researchers all around the world for more than half a century though it is – sadly – very, very far from common knowledge.

To be honest, even though Dr. Klaus Schwarz is credited with establishing silicon as an essential nutrient there are others who contributed more on the subject before Schwarz received credit.

In America, Dr. Edith Carlisle, of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in their school of Public Health tirelessly researched silicon nutrition both long before and long after Dr. Schwarz’s researches, especially related to so-called ‘calcification’ or more accurately, to strengthening of bone.

Throughout Europe, many researched silicon nutrition though none devoted as much to this mineral as Professor Louis Kervran of France.

Professor Kervran noted bone strengthening properties of silicon.  Broken bones mended in half the normal time with high doses of 100 per cent whole food vegetal silicon.  He theorized that using both calcium and silicon together nutritionally would work even better.  However, he was surprised to find that silicon and calcium together did not mend bones as well as high levels of silicon and low levels of calcium.

Other European researchers prior to this noted that silicon was essential for proper fetal skeletal development.  Because of this there is a strong demand placed on a pregnant mother for the baby developing.  So many of the so-called common problems of pregnancy are actually silicon deficiency issues, such as aching teeth and bones, varicose veins, and also hemorrhoids – which are in fact a varicosity.  Most Americans today are low in silicon due to a high intake of white flour and a low intake of dark leafy greens (the other high source of silicon that used to be much more commonly consumed), and pregnancy causes a silicon deficiency to be made worse.

Speaking of varicosities, silicon is the key to both strength and elasticity of the tissues, including of blood vessels which makes silicon especially important regarding cardiovascular health.

Once again, it was European researchers some decades ago that discovered in cadaver studies that those who died with healthy cardiovascular systems had an abundance of silicon in the blood vessels while those dying from heart problems have very low levels of silicon in the blood vessels.
There is also an electrical aspect to heart health with some heart problems being sort of a short-circuiting problem.  That is yet another important part of the mineral silicon and heart health.  Silicon is a semi-conductor.  Most everyone has heard of ‘Silicon Valley’ in central California that is the heart of the burgeoning computer industry.  It was called that originally because of all the silicon chip manufacturing in that region.  The better the silicon chip the more information the computer can handle and the faster it can handle it.  It is similar in the human body.

I’m telling you Greg, there are so many facets to the mineral nutrient silicon regarding health that we can only just begin to do justice to the subject even in a lengthy interview.

For instance, your body communicates through the nervous system similar to a computer network.  Your body’s ‘CPU’ if you will, is your brain and silicon is a big part of faulty brain messaging such as in Alzheimer’s.  There has been much documentation on this though it gets little attention.

You know how aluminum has been mentioned often in the health food industry as “the” cause of Alzheimer’s?  Did you know that aluminum is found significantly in the earth’s crust in the form of SILICON-aluminate?  Silicon manages aluminum.  It is the absence of the semi-conductor mineral nutrient silicon necessary for facilitating electrical messages in the brain more so than the presence of aluminum that is the problem in nervous system disorders.  For instance, high dose silicon can also make a noticeable difference for one with Multiple Sclerosis.

Going back to collagen for a minute, we can also tie in silicon deficiency to cancer.  You see, Greg, doctors have done a disservice (a long and ever growing list if ever there was one) by making it sound like cancer spreads by eating up other cells.  That is not exactly accurate.  I don’t know if they explain it that way for some misguided attempt at simplicity or if it has to do with their being such simpletons when it comes to nutrition and cancer – or pretty much nutrition and anything.

Silica