Silica the 2nd most abundant element and yet, still scarce in our bodies. What's going on?
Is eating fossils really the best way to get it?
Next up— Silica! Silica is a nutrient you may have heard of for it’s benefits to hair, skin and nail health, but it’s also so much more than that. As the 2nd most common element on Earth it’s necessary for all major life forms from plants to animals to humans. You may also know silica as one of the most common elements found in many crystals, mostly occurring as quartz. Silica has also been recognized as an essential trace element.
WHAT IS SILICA?
Silica is a chemical compound composed of oxygen and silicon atoms; it is also known as silicon dioxide. It is the 2nd most common element on earth— the 1st is oxygen! According to the Brittanica encyclopedia, silica is the main constituent in 95% of rocks. The two forms of silica are crystalline and amorphous, both are solids but otherwise are chemically quite different.
Crystalline silica is a naturally occurring silica that has been exposed to extreme heat causing it to form a crystalline structure. It is dangerous when inhaled or ingested and is not biodegradable. It most often occurs as quartz in nature.
Amorphous silica is the non-crystalline form of silicon resulting from biological functions of diatoms. It is often used in new fangled technology for things like solar cells and thin-film transistors in LCDs, it can be deposited in thin films onto glass, metal and plastic. Diatomaceous Earth (DE) is commonly composed of amorphous silicon, with <1% as crystalline silica.
*While some people believe this makes DE perfectly structured to pull toxins out of the body due to its tiny pockets, as an inorganic and poorly (almost not at all) absorbed form of silica it’s best to avoid consuming this as a dietary supplement. I have personally taken DE for quick relief of a stomach ache from less than stellar food, but I now feel that there are much better options for stomach pain than drinking finely ground fossils. Especially since the tiny pockets it forms are perfect for pulling minerals out of the body, DE is not selective about what it absorbs, similar to charcoal. At the very least, if you are going to consume DE please ensure that you are doing so with lots of water, and replenishing minerals several hours after.
Before we continue, let’s get a few things straight:
Silica is an oxide of silicon.
Silicon is found in grass + sand.
Silicone is a plastic.
So those silicone baking cups and trays that are represented as natural alternatives?
Yeah, they’re just another form of plastic.
HOW MUCH SILICA DO WE NEED?
In the 1980’s the silicon content of blood serum was 50-60 ug/dL, but more recently have fallen to 24-31 ug/dL, pregnant women were found to have very low concentrations (3.3-4.3ug/dL) while their babies had high concentrations of 34-69 ug/dL. Silicon concentrations have also been found to decrease with age, especially in women. From the data it seems to me that silicon concentrations are being lowered in the population due to shortages of bioavailable silicon in the diet due to decline in food quality with women leading the downward spiral due to pregnancy induced deficiency.
The RDA for silica is 9-14 mg/day, and even though the FDA recommends that you don’t consume more than 30 mg/day there is evidence that 700-1,750 mg/day is considered safe as the excess is excreted through urine. Moderation is key.
SILICA AND THE BODY
The highest silicon content in the body is found in connective tissues such as the aorta, trachea, bone, and skin, with lower levels found in the liver, heart, muscle, and lungs. For this reason we are beginning to link silicon deficiencies to “age-related degenerative disorders” such as atherosclerosis, with several experiments confirming this hypothesis. Though, when studied, there has been no significant difference found between silica absorption in the elderly and the young, to which I must conclude that aging does not significantly impact silica absorption, but poor gut health and overall nutrition do. In addition, it may be that silica metabolism is controlled by steroid and thyroid hormones, so that reduced hormone or thyroid activity decreases absorption— yet another reason to take care of your thyroid! (9)
Two studies suggest that higher silicon intake is associated with higher bone mineral density in humans and mammals. There haven’t been any deprivation studies done on humans, most likely because of the ethics of this type of study, however in lab animals silicon deprivation results in skeletal abnormalities and defects; “in chicks, legs and beaks were paler, thinner, more flexible and thus easily fractured. In rats, defects to the skull including the eye sockets was reported as was disturbances and impairment to incisor enamel pigmentation.” More recent studies were unable to reproduce these effects, but did note decreases in bone mineral density, mineral content and collagen synthesis, and increases in collagen breakdown in the animals.
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