What is it called when your skin turns permanently blue? Well, doctors call it argyria, which by medical definition is a "blue-grey discoloration of the skin and mucus membrane. The condition is permanent and there is no known cure for it.
The condition made its way into the main-stream consciousness in 2008 when Paul Karason appeared on The Today Show to show the world what had happened to him.
Karason did this to himself by ingesting colloidal silver regularly. Colloidal silver is silver ions dispersed in water, and Karason started ingesting it after seeing a demonstration of how an old daisy was brought back to life after being immersed in it. Karason hoped that ingesting the same liquid would help him with his long term health prospects. Unfortunately Karason passed away from a heart-attack in 2011 at the age of 62.
Karason is not the only person who is famous for having developed this condition. Stan Jones, a libertarian politician from Montana started taking colloidal silver leading up to Y2K because he believed that anti-biotics would be found in short supply. The last time he ran for office the papers had dubbed him a "true-blue candidate".
Rosemary Jacobs is a Montessori teacher from New York, and she is also known as the "silver lady" because she developed argyria because she took colloidal silver nasal drops that a doctor prescribed her as a child.
Colloidal silver consists of tiny silver particles in a liquid. Makers of these products may claim they boost your immune system and can treat cancer, HIV and AIDS, shingles, herpes, and eye problems, but scientific research doesn't support that.
The FDA says over-the-counter drugs and supplements containing colloidal silver or silver salts aren't safe and effective. Silver has no known benefits when swallowed and isn't essential to the human body.
According to the Mayo Clinic, colloidal silver "isn't considered safe or effective"; the NIH warns that "evidence supporting health-related claims is lacking" and that "it can be dangerous to your health."
Would you risk turning blue for potential unknown benefits?