Researchers have said that nanoparticles of silver, found in dietary supplements, cosmetics and food packaging, can penetrate our cells and cause damage.
Associate Professor Frank Kjeldsen and PhD Thiago Verano-Braga, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Southern Denmark, said that silver as a metal does not pose any danger, but when you break it down to nano-sizes, the particles become small enough to penetrate a cell wall. If nano-silver enters a human cell, it can cause changes in the cell.
The researchers examined human intestinal cells, as they consider these to be most likely to come into contact with nano-silver, ingested with food.
Frank Kjeldsen and Thiago Verano-Braga said that they could confirm that nano-silver leads to the formation of harmful, so called free radicals in cells, adding that they could also see changes in the form and amount of proteins.
A large number of serious diseases are characterized by the fact that there is an overproduction of free radicals in cells. This applies to cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
The study has been published in the journal ACS Nano.
