MARTIN: Hello, this is Martin Pytela, health coach at Life Enthusiast and coming to you today with the topic of silicone or Silica as a mineral and as a nutrient and what it is and what it does in the body. So most of all, I would like to start by saying that there is a general confusion about whether we should call it silicon or silica. Silicon is an element number 14 on the table. The most abundant element in the earth crust. The name is silicon symbol is Si, and its most common representation is SiO2, which is Silica, and SiO2, sort of like CO2, but SiO2 is crystals. It's the beach sand. Quartz. And of course it's more rare versions like amethyst and rose quartz. But most of all, it's all the beach sand that you walk on, and it's in great many other materials. Silicates are very common. The most popular one with us is the laminar crystal, but Zeolite is also a silicate. So there you have it. Now role of silicon in human physiology is an important point. So first of all it's the building block. It's the most important building block in the connective tissue. And connective tissue is what you're built from. Like if you could visualize your skeleton. Your bones are a matrix of flexible collagen that has had minerals embedded in it, like calcium, magnesium and whatnot that make it stiff. So you may think of the bones as something solid, but in fact, it's a matrix of flexible collagen that has been made stiff by the deposition of minerals.

And osteoporosis, which is demineralization of the bone, is essentially returning bone back into it's minimal cartilage structure, which is of course floppy and flexible. And you can do an experiment. You can take a bone, any bone like chicken bone and soak it in vinegar, and the vinegar will dissolve the calcium. And what you'll have left is the flexible connective tissue matrix. And similarly your organs are, same idea, a matrix of connective tissue with specialized cells hanging on that. So your liver is like a structure made out of collagen with liver cells planted, attached, living with it. So specifically in bone health, silicon is involved in the formation and maintenance of your normal bone tissue. So it's both the strength and the structure and the research that's done, it's showing us that without sufficient silicon or silica, as we oftentimes call it, is strongly connected with how the mineralization process works. 

So you will always hear bone health. That's calcium and vitamin D. Interesting that vitamin D Latin name is cholecalciferol, which is essentially the carrier of calcium in and out of bone. Right? You have the deposition of calcium and removal of calcium in and out of the bone. But that's a different topic. Let's not go there. So as far as bone health goes, we need to look at Magnesium, Vitamin D, Vitamin K, Vitamin C.

But silicon is the critical mineral that's involved in the structure of collagen. So specifically skin, hair and nails are mostly collagen. The nails, that's the most condensed or most thick form of the collagen. Hair, quite close, skin more flexible but still. So when you hn ave abundance of collagen, you will be producing abundance of hair and abundance of nails. They will grow strong and they will grow fast. So when you're deficient in silica or silicon, you will probably produce less. So we we associate it with youth, vigorous, right? 

The older a person gets, the thinner their hair. And then there's this health of the hair, right? Like young person's hair tends to be coarse, while old person's hair tends to be looking like fluff, thin. Same goes for blood vessels, right? Because blood vessels again, the tubes that are within you, that's all made with collagen. That's the structure that holds it together. So without sufficient silicon on board, we will have problems in the circulatory department. And then the fascia, fascia is all the material that surrounds all the muscles. It's the inner matrix that holds everything together that's very much dependent on abundant silicon in the body. The abundance, of course, right after oxygen, silicon is the most abundant mineral. It exists in various forms, but the most available form is called orthosilicic acid. It's water soluble. To summarize, bone, connective tissue, all the structures skin, hair, nails, all bodies, structures.

So then the question would be how much do we need in a day? And the studies sure enough, the RDA was never established. They never thought it was important enough, but it was measured. Their studies suggest that anywhere between 20 and 50 mg per day is about right. Another study suggested that we lose about 40 mg per day just by living. How do we lose it? Well, we're growing the hair, so there is as it grows, of course, we're going to cut it away because the moment it grows, it's no longer really integral to the inside of the body. And likewise we exfoliate our skin, so we slough off skin cells all the time. We're wearing off. The oldest cells are sloughed off. You see them as dandruff, and you see them as all the white powder that you may notice inside your socks when you turn them inside out to wash them. 

Anyway, so every day you're getting rid of some body tissues, connective tissues, hair, nails, skin that's just peeling off all the time. And that process probably goes on the inside. There's some level of recycling on the inside, but we need to be bringing in, by estimation, at least 40 mg of silicon every day. What we have found that the orthosilicic acid is available, but as a supplement, but it sure is better to intake it in a bioavailable form, which is in plants. So the richest sources, right?

We'll get to that. Bamboo, the strongest plant. I mean, you can see how strong it is when you look at the scaffoldings construction sites in Asia. They do not use steel, they use bamboo. It's lighter and as strong, if not stronger than steel. And what's available is a product called Tabasheer, which is essentially the sap of the bamboo plant. 

Other well-known sources, high content of silicon are oats. You heard of this when you want to give your horse a shiny coat, you feed them more oats and barley, but especially oats. And so that would be barley grass juice and raw green oats stems. So this is known as the green barley or green barley grass. Other, well, brown rice that would be the brown rice because it has the shell. That's where the silicon would be contained. If you eat white rice, all that's left is the inner core, which is just starch. But if you eat the whole brown rice, then you still are getting the benefits of that. 

Then fruits will have that. So eating apples and grapes and all the fruits really, and vegetables, things like green beans and bell peppers and leafy greens, very good sources of silicon. In our store you will find one other form and that's methylated, which is not very common. We have this product called Collagen Booster. And now you should understand right, that silicon is important for collagen. And so they chose to call this product Collagen Booster.

There was a French scientist, Loic Leribault. He's no longer alive, but he was instrumental in putting this together. And he found a way to create mono-methyl-silane-triol, which connects the silicon atom with oxygen and methylated methylation, as in CH3. We could probably figure out the formula, but it's going to have CH3, OH and Si, C, O, H. CH3-Si-(OH)3 

Anyway, methylated,  anything methylated, is more absorbable than you would otherwise expect, because by methylation we turn things that are unusable by human body to something that's usable. One other famous methylated mineral, sulfur, is available as MSM. 

It's interesting that when you're put on stage, when you get to talk in public, oftentimes the brain goes into a fight or flight stress mode. And that's quite interesting, is where you essentially lose the access to your frontal cortex. You are operating from the back brain. Some people call it the travel brain, where you all of a sudden go into this go mode, where the only way you can successfully pack for the trip is to have a list and check things off the list. You can easily prepare the list the day before and think your way through it calmly and clearly. But the day you're going, the travel day, you no longer are able to think clearly. That also happens with public speaking, where all of a sudden you're put on the spot and you're no longer able to recall things easily. And so it takes a while for the brain to relax and to think of it. So MSM is methyl-sulfonyl-methane. That's the CH3 and sulfonyl. That's S-O and methane is CH4. (CH3)2SO2. It takes a while to recall. 

Well, anyway, so this is a whole sidebar about nothing really. So speaking of what we need, we need about 40 mg per day. So the kind of products that we put together are these plant powders. When you concentrate plants and we do that at our Exsula shop, we will be able to supply you with the nutrients that you need. 

So what are the effects? Silicon deficiency will have the following problems. Effects on bone and joint health, so low silicon a higher chance of lower bone density,  osteoporosis. Weakened connective tissue which will be the cartilage that's in your joints, the cushioning that separates two different bones so that they don't wear on one another. All of that requires healthy connective tissue, which means a lot of silicon or silica. So joint stiffness and joint pain will be associated with lower availability. Hair that looks dry and lackluster and skin that looks sallow. That's all from reduced collagen production, because if you're lacking silicon, you will not be producing enough collagen no matter what you do. So eating collagen is helpful, but that's already the protein that contains all the nutrients. You may want to give your body the building blocks, which would mean start from the plants rather than from the animal.

Collagen is an animal product. You're using the bodies of either fish, birds, or mammals to make the collagen. Just to be clear how it's made. So collagen is the jiggly stuff that you'll find in soups. So jello, for example, is indeed collagen. When you make chicken soup, when it's warm, it's liquid. When it's cold, the thicker the soup, the more likely it turns into this stiff, jiggly jello object. That is collagen. So when you remove water from it, you end up with this whitish powder. And that's what's available as supplements. And that's usually fish, as in marine collagen. Fish bones, right? Fish soup. You take the skins and the heads and the scales and all of the cutoffs that you're not turning into a meal and you boil the heck out of it, usually with some vinegar. And if you want some root vegetables to make it more palatable and you turn it into a collagen, fish stock. 

Same story on chicken. You can boil chicken bones, skin, heads, feet, all of the leftovers that are body parts that you would normally not eat. And you boil that until it's made into a thick soup. And then with animals like the famous one, oxtail soup. You take something that has bones and connective tissue in it, and you boil until it yields the thick collagen. And head cheese that's made usually from pork, from pigs. Head cheese is made by taking the ears and the cheeks, the jowls and all the stuff from the head. That's head cheese. It really is the body parts of the head chopped into small pieces and cooked and boiled and flavored and whatnot. And when it's cold, it turns into this bits of meat and skin and cartilage that are edible in a thick sauce, not sauce, jello. So that's how we eat it. That's been a traditional way of consuming collagen throughout our ancestors. Our ancestors did that very successfully. They would use all the parts of the bodies of the animals that they were eating, and making the soup from all the body parts other than the muscle is a very valuable source of nutrients.

So the symptoms, hair, skin and nails. Nails will be fragile, the hair will be thinning, the skin will be sallow and sagging. Premature wrinkles because collagen introduces flexibility. So when you're losing skin elasticity that is associated with low silicon levels. Muscle tone, same idea. When you're lower in the mineralization, you will be not able to exercise so well. Stretch marks, the stretch marks develop, that's scar tissue from the skin not being elastic enough to accommodate the expansion and contraction. This happens to women a lot because of pregnancy, because you're stretching the belly quite a bit. But it also happens to people who are gaining weight or losing weight.

And these stretch marks just appear usually around hips and belly and places like that. Anyway, high level of silicon would accommodate greater amount of elasticity, lesser amount of the stretch marks. By the way, if you want to get rid of this existing stretch marks, the strategy would be increase the intake of silicon and get fibrinolytic enzymes. The stretch mark itself is made from fibrin. Fibrin is the scar tissue and fibrinolytic enzyme such as Serrapeptase, and we do have those available, will dissolve the accumulated scar tissue. 

So then, cellulite is another form of it that's also lesser flexibility in the in the skin. Interestingly, also in teeth, teeth becoming brittle, is because the connective tissue is not strong enough. Skin conditions such as eczema or boils or even acne will be more likely if you have lower level of silicon and then surprisingly, also increased risk of kidney stones, gallstones, and prolapses of tissues. 

Okay, so bamboo for sure. So bamboo shoots, young bamboo shoots are part of the Chinese diet. You could be eating those too. Tabasheer that I mentioned, that's really a good thing. If you're wondering how to spell it, that's t-a-b- a-s-h-e-e-r. And it's a mineral-rich either liquid or powder, and it's extracted from the joints of specific bamboos. I mean, you could think of it as bamboo water, right? Or the bamboo sap.

Now what are the general benefits of it? So antipyretic which is, it will reduce fever. Antispasmodic. It will relieve spasms. It's antiparalytic, as in counteracts paralysis. It's aphrodisiac, supports sexual activity. And it's restorative. As in supports the overall health of the body. 

Other plants, horsetail, also known as Equisetum, is a really important plant in the Western herbology. Very rich in silicon dioxide again used in medicines, we put it into our superfoods, large amounts. Oat straw, which is the green oat. So it's harvested not for the grain, but it's harvested for the sprouts. So you take the grain, you sprout it, when the plant is less than a foot tall, you harvest that, juice that, and turn that into the mineral supplement. Now, even the mature oat straw, when fed to animals like horses or cows, it will produce very rich, shiny coats. That is a known thing. 

Another plant that I think is really well worth considering and adding into the mix is called nettle. Urtica dioica is in good old stinging nettle. Harvested young, it's actually really good in salads. You could easily make it non stinging by pouring a little bit of hot water over it. But even when you just chop it small it's quite edible added to the salads. The young nettle leaves are really rich in antioxidants, vitamin C, but loaded with minerals, and so they are excellent for dealing with joint health and any inflammatory symptoms. Interesting sidebar, nettle leaf contains a compound called ud1, which acts similarly to insulin in the body, so it's actually helping to manage blood glucose levels. And it is also folk medicine for allergies. And it's also used for helping with enlarged prostate also known as hyperplasia. So it's a great supplement. 

So if you feel like being a herbalist type, buy yourself some nettle tea and drink that. If you really feel like going for it, then go in the field. You always can find nettle growing somewhere out there and add it to your salads. And if you don't feel like doing that, you can rely on us because we will and do put nettle into our Exsula superfoods. 

Another one that's really rich in silicon is alfalfa. So same story, we take the alfalfa sprouts. Well, the alfalfa plant, we take the leaves, not the stems, and we juice the leaves, and we put those into the superfoods that we have. So that's that's another strong source of minerals, but also great many other things like folate and vitamin B1, B2 and minerals like magnesium, iron, copper and vitamins C, K. It's a really great nutrient to add into what you're doing. 

So that would be my story on our silica and how we have it available. We make it available in a product called AuraSil, a-u-r-a-s-i-l, sil for silicon. We also make AuraFit and AuraMax. They have the same base, but they are pushed in other directions.

The AuraSil, for sure for people who are considering their connective tissue health. Aurafit we have added some brown algae into it to make it more important in managing of the cardiovascular system. So you will have greater exercise capacity. And then AuraMax, we have pushed that to help also restore the health of the endocrine system. So people whose hormonal system is not so great, they will benefit greatly from using the AuraMax. 

Okay. So I'll talk about a different topic altogether now, which is something that came my way just today. I received a comment and an inquiry from a fellow who says I am on a diminished kidney function. I only have one kidney and my GFR is 35. GFR is glomerular function ratio, I think it stands for. It's an overall number that evaluates how effectively your kidneys are working. In a vigorous very young person the GFR will be somewhere in 90 to 120. And then anything below 60 is, health not great. At 40 you're starting to suffer, and at 20 you're probably on dialysis. 

So I saw a person buy one of these Ionic Foot Spa, which we call extra kidney and get on it. And this person was on a waiting list to get onto a kidney transplant and was just in a really diminished function and started using this, used it every day for a while, and they were able to take them off of the waiting list because their function was great enough, good enough, improved enough that the body was functioning fine.

So people who are really on reduced oxygen in the tissue are more likely to end up cancerous conditions. I recommend an Ionic Foot Spa. Well, yeah, I can because we are we are selling that there are multiple ionic spas on the market. The cheapest ones start somewhere in the $180-200 range. It's really easy to make. An Ionic Foot Spa really is based on the principle of osmosis. So all you need is two electrodes and a direct current. The direct current should be somewhere around 24V and you put that in water and that's that. So I could make it as easily as taking an old computer power supply, taking the two wires, putting two crocodile alligator clips on it and attaching two pieces of steel and off we go with two electrodes. The trouble with these things is that you want to have materials that are not going to make you toxic. You don't want to use an old stainless steel fork because that will deposit nickel and cadmium, or maybe molybdenum into your bath and into your body. You don't want that. You want to be using just pure iron electrode. 

Anyway, so the ionic spas range in price between $200 and $2000. The really expensive ones, I just don't know how the people get by or feel justified to charge that level, because it's, from an electric design perspective, it's not complicated. It's just direct current applied to water. I know that's the biggest part of the cost of the products that we sell is the liability insurance of the manufacturer. Anyway, that's what we have, it's the Ionic Foot Spa. In our store it's a device that has been sold in professional spas for the last 20 years. The design is straightforward, easy to maintain, and it works reliably well. 

What's interesting is this, the electrodes could be from different materials. The one we have available is either steel or graphite, and the graphite will not cause the discoloration of minerals coming into water. It will just stay clear. Whereas when you use steel electrodes, the interaction with water and with minerals in the water will cause this flocculation. Other words curdling of minerals. The minerals will come out of solution. So when you have normal well water or city water, whatever is already dissolved in the water, when you put electric current on it, it will start flocculating and coming out of solution. So you will see things, you will see color changes. You will see things coming out of solution that will happen whether you put your feet in it or not. Actually, you can put any body part in it.

You can put your hands in it. You could put your pet in it. You can put a dog in an Ionic Foot Spa, just have them stand in the basin. It will work equally well on pets as it works on humans. You can detoxify an old dog and bring them health for sure. 

Anyway, so you will see all kinds of stuff come into water. What's interesting, and I've done this in one afternoon we did three different people. It was my wife, her sister and myself, and we did that with water coming out of the water tap. So it was the same water, same electrodes, three different people. And then I did it on top of it with just nothing. Nobody. And the nobody was kind of rusty looking water. And one of the people came out with really black kind of brown stuff coming out. Another one was really orange, and another one was a kind of medium brown. So what was interesting about that is that each person was making the water color come out different. 

Anyway, that was so convincing to me is that whatever is coming out is whatever is in the water already, plus whatever is being drawn out of the person that's just using it right now. I think that's about all I would know to say about the Ionic Foot Spa. It has had a bit of bad press because some people just say, well, this is just a hoax. It does nothing even if you just run it without any feet in it, it will make the water dirty. So don't let anyone tell you that it's taking stuff out of you.

I've proved to myself that that's not the case. It takes stuff out and the water will look different for every person. And one really interesting thing was we did one person with two spas. We had two units. And so we put one foot in unit A, other foot in unit B, and one bucket came out yellow and the other bucket came out same water source, same person, two different feet. So we could clearly see that it's pulling something different from each of the feet. One more interesting point about the Ionic Foot Spa. The water that you use needs to be between 450 and 750 parts per million hardness. So water that's too soft, minerals removed, as in ionic reduced. That would be reverse osmosis or distilled. It will not work. You actually need to put some minerals in it, like salt or baking soda. And water that's too hard, you would have to dilute it with deionized water to make it just right. you can use filters to remove chlorine, but I don't think it's a big concern because we are pulling things out. We're not letting stuff come back in. 

Thank you for being here today. My name is Martin Pytela. I'm a health coach at Life Enthusiast and I'm grateful to be able to share life-enthusiast.com (866) 543-3388.