4 replies to this topic

[osris]

Do you take organic germanium with or without food? There are conflicting opinions on this. Some people say take it with food, others say take it without food. 

 

Does anyone know the correct answer?

 

[Daniel Cooper]

Why would you take germanium?  It's a very very trace element.  What is it supposed to do for you and what is the evidence?  What are the risks associated with excess germanium given that there is very little in any diet humans have ever consumed.

 

 

 

 

[osris]

It's got anti-cancer effects:

 

https://academic.oup.../4/2/128/225561

 

And is an all-round health "tonic".

 

 

[Daniel Cooper]

It's got anti-cancer effects:

 

https://academic.oup.../4/2/128/225561

 

And is an all-round health "tonic".

 

Have you actually read that paper?

 

They don't actually put it into any living animal.  They don't even put it in a culture in a petri dish. That whole paper is about nothing more than how to make an organic germanium tablet and then subject said tablet to various physical and chemical tests.  Germanium may have an anti-cancer effect but that paper merely asserts it, it does not prove it.  It doesn't even purport to test any anti-cancer effect.

 

One thing that is notable is that they assert that the moa of germanium is that it exerts a pro-inflammatory effect. You might want a ramped up inflammatory effect if you have cancer.  But, increased inflammatory activity is implicated in various aging models and certain disease processes.  It is far from obvious you'd want something like this if you don't have cancer.  In fact, a lot of us take various supplements to tamp down inflammatory response which tends to increase as we age. 

 

Take it if you like.  I suppose if you take a low enough dose it probably isn't going to hurt you. I wouldn't personally consider more than 2mg per day, and I really would stay around 1mg or less.

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 01 February 2020 - 02:32 AM.

[osris]

I didn’t know that organic germanium, to quote the article’s abstract, “increases pro-inflammatory responses by enhancing interferon-γ (IFN-γ), natural killer cell and T-cell activity”. Assuming it does (though there seems to be no citation I can find in the article to the source of this statement—nor have I been able to find one by Googling the statement), nevertheless, it isn’t clear or not if this applies to both cancerous cells and non-cancerous cells—it may not apply to the latter.

 

If it only apples to cancerous cells, that would make sense, as natural killer cell and T-cell activity would need to be activated born out of a (possibly) temporary inflammatory immune response. The inflammation would subside once the cancerous cells were destroyed. The immune system always causes an inflammatory response at the site of all wound-healing areas. So I don’t think that the statement in the article’s abstract is necessarily a cause for alarm, given the way the body's immune system heals wounds.

 

Besides, organic germanium has been effective in treating various chronic illnesses that are inflammatory based, such as arthritis, retinal inflammation, amyloidosis and others.

 

 

Edited by osris, 01 February 2020 - 05:59 PM.