Are Zeolites Really Safe And Effective?

If you are a believer in detoxification, you are probably familiar with zeolites.

A typical description of a zeolite supplement labels it as a "breakthrough" that easily removes toxic heavy metals and radioactive materials from the body in the body, allowing them to be harmlessly flushed away in the urine. Zeolites may be powdered, which is to say, crushed in their original form, or micronized, reduced to even tinier particles that can interact with the lining of the digestive tract on a cellular level. Claims that a product is micronized are likely to be accurate. Nearly everything else that is claimed about zeolites needs additional clarification.

What Is a Zeolite?

A zeolite is one of about 200 different kinds of minerals, about 40 of them natural zeolite, and about 160 of them manufactured in industrial processes. Zeolites were first identified by the Swedish geologist Axel Cronstedt in the early 1700's. The term zeolite literally means "boiling stone," and the first application of zeolites was to toss in chips of zeolite rocks into boiling liquids to help them boil more evenly.

In the twenty-first century, zeolites are put to an astonishing variety of uses. The most common uses of zeolites are in water softeners and in dishwasher detergents. Some are used to clean up spills of radioactive materials. In 2011, some Japanese rice farmers spread zeolites on their fields to absorb fallout from Fukushima. Some are used as kitty litter. Some are used as catalysts in chemical reactions. Some are used in natural health, as we will consider in more detail a little later in this article.

All zeolites are minerals formed from interlinked pyramids of alumina (AlO4) and silica (SiO4). (Every zeolite contains high concentrations of aluminum.) Their linked tetrahedral structure allows them to capture alkaline earth metals and water. Zeolite form molecular "pores" in a regular arrangement roughly the same size as small molecules, making them ideal for "soaking up" a great variety of positively charged compounds.

Some zeolites are mined from the ground. These include clinoptilotite, which is most often used in natural health applications, chabazite, and mordenite. Some zeolites are manufactured in laboratories. These include zeolite A, used in laundry detergent, zeolytes X and Y, used in catalytic cracking, and ZSM-5, which is used in industrial processes to make a solution highly acidic. Of the naturally occurring zeolites, about three-fourths are mined in China, while smaller amounts are dug from the ground in Jordan, Turkey, and the United States.

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Do Zeolites Contain Harmful Minerals?

There's no such thing as an aluminum-free zeolite. Some zeolites contain more aluminum than silicon, and some zeolites contain more silicon than aluminum, but all zeolites contain aluminum. However, the aluminum is zeolites is highly unreactive. It is locked into the crystalline structure of the zeolite.

Because zeolites are molecular sieves, they can absorb harmful toxins while they are still in the ground. A few sources of natural zeolite are contaminated by lead in amounts slightly above what the FDA permits in food products in the United States. Responsible supplement makers do lead testing of their raw materials and keep lead out of zeolite supplements, but you should only buy zeolite products that are certified as lead-free.

What Supplement Makers Don't Tell You About Zeolites for Health

Assuming that you can find a zeolite that is guaranteed to be lead-free, does that automatically mean it's safe and beneficial? There are legitimate applications for zeolites, but they're not really a cure-all. Both benefits and problems with zeolites tend to be exaggerated. Here are some facts about zeolites that supplement manufacturers and critics of supplement manufacturers don't usually share with the public.

• The most exciting potential application of zeolites is in reducing the severity of "leaky gut" and celiac disease. "Leaks" in the small intestine are associated with a protein called zonulin. Certain zeolites bind to zonulin so that it is eliminated with feces, with the result that the lining of the intestine has greater stability. The product used in clinical trials was a combination of a natural zeolite, dolomite, maca, and fiber, taken in a dosage of 307.5 mg of zeolite six times per day for about 2,000 mg of natural zeolite per day.

• Soaking vegetables and fruit in a solution of zeolites mixed in water is of questionable benefit. The problem is, even if the zeolite absorbs harmful materials from the surface of the produce, most of the zeolite stays in the solution. Additionally, you need to rinse the zeolite off the fruit or vegetable for the process to do any good. Because zeolites are electrically charged, they tend to stick to the produce they are used to wash. However, if you soak a clean washcloth in the zeolite solution, put the washcloth around the fruit or vegetable for 15 or 20 minutes, and then rinse and dry the produce, you will get better results. Rinse the cloth in hot water and allow it to dry out before you use it again for this process.
• A research team at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has developed a way of using zeolites to absorb colloidal silver and then immobilizing them in a cloth for wrapping fruits and vegetables so that the cloth releases a steady stream of silver to kill bacteria. The product is still under development for commercial use.
• In a study of athletes who were given zeolites six times a day for twelve weeks, zeolites did not change redox markers, which would be a surrogate measure for "acidity." However, healthy people usually do not have a problem with maintaining normal body pH.
• Zeolites are well understood in their role as additives to animal feed. Zeolites help animals absorb minerals from their feed. They protect against anemia caused by exposure to heavy metals. They protect against the toxic effects of aflatoxin. Whether zeolites also offer these benefits in human nutrition, however, is not known.
• The zeolite erionite (which is not used in health supplements) is a cause of lung disease, but only in miners who are exposed to the dust every day.

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• There are FDA-approved uses of zeolites, in dressings used to control bleeding.
• Zeolites contain aluminum, and aluminum is associated with Alzheimer's. Paradoxically, in a study with mice in the laboratory, zeolites actually reduced the formation of placques associated with Alzheimer's in brain tissue. No one really knows whether long-term daily consumption of zeolites has a beneficial, detrimental, or neutral effect on brain health.
• There really is a treatment for cancer that uses zeolites, but it is for squamous cell cancer, not every kind of cancer, and it has to be injected directly into the tumor by a physician. You wouldn't want to try this on your own, because you would need a highly refined zeolite, and you would need to make sure you did not spread the cancer in the process of injecting the zeolite.

Zeolites can be safe and quite effective when used in the right amounts for the right application for a limited time. They are not a cure-all, but they can be unquestionably effective when they are processed and chosen with care.