Summary-health benefits of Gold

Gold compounds have increasingly been used to treat several types of cancer, the most impressive being its use in chemotherapy for tumours. The use of gold is encouraging in the treatment of prostate cancer, where injection of microscopic gold pellets help to inhibit tumour growth. “The position of the gold grains can be detected using X-rays, allowing doctors to target the prostate position within one or two millimetres,” explains Halliday.

One of the earliest treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, gold therapy, a disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD), has declined in terms of use over the last two decades due to the arrival of better tolerated biologic and non-biologic DMARDs, such as methotrexate.

he most common form of gold treatment is via injection while the oral gold formulation appears to be less effective. Patients usually receive weekly injections which may eventually reduce to once a month.

According to a review, people with this condition receiving gold injections had 30% fewer swollen joints compared to people receiving placebo. The authors concluded that “although its use can be limited by the incidence toxicity, injectable gold has an important clinically and statistically significant benefit in the short term treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.