Chrysotherapy: Meaning and side effects

What is Chrysotherapy?

Chrysotherapy is also referred to as “Autotherapy”. It is the use of gold compounds in medicine. In 1935, use of gold salts in treatments began. Elemental gold is inert to the body chemistry. It causes no reactions, no allergies in the body, helps to reduce inflammation and slows down the disease progression in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Gold can also be altered into different compounds which can help treat diseases.

Gold has a medicinal history which can be seen through the writings of every culture. The Chinese used gold, as a medicinal agent in early 2500 BCE. Monovalent gold salts “AuI2” has been used to treat leprosy. In India, calcined gold and colloidal gold are shown to exhibit antiepileptic properties.

In the 1890’s monovalent gold cyanide were shown having a cytotoxic effect on the tuberculosis (TB) bacillus in vitro. Monovalent organ gold drugs have been used for the treatment of ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, various types of arthritis, discoid lupus, several forms of rheumatism and malaria.

Use in Inflammatory Disease:

Gold helps to reduce inflammation in our body, thus it is an “anti- inflammatory”. Gold is widely used in treatment of diseases like lupus erythematosus, membranous nephritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

Use in Rheumatoid Arthritis:

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory condition which leads to progressive erosion of the articular cartilage of bones in joints. The bones then eventually fuse after cartilage loss is complete. Inflammation occurs first in the synovial membrane which surrounds the joints, and then later moves to the synovial cavity present between the bones.

Rheumatoid Arthritis is one of the most common disease where gold is used as a method of treatment. In 1997, a review (Suarez-Almazor ME et al.) reported that treatment using intramuscular gold helped in reducing disease activity and joint inflammation. Gold salts taken through injection are more effective than by mouth.

Side effects of chrysotherapy:

Chrysiasis

A common side-effect of gold-based therapy is “skin discoloration”. Shades of mauve to purplish dark grey when exposed to the sunlight. This occurs when gold salts are taken on regular basis over a long period of time.

Excessive intake of gold salts at the time of Chrysotherapy results in a condition referred as chrysiasis. This condition is very similar to as seen in argyria, which it is caused by the exposure to silver salts and colloidal silver.

Chrysiasis can lead to acute kidney injury, severe heart conditions, and hematologic complications.