Silica and medications.
Silica is in the Distil supplement database, evidence Grade C. The page below lists every medication we have explicitly assessed it against.
Silica is taken for hair thickness, nail hardness and bone matrix support, but its evidence sits at Grade C, so it should be treated as emerging rather than established. The form is what makes or breaks it: only choline-stabilised orthosilicic acid (ch-OSA) at 10 to 30mg, or bamboo extract standardised for silica at 300 to 500mg, have trial support. Most silica products are poorly absorbed and unlikely to do much. The small studies that exist suggest ch-OSA may improve skin roughness and nail and hair brittleness, and may support a bone formation marker when paired with calcium and vitamin D, but the trials are few and modest in size. The clearest indication is skin, hair and nails after age 40. There are no clinically significant drug interactions at supplemental doses. People with kidney disease (CKD3+) should use a lower dose under GP supervision, since silica clears through the kidneys. Choose a bioavailable form and keep expectations measured.
We have not yet completed an explicit assessment of medications for Silica in the Distil interactions database. We surface this distinction deliberately: the Distil checker tells you when we have explicitly assessed a pair and when we have not, because both are useful information. If you take Silica alongside a medication, the checker below will surface anything already in our database, and the missing-item form at the bottom of the page routes uncatalogued pairs into our next curation pass.
What this list does not say. Pairs not flagged here are not implicitly safe. They are either not yet in our database, or fall outside our inclusion scope. Use the checker below to surface any medication, and submit a missing item if you take something we have not catalogued.
No affiliates. No commission. We earn nothing on what you buy.
How we grade severity, choose what's in scope, and what we exclude.
Every call on this page is reasoned. We publish the full rubric for severity tiers, the medication inclusion logic, the evidence grades we accept, and what we deliberately leave out. About three thousand words. Worth reading once if you use this tool more than occasionally.
Read the full methodologyA full supplement review, built around you, not a generic stack.
The free checker answers one interaction question at a time. A Distil report reviews the bigger picture: your goals, diet, medications, current supplements and any blood results you provide, then shows what appears worth keeping, changing, adding or leaving out.
- what your diet already covers, so you are not adding a capsule for something food is already handling
- which evidence-graded compounds are worth considering for your goals, and which were considered but left out
- what to keep, change or stop from what you already take, plus the order to introduce anything new
- how your medications and complete supplement stack fit together, with daily timing and a clear point for reassessment
The interaction check is one section of the full report. You also get the reasoning behind each recommendation and the evidence references used.
£49 introductory price for early customers. Standard price £79.
Something missing?
If a supplement or medication you take isn't in our autocomplete, tell us. We go through what people flag every week and add what's missing.