Contents
Chelation Therapy One
Chelation Therapy Two
Note: Life Enhancment Products has the best oral chelation formula I have come across to date.
Chelation therapy consists of slow-drip IV injection of EDTA (ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid),a synthetic amino acid, combined with aerobic exercise, special diet and no smoking. EDTA treatment has been around since the 1940's, when it was developed to treat lead poisoning.. The word "chelate" is derived from the Greek word for claw and apparently refers to the alleged removal of plaque and calcium deposits from arteries and veins by EDTA. Advocates claim that there is ample evidence to support the claim that chelation can prevent and cure heart disease, stroke, senility, diabetic gangrene and many other vascular diseases. For example, the Cypher report collected data from several physicians who used chelation to treat patients with vascular diseases. Over 19,000 cases were studied and about 86% showed "a significant enhancement in the arterial perfusion of the upper and lower extremities." (Carter, p. 87). However, the treatments were carried out independently by different physicians and there was no control group to compare to the data. Lack of adequate controls in studies purporting to demonstrate the effectiveness of chelation has been a consistent criticism of skeptics. The evidence in favor of chelation as a cure for heart disease seems to consist mainly of testimonials and subjective patient/physician reports. Advocates claim that it is too expensive to do scientifically controlled studies and that there is a conspiracy to prevent such studies from being undertaken.
Critics of the therapy in the AMA and the FDA claim that there is no good scientific evidence to back up the extravagant claims of advocates. Defenders of the therapy claim that the medical establishment has engaged in a half-century of deceit and conspiracy to suppress chelation because of fear it would cut into the profits made by drug therapy and surgery. Advocates claim that chelation is about 10 times cheaper than a coronary bypass with equal or better results. They also claim that scientific medicine does not decide to use treatments because they have been shown in controlled studies to be effective. Instead, the advocates of alternative therapies, such as chelation, maintain that these decisions are mainly political and economic.
Chelation therapy is not covered by Medicare nor will most insurance companies pay for it. The American Heart Association's Task Force on New and Unestablished Therapies reviewed the available literature on the use of chelation in treating arteriosclerotic heart disease. They found no scientific evidence to demonstrate any benefit from this form of therapy.
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Chelation therapy is surely a testable therapy. Advocates maintain that it has been tested and proven to be an effective cure of vascular diseases. Skeptics, which includes the American Medical Association and the American Heart Association, deny that studies support any such claims. Advocates claim that the medical establishment is more interested in making money than they are in curing diseases. They claim that EDTA can't be patented and anyway it is cheap, so there is no big money to be made by pharmaceutical firms. They claim also that surgery is expensive and that is why it is preferred by the medical establishment to treatment such as chelation therapy. To accept the chelation advocates' argument is to accept the notion that the American medical establishment systematically suppresses evidence and persecutes anyone who challenges their monopoly. The conspiracy theory is argued at length in James Carter's book, listed below.
For more information, the reader might send $3 to James Gregg who quotes Dr. Ray Evers in his WWW site promoting "oral chelation." Dr. Evers is referred to as a "Distinguished EDTA pioneer of Chelation Therapy" and is quoted as saying "OPENS YOUR ARTERIES AND FLUSHES PLAQUE OUT OF YOUR BODY!" Dr Evans is considered a martyr by chelation advocates. No mention is made by Mr. Gregg of the fact that Dr. Evers was accused of causing the deaths of 13 patients using chelation therapy and that his license to practice medicine in the state of Louisiana was revoked. Mr. Gregg calls chelation "one of the best kept secrets since the Manhattan project" and claims it is a "miraculous therapy." Another advocate of "oral chelation" claims it costs one tenth of what IV chelation costs and it can "Reduce Your Risk of Heart Attack by as much as 85%." (Note the weasel words "by as much as.") However, traditional chelation advocates consider "oral chelation" misleading and ineffective.
reader comments
17 Jul 1996
Just a clarification for your edification... Chelation is a chemical process
by which a large molecule such as EDTA binds smaller minerals. The form of
the chelating agent can be designed to bind various valences (eg. calcium
ions carry a charge of +2 and are easily bound by disodium EDTA as is Lead).
The substances chelating agents bind must inherently be in solution, for
they only bind ionized or solubalized substances. Therefore, it seems rather
bizarre that anyone should claim EDTA can bind a precipitate such as a
cholesterol plaque. (Cholesterol is a lipid... thus.... nonionic, carrying
no charge, thus not bound by a chelating agent)
--S. Durrenberger MD, also registered Pharmacist
reply: it may seem bizarre to you and me, but one common feature of alternative health practitioners is that they have some bizarre ideas about science. One common theme is belief in notions which ignore established scientific facts and theories.
28 Jul 1996
I have enjoyed your Skeptic's Dictionary. I have used your resources with some of my patients. I am an internist at a rural hospital in upstate NY. I found your piece on chelation a nice concise view-as a skeptic would see it. The new addendum by S. Durrenberger MD, however, changed the article from being skeptical to bizarre.
At our hospital we are investigating the concept of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program and I have been getting material for presentation to the Medical Staff. Nowhere in the all the readings of FreeRadical pathology, anti oxidation, and chelation literature did I come across claims that EDTA can bind a precipitate such as a cholesterol plaque.
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[The writer recommends:
"Free Radical Pathology in Age-Associated Diseases: Treatment with EDTA Chelation, Nutrition and Antioxidants," JOURNAL OF ADVANCEMENT IN MEDICINE, vol 2, Nos1,2, spring/summer 1989 by E.M.Cranton, J.P.Frackelton. This issue is in print and available through Human Science Press, inc, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013-1578.]
Before you post any other assumption you owe it to your readers to check the sources. In the world of innovation it is easy to slip from innovative therapies to snake oil. Also beware it is just as easy or more easy to be myopic and prejudicial with rhetoric of a skeptic to mask the deception. Please accept this crtical analysis in the spirit it is given.
My respects to you for tackling a large field.
All the best and i hope to benefit by your dictionary.
Sincerly yours
L.T.Parker, MD
reply: I think my readers are intelligent enough to know that what is printed as a reader comment is to be read just as critically as anything I write. I hope no one reads this or any other material on these subjects thinking that someone else has done all the checking on sources so they don't have to think about it.
15 Nov 1996
Two years ago my mother, age 85, went to a doctor for an analysis of a problem
with her feet. She had developed horrible open sores all around her toes.
The physician determined that she had no pulse or circulation in her lower
legs and feet, had gangrene, and said that the only solution was amputation
of both legs.
My sister and I went for a second opinion. We went to a physician who used chelation therapy in his practice. After a consultation, we permitted him to started chelation intravenous feedings immediately, twice a week at first, then once a week for about three months. Very soon we saw results. First a pulse returned, then color returned, the sores started to heal, then the gangrene disappeared. My mother's complexion improved significantly, she started feeling healthier than she had felt in years. Her hair became so dense that my sister had trouble cutting it. Now, two years later, when my sister and she go to the mall, my sister (age 45) gets tired before my mother (age 85).
The bottom line is that the licensed physician who used chelation is the healer. The licensed physician who recommended amputation is terribly ignorant, he is the snake oil practitioner. But they both are licensed physicians. What do they call the student who graduates at the bottom of the class in medical school? Doctor!
p.s. The cost of the chelation therapy was $3,000, paid for out of her savings. Medicare would have paid for the amputations.
Jim Hicks
Santee, California
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2 Dec 96
Just a short clarification: the "claw" that chelation refers to in its Greek
roots is seen in the shpae of the molecule. Unfortunately, I can't represent
it real well with this simple text editor, but it does look like a crab's
claw. That is also how it works. Ionic (i.e., atoms with an electric charge)
atoms can be held in the cage and transported around.
EDTA does work real well in a chemistry reaction in a test tube. But there are hundreds of thousands of reactions that work in a test tube and not the human body.
It's most unfortunate that test tube reactions can't be easily done in the body. It would be so much easier to develop all sorts of medications.
And as has already been pointed out, cholesterol and plaque are non-ionic
molecules. They cannot be chelated.
John
further reading
Carter, James P., Racketeering in Medicine - The Suppression of Alternatives (Norfolk, Va.: Hampton Roads Publishing Co., 1993).
There are techniques that the general population knows nothing about because the traditional medical establishment isn’t aware they exist, having this knowledge suppressed over the years by various powerful organizations. The techniques I’m talking about deal with the treatment and prevention of diseases involving the blood vessels of the body.
These diseases—coronary artery disease, cardio-vascular disease (precursors to stroke), peripheral vascular disease (precursor to gangrene), and cerebrovascular disease (precursor to stroke and dementia) are the major causes of disability and death in our world today.
The traditional approach to these diseases relates to surgery and drugs. Your case of severe hardening of the arteries need not lead to bypass surgery, heart attack, amputation, stroke or senility.
The use of a chemical called EDTA (ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid) has been used in this country for these diseases for decades. Probably 700,000 people have benefitted by this technique. Despite what you might have heard about chelation therapy, administered by a properly-trained physician and given in conjunction with lifestyle and dietary changes with the use of specialized nutritional supplements, the procedure is an option to be seriously considered by persons suffering from coronary artery disease, cerebral vascular disease, brain disorders resulting from circulatory disturbances, generalized atherosclerosis and related ailments which lead to senility and accelerated physical decline.
Clinical benefits from chelation therapy vary with the total number of treatments received and with the severity of the condition being treated. More than 75% of patients treated have shown significant improvement from chelation therapy. More than 90% of patients receiving 35 or more treatments have benefited when they have also corrected dietary exercise and smoking habits, which are known to aggravate arterial disease. Symptoms improve, blood flow to diseased organs increases, need for medication decreases, and the quality of life improves.
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WHAT IS CELATION
Chelation (key-lay-shun) is a chemical process by which a metal or mineral (like lead, mercury, copper, arsenic, aluminum, calcium, etc.) is bonded to another substance. It is a process basic to life itself and goes on naturally in our body at all times. The chelation that we do artificially is similar to just using a chemical (EDTA) instead of the natural chemicals of the body. Chelation is one mechanism by which such common substances such as aspirin, antibiotics, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements work in the body.
Hemoglobin, the red pigment in blood which carries oxygen, is a chelate of iron.
WHAT IS CHELATION AS A MEDICAL TREATMENT
Chelation is a treatment by which a man-made amino acid called ethylene diamine tetraacetic (EDTA) is administered to a patient intravenously, prescribed by and under the supervision of a fully-licensed physician (possessing an M.D. or a D.O. degree). The fluid containing EDTA is infused through a small needle placed in the vein of a patient’s arm. The EDTA in solution bonds with metals in the body and carries them away in the urine. Abnormally-situated nutritional metals, which speed free radical damage, and toxic metals, such as lead, are most easily removed by EDTA.
Is it done just once?
On the contrary, chelation therapy is a course of treatments which usually consists of anywhere from 20 to 50 separate infusions, depending on each patient’s individual status. Thirty treatments is the average number required for definite benefit in patients with symptoms of arterial blockage. Some patients eventually receive more than 100 infusions. Each treatment takes from three to four hours or longer and patients normally receive one or more treatments each week. Over a period of time, these injections halt the progress of the free radical disease, which is the underlying condition triggering the development of atherosclerosis—and many other degenerative diseases of aging—giving the body time to heal and time to restore blood flow through diseased blood vessels. After several months these injections bring profound improvement to many metabolic and physiologic processes in the body. The body’s regulation of calcium and cholesterol is improved by normalizing the internal chemistry of cells.
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Chelation benefits every blood vessel in the body, from the largest to the tiniest capillaries and arterioles, most of which are far too small for surgical treatment or are deep within the brain and other vital organs where they cannot be safely reached by surgery. In many patients, the smallest blood vessels are the most severely diseased. The benefits of chelation occur from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet, not just in short segments of a few large arteries which can be bypassed or opened by other invasive treatments.
Do you have to go to a hospital to be chelated?
No, in most cases it is an outpatient treatment available in a physician’s office or clinic.
Does it hurt? What does it feel like to be chelated?
Being “chelated” is quite a different experience from other medical treatments. There is no pain, and in most cases, very little discomfort. Patients are seated in reclining chairs and can read, nap, watch television, do needlework or chat with other patients while the fluid containing the EDTA flows into their veins. If necessary, patients can walk around. They can visit the restroom, eat and drink as they desire, or make telephone calls, being careful not to dislodge the needle attached to the intravenous infusion they carry with them.
Are there risks or unpleasant side effects?
EDTA is relatively non-toxic and risk-free, especially when compared with other treatments. The risk of serious side effects, when properly administered, is less than 1 in 10,000 patients treated. By comparison, the overall death rate as a direct result of bypass is approximately 3 out of every 100 patients undergoing surgery, varying with the hospital and the operating team. The incidence of other serious complications following surgery is much higher, including heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, permanent brain damage with personality changes and prolonged pain. Chelation is more than 300 times safer than bypass surgery.
Occasionally, patients may suffer minor discomfort at the site where the needle enters the vein. Some temporarily experience mild nausea, dizziness, or headache as an immediate aftermath of treatment, but in the vast majority of cases, these minor symptoms are easily relieved. When properly administered by a physician expert in this type of therapy, chelation is as safe as taking aspirin. Patients routinely drive themselves home after treatment with not difficulty.
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If EDTA is given too rapidly or in too large a dose, it may cause harmful side effects, just as an overdose of any other medicine can be dangerous. Reports of serious and even rare fatal complications have stemmed from excessive doses of EDTA, improperly administered. If you choose a physician with proper training and experience, one who is an expert in the use of EDTA, the risk of chelation therapy will be kept to a very low level. The American College of Advancement in Medicine (ACAM) provides training and examines physicians for competence in the specialized field of chelation therapy. A physician who has successfully completed the ACAM courses is knowledgeable in the safe and effective use of EDTA chelation therapy.
While it has often been stated that EDTA chelation therapy is damaging to the kidneys, the newest research (in one study consisting of kidney function tests done on 383 consecutive chelation patients, before and after treatment with EDTA for chronic degenerative diseases) indicates the reverse is often true. On the average, there is significant improvement in kidney function following chelation. An occasional patient may be unduly sensitive, however, and physicians expert in chelation monitor kidney function very closely to avoid overloading the kidneys. Treatments must be given more slowly and less frequently if kidney function is not normal. Patients with some types of severe kidney problems should not receive EDTA.
What types of examinations and testing must be done prior to beginning chelation therapy?
Prior to commencing a course of chelation therapy, a complete medical history must be obtained. A detailed listing of diet will be analyzed for nutritional adequacy and balance. Copies of pertinent medical records and summaries of hospital admissions will be obtained. A thorough, head-to-toe physical examination will be performed. A complete list of current medications will be recorded, including the time and strength of each dose. Special note will be made of any allergies.
Blood and urine specimens will be obtained for a battery of tests to insure that no conditions exist which may be worsened by chelation therapy. An electrocardiogram and chest x-ray will be ordered. A hair specimen will be tested for tissue levels of various nutritional and toxic metals. Non-invasive tests will be performed, as medically indicated, to determine the status of arterial blood flow prior to therapy. A consultation with other medical specialists may be requested. Follow-up examinations and testing will be performed at regular intervals during and after therapy.
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Is chelation therapy new?
Not at all. Its earliest application with humans was during World War II when the British used another chelation agent, British Anti-Lewesite (BAL) as a poison gas antidote. BAL is still used today in medicine.
EDTA was first introduced into medicine in the United States in 1948 as a treatment for industrial workers suffering from lead poisoning in a battery factory. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Navy advocated chelation therapy for sailors who had absorbed lead while painting government ships and dock facilities. Physicians then observed that adults receiving EDTA chelation treatments who had atherosclerosis also experienced health improvements—diminished angina, better memory, sight, hearing, sense of smell and increased vigor. A number of physicians then began to treat individuals suffering from occlusive vascular conditions with chelation therapy and reported consistent improvements.
Chelation therapy remains the undisputed treatment of choice for lead poisoning, even in children with toxic accumulations of lead in their bodies as a result of eating leaded paint from toys, cribs or walls.
But from 1964 on, despite continued documentation of its benefits and the development of refined treatment methods, the use of chelation for the treatment of arterial disease has been the subject of controversy.
Is it legal?
Absolutely. There is no legal prohibition against a licensed physician (M.D. or D.O.) using chelation therapy for whatever conditions he deems it to be correct, even though the drug involved, EDTA, does not yet have atherosclerosis listed as an indication on the FDA-approved package insert. The FDA does not regulate the practice of medicine, but merely approves marketing, labeling and advertising claims for drugs and devices in interstate commerce.
It costs millions of dollars to perform the required research and to provide the FDA with documentation for a new drug claim, or even to add a new use to marketing brochures of a long-established medicine like EDTA. Physicians routinely prescribe medicines for conditions not yet included on FDA approved advertising and marketing literature.
Several respected physician organizations sponsor educational courses in the proper and safe use of intravenous EDTA chelation. The American College of Advancement in Medicine publishes a physicians’ protocol for the safe and effective method of treatment with EDTA. This protocol is used in training courses and in a certification program for chelating physicians. ACAM’s educational programs for physicians, followed by oral and written examinations, lead to credentials which certify demonstrated competence in the proper use of EDTA chelation therapy.
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On the question of legality, the interpretation of laws pertaining to “informed consent” is evolving in the courts and it is now possible that a physician who withholds information about the availability of other treatment choices, such as chelation therapy, prior to performing vascular surgery (along with all other treatment modalities) could be found legally liable. Withholding information about a different form of treatment may be tantamount to medical malpractice, if as a result, a patient is deprived of possible benefits. Thus, it is the doctors who refuse to recognize and inform their patients of chelations who are risking legal liability—not those chelating physicians who provide an innovative treatment which they feel to be the safest, the most effective and the least expensive for many of their patients.
What proof do you have that it works?
Physicians with extensive experience in the use of chelation therapy observe dramatic improvement in the vast majority of their patients. They see angina routinely relieved, patients who suffered searing chest pains when walking only a short distance are frequently able to return to normal, productive living after undergoing chelation. Far more dramatic, but equally common, is seeing diabetic ulcers and gangrenous feet heal. Many individuals who had been told that their limbs would have to be amputated because of gangrene are thrilled to watch their feet heal with chelation, although some areas of dead tissue may have to be trimmed away surgically. The approximately one thousand American physicians practicing chelation therapy have countless files to prove they are able to reverse serious cases of arterial disease. Men and women often arrive at their offices near death with diseases caused by blocked arteries. Weeks or months later, they’re remarkably improved. There is a wealth of evidence from clinical experience that symptoms of reduced blood flow improve in more than 75 percent of patients treated.
In addition, several research studies have been published with results of before-and-after diagnostic tests using radioscopes which prove statistically that blood flow improves following chelation. Regardless of blood flow studies, if cladication is relieved, if angina becomes less bothersome, and if physical endurance or mental acuity improves, such benefits would be quite enough to justify EDTA chelation therapy. Quality of life and relief of symptoms are far more important than the results of laboratory tests.
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What does it cost?
A course of treatment for a patient with advanced hardening of the arteries generally requires from six weeks to six months and costs up to $3,000 or more for 30 treatments. This is considerably less than bypass surgery, which often costs over $35,000. A person who receives fewer treatments for preventive benefits can expect to pay approximately $100 for each 3-4 hour treatment. There are, of course, the costs of tests prior to, during, and after therapy. Insurance companies only cover chelation therapy if there is heavy metal toxicity found prior to therapy. This will be discussed on an individual basis.
What about bypass surgery?
Coronary artery bypass surgery, the popularly-prescribed procedure in which occluded portions of major coronary arteries are bypassed with grafts from a patient’s leg veins, has never been proven by properly controlled studies to offer an advantage over non-surgical treatments, other than relief of pain in a minority of patients who cannot be controlled with medicine. It has even been suggested that the relief of pain following surgery might result from the cutting of nerve fibers which carry pain impulses from the heart and which also stimulate spasm of coronary arteries. It is not possible to perform bypass surgery without interrupting those nerves.
Indeed, the most recent research suggests that many of the 400,000 or more bypasses and other invasive procedures performed each year for the relief of pain and other symptoms brought on by clogged or blocked arteries are not necessary. A good case against rushing into surgery is made by the findings of a ten-year, $24 million study conducted by the National Institute of Health (NIH) which compared post-operative survival rates of “bypassed” patients with a matched group of equally diseased patients treated non-surgically.
The study uncovered no additional benefits for most patients who had been operated upon, compared with non-surgical therapy. It is important to note that the non-surgical therapy reported in that study did not include either chelation therapy or the new calcium blocker drugs, and that only half of the patients received beta blocker drugs. Having surgery didn’t improve their chances to live longer, live healthier, live better, or enjoy life more, when the results where statistically analyzed. The incidence of heart attacks (myocardial infarction) and both employment and recreational status were the same in patients treated surgically and non-surgically, even without using chelation therapy for the non-surgical treatment group.
Most important, cardiovascular surgery does nothing to arrest or reverse the underlying disease which exist in varying degrees throughout the body. It is at best a piece-meal “cure” for a system-wide problem. Bypassing a restricted portion of the body’s blood vessels can have little lasting benefit when the same degenerating condition which caused the most extreme blockage at one or two sites must of necessity be taking place everywhere, throughout the circulatory network.
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One thing the general public is not fully aware of is that many people who have one bypass operation later have a second bypass. Sometimes the blood vessels that weren’t bypassed become clogged; sometimes the transplanted vessels used in the first graft become filled with new plaque; sometimes the transplants malfunction or turn out to be too small for the job. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that by ten years after surgery, grafted vessels had closed in 40 percent of patients, and in the remaining 60 percent, half developed further coronary narrowing. Once you’ve had a bypass, your chances of having another go up about five percent a year. After five years, some specialists estimate your chances of receiving a second operation could be as high as thirty to forty percent. And some patients go on to even a third operation, or more. And approximately two to three out of every 100 patients undergoing bypass surgery die as a result of the procedure—even more if they are severely ill at the time of surgery. The balloon treatments and other invasive procedures to open arteries are also risky.
Chelation patients are frequently able to return to work and to resume their sports and other activities, without the need to undergo surgery. Chelation is equally as effective in patients who have previously undergone one or more bypass operations or balloon procedures. If they stay on a proper diet, exercise regularly, continue to take the prescribed program of nutritional supplements and receive periodic maintenance chelation treatments (monthly, more or less, depending on the severity of the underlying medical diagnosis) they can usually go many years without suffering further heart attacks, strokes, senility or gangrenous extremities.
If you, like most people eager for additional information about chelation therapy, have been told you have advanced arterial disease, you may have been advised to have vascular surgery. If so, it is essential for you to understand the nature of your disease and all possible treatment choices, before you can make an intelligent decision concerning the various options. Even if chelation and other non-surgical therapies should fail, bypass still remains a choice.
Why can’t chelation be taken by mouth in pill form, instead of by intravenous injection?
Chelation therapy is gaining recognition so rapidly that there is growing interest in developing a safe and effective oral chelator. Many nutritional substances administered by mouth are known to have weak chelating properties. But, none have the spectrum of activity of intravenous EDTA. Many nutrients such as vitamin C and the amino acid cysteine have the ability to chelate metals weakly. To label nutritional supplements containing vitamins and amino acids as “oral chelation” however, is misleading.
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EDTA can be taken by mouth in small doses but less than 5 percent is absorbed and only if taken without food. The utilization of EDTA by mouth is not adequate to treat established disease, although preventive and maintenance benefits might be obtained by that route.
Claims are being increasingly made for the use of vitamin supplements containing weak chelators in patients with atherosclerosis. There is nothing new about the benefits of vitamin-mineral supplements, which have recently been aggressively and deceptively marketed as “oral chelation.” The use of vitamin-mineral supplements by mouth is a routine adjunct to a total program of chelation therapy, but the do not provide significant chelation by themselves. There are no potent oral chelating agents now available which are safe to take by mouth and which produce improvement comparable to intravenous EDTA.
Is it true that chelation therapy combats atherosclerosis by acting like a “liquid plumber”—by leeching calcium out of the atherosclerotic plaque?
No. Before recent medical breakthroughs in the area of free radical pathology, it was hypothesized that EDTA chelation therapy had its major beneficial effect on calcium metabolism—that it stripped away the excess calcium from the plaque, restoring arteries to their pliable precalcified state. This frequently offered explanation—the so-called “roto-rooter” concept—is not the real reason, as previously postulated, that chelation therapy produces its major health benefits. The fact that EDTA does remove some abnormal calcium is now felt to be one of the less prominent aspects of its benefits.
More importantly, EDTA has an affinity for the so-called transition metals, iron and copper, and for the related toxic metals, lead, mercury, cadmium and others, which are potent catalysts of excessive free radical reactions. Free radical pathology, it is now believed, is the underlying process triggering the development of most age-related ailments, including cancer, dementia and arthritis, as well as atherosclerosis. Thus EDTA’s primary benefit is that it greatly reduces the ongoing production of free radicals within the body by removing accumulations of metallic catalysts which accumulate as a person grows older at abnormal sites in the body, speeding the aging process.
This is a greatly oversimplified explanation of what actually occurs. For those of you with a decided interest in the scientific technicalities, you can send for the manuscript entitled “Free Radical Pathology in Age-Associated Diseases: Treatment with EDTA, Nutrition and Antioxidants” by Doctors Elmer M. Cranton and James P. Frackelton. For a fuller explanation of the many issues involved, written in popular form for the general public, you might enjoy reading ““Bypassing Bypass” by Dr. Elmer M. Cranton and Arline Brecher. Both publications, as well as others, are available from the American College of Advancement in Medicine, 23121 Verdugo Drive Suite 204, Laguna Hills CA 92653, (714) 583-7666. Telephone before ordering to find out costs, or you may purchase them from our office or in the bookstore.
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Why haven’t I heard about chelation before?
If EDTA chelation therapy is as safe and effective as indicated by scientific studies and by the experience of hundreds of doctors, why haven’t you heard more about it? That is a good question!
Until quite recently, relatively few patients have been informed that this therapy is available. Most heart specialists may not have even heard of the treatment and would be reluctant to prescribe it if they had. The American Medical Association has not yet approved chelation therapy for atherosclerosis, although it does endorse its use in the treatment of lead and other heavy metal poisoning. Many insurance companies will not compensate policy holders for chelation therapy unless it is given for lead poisoning. If chelation therapy is given for atherosclerosis, it is often labeled “experimental” or “not customary” by medical insurance companies and payment is denied. They deny payment to patients even though they do pay for bypass surgery, and even though chelation might have saved them tens of thousands of dollars.
Traditional medical organizations, politically powerful, have consistently attempted to suppress chelation therapy, perhaps because of large vested interests in other methods of health care. The cost of all medical care for victims of heart disease in the United States in 1986, including coronary bypass surgery and prescriptive drugs, exceeded $40 billion. Obviously, many hospitals and physicians would be in serious financial difficulty, and might even have to find other outlets for their services, if this procedure, which might displace a gigantic industry, become universally popular.
Physicians who remain skeptical about chelation are those who have never used it. They are either completely uninformed about the extensive research that has been done to document the safety and effectiveness of chelation therapy, or they are committed by training or source of income to other therapeutic procedures, such as vascular surgery.
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What else is involved in a complete program of chelation?
Your Lifestyle Counts. Chelation therapy is only part of the curative process. Improved nutrition and improved lifestyle are absolutely imperative for lasting benefit from chelation treatments. Chelation is not in and of itself a “cure-all”—it merely reduces abnormal free radical activity, allowing normal control mechanisms to come into play so that free radical damage can be repaired and health can be restored with the help of applied clinical nutrition, antioxidant supplementation and lifestyle corrections. Chelation therapy involves all of these factors. Chelation is also compatible with other forms of therapy, including bypass surgery.
In addition to receiving the necessary number of chelation treatments, patients eager for long term benefits should be warned: chelation alone won’t last for long. Individuals suffering any form of free radical disease must be prepared to improved the diet that started the disease, take nutritional supplements, be physically active and eliminate destructive lifestyle habits such as tobacco and excessive alcohol.
Nutritional Supplements. A scientifically balanced regimen of nutritional supplements reinforces the body’s antioxidant defenses and should include vitamins E, C, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, pantothenate, PABA, and beta carotene. A balanced program of mineral and trace element supplementation should include magnesium, zinc, selenium, manganese and chromium. The exact prescription for nutritional supplements is determined individually for each patient, based on nutritional assessment and laboratory testing.
Destructive Habits. It is important to eliminate the use of tobacco altogether, but if that is not possible, a marked reduction in exposure would be helpful. This applies to cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars, snuff or chewing tobacco. It has been consistently observed that patients who continued to smoke following chelation have demonstrated less improvement and for a much briefer time in comparison to non-smokers.
Only relatively healthy adults are able to tolerate alcoholic beverages without generating more free radicals than they can detoxify. Anyone who drinks more than one or two ounces of pure ethanol in 24 hours (four eight-ounce glasses of beer, four small glasses of wine, or two to three shot glasses of hard liquor) risks free radical damage. Even that amount is harmful on a regular basis. Victims of chronic degenerative diseases should usually avoid the consumption of alcohol.
Exercise. Finally, physical exercise is very helpful. Even a brisk 45-minute walk several times per week will help maintain the health benefits and improved circulation resulting from chelation therapy. Lactate normally builds up in tissues during sustained exercise and lactate is a natural chelator produced within the body.
Which brings us to the final question!
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Is chelation therapy for you?
Only you can make that decision.
Chances are your doctor won’t help you decide. Patients who choose chelation often do so against the advice of their personal physicians or cardiologists. Many have already been advised to undergo vascular surgery.
Occasionally, a patient never hears about chelation until he is hospitalized and a friend or relative begs him to look into this non-invasive therapy before proceeding to surgery. In an impressively large number of instances, a new patient comes for chelation on the recommendation of someone who has been successfully chelated.
Chelation therapy is probably the most successful method to extend maximum life span but this has yet to be proven by the scientific method. It certainly is the best procedure for having a healthy and more symptom-free time as you age.
© 1995 Stephen B. Edelson, M.D., F.A.A.F.P., F.A.A.E.M.
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