Chelation therapy:
(pronounced Key-LAY-Shun) is derived from the Greek word chele meaning claw of a crab. It refers to how a chelating agent grabs onto an electrically-charged mineral ion such as lead, copper, iron or calcium, much like a pincer does.
Chelation therapy involves the use of compounds taken intravenously or orally to bind metals present in toxic concentrations so they can be excreted from the body.
Chelation has long been a successful, natural alternative to reducing inflammation and infection in the body. Chelation therapy is commonly used to remove heavy metals and to treat heart disease.
HEAVY METALS
The residues of the polluted world in which we live are found in everyone. In a landmark study led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in collaboration with the Environmental Working Group and Commonweal, researchers found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers. Not everyone had the same chemicals, but everyone studied had a toxic storehouse. Of the wide variety of chemicals found, 76 cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development.
The body’s innate wisdom knows that poisons cannot stay in the bloodstream - death would result. Thus the body looks for safer places to “park” toxins. Mercury (from vaccines, industrial chemicals in the water, air and food, fillings in our teeth) gets put into fatty tissues, which includes the brain because it is 60% fatty tissue. Organophosphates (from insecticides) come in through the lungs and skin and are deposited into soft tissues (muscles, connective tissue and joints). The body will deposit lead in bones. Blood tests only see what is in the bloodstream, not what is in bones, organs, and tissues. We use advanced testing methods to measure the body burden of metals.
EDTA, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, is used as one chelating agent. EDTA is a synthetic amino acid that binds to the metals and escorts them out of the body. EDTA is never broken down in the body; it goes in and comes out as EDTA with no pharmaceutical-like side effects. EDTA has a 40-year record of safe use; it is estimated that over one million patients have received intravenous chelation therapy.
DMPS, dimercapto propane sulfonate, is used preferentially for elevated body burden of mercury, since it binds more tightly to mercury than EDTA. EDTA does get mercury out of the body, just later in the sequence of heavy metals than DMPS.
DMSA, dimercapto succinic acid, is an oral sulfur-containing chelating agent which also has a high binding coefficient for mercury.
Chelation came to the forefront in the 1950s because it successfully treated cases of lead poisoning among those who worked in factories making batteries, and among U.S. sailors who painted ships with lead-based paints. It was noticed that people with heart disease also improved with chelation. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has completed a 5-year study on the use of chelation for heart disease, and concluded that chelation therapy is effective.[1]
HEART DISEASE
Why are people with heart disease helped by chelation’s ability to remove of heavy metals? Because heart disease is largely a result of chronic inflammation:
A common misperception is that chelation works like Drano to "rotor rooter" the arteries, getting rid of the calcified plaques. Wrong. Plaque reversal is not the primary mechanism of action with chelation therapy. Reversing chronic inflammation and infections are the primary ways in which chelation works to restore health to the arteries.
EDTA is typically given in a series of IVs delivered once a week for perhaps 30 weeks. Oral chelators are used in between.
Speaking of the rotor rooter concept, detoxification involves more than just heavy metals. When the colon is not functioning, the whole system is plugged up. Colon hydrotherapy works well to clean out and detoxify the colon.
For heart patients, we also make use of a number of natural, food-based supplements to feed the heart muscle, knock down infections, thin the blood, and lessen the fibrin which chronic infection creates and plasters up against the blood vessel walls, restricting the movement of oxygen into the tissues.
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[1] Peguero JC, Arenas I, Lamas GA. Chelation Therapy and Cardiovascular Disease: Connecting Scientific Silos to Benefit Cardiac Patients. Trends Cardiovasc Med. 2014 Aug; 24(6): 232-240.