CHELATION THERAPY

WHAT IS CHELATION THERAPY?

Chelation therapy is a safe, effective and non-invasive approach to ameliorating (amending) the effects of arteriosclerosis and poor circulation.

The word CHELATION derives from the Greek word chele, which is the claw of a crab or lobsters. Chelation is thus the natural process of a pincer-like binding of metallic ions to the chelating substance.

Just two examples of many natural chelating agents are:

Hemoglobin

Chlorophyll

Synthetic chelators include:

Household detergents that prevent "ring around the bathtub."

The synthetic chelator, EDTA (ethylene-diamine-tetra-acetic acid), an amino acid, is used in chelation therapy.

HOW CHELATION WORKS

The EDTA pulls abnormal metal ions out of the body, reducing the production of free radicals. A free radical is an oxygen molecule with an odd number of electrons in an outer orbital ring of one of its atoms. This characteristic makes the free radical violently reactive with almost any and every cell structure, leading to damage and eventually to degenerative disease processes such as arteriosclerosis. By significantly reducing these reactions, chelation therapy allows the body to heal itself and reverse the disease processes.

As stated by Dr. Gary Gordon, a very progressive physician who has practiced EDTA chelation therapy for many years, chelation also mobilizes calcium from the bones and other tissues.(Nutrition & Healing, April, 1996: 5-6.), This actually stimulates additional bone deposition, improving bone density. The late Dr. Charles Farr, a pioneer in progressive and innovative medicine, biopsied the skin of a group of patients before and after chelation therapy. He demonstrated a decline in calcium content after chelation. Calcification of tissues is generally caused when free radical damage upsets cell membranes. This leads to tissue and organ malfunction and eventually to death. Thus the reversal of this process by EDTA chelation therapy can be seen as a true longevity treatment.

Free radicals can damage DNA which in turn can lead to the development of cancer. One study shows that EDTA chelation therapy has a protective effect on the development of cancer. (Blumer, W. & Cranton, EM, Journal of Advancement in Medicine, 1989; 2(1/2).) All subjects in the study lived along a heavily-travelled highway in a small Swiss city. The treatment group (59 patients) received EDTA chelation therapy while the control group did not (172 patients). Both groups were exposed to the same rather considerable amounts of lead from automobile exhaust, industrial pollution and other carcinogens. After 18 years, only 1 patient in the chelation group (1.7%) vs. 30 in the control group (17.6%) died from cancer! This is statiscally significant (p=0.002). As expected, the EDTA group had reduced death from atherosclerosis as well.

Further studies are needed but experienced chelation physicians believe that EDTA chelation therapy may play a role in the treatment and prevention of a number of diseases.

 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
has verified that EDTA is a safe substance.

 

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF CHELATION THERAPY?

An extensive body of medical research as well as clinical experience with more than 400,000 patients who have received over 6 million chelation treatments in the last 30 years indicates that this therapy can effectively treat:

Coronary artery disease

The symptoms of angina

Peripheral arterial insufficiency (causing such symptoms as leg pain with exertion or skin ulcers)

Decreased blood flow to the brain (cerebraln insufficiency) resulting in memory and other cognitive problems.

Very often, coronary bypass surgery can be avoided with the use of chelation therapy. Besides, coronary bypass surgery is often not indicated and does not extend a patient's lifespan.

In the last 30 years for physicians following the ACAM chelation protocol, there has not been a single death due to this procedure!

Side effects to the EDTA chelation procedure are infrequent. Hypogycemia (low blood sugar) is generally avoided by eating a healthy meal before and during treatment. Symptoms due to low blood levels of blood calcium ( hypocalcemia ) such as muscle cramps are very rare. Also rarely, irritation at the infusion vein site causes pain (phlebitis).A deep vein thrombosis (clot) is exceedingly rare. Some patients complain of fatigue for 24 to 48 hours after a treatment. This can generally be avoided by adequate oral and intravenous vitamin and mineral supplementation.

HOW IS THE TREATMENT PERFORMED?

A patient receives about 30 intravenous treatments with EDTA (more in severe cases). Each treatment consists of:

A very tiny (25 gauge), needle into a vein usually on the patient's forearm or on the back of the hand.

The EDTA, mixed with an infusion liquid, is allowed to run over a period of three hours

During that time, the patient is seated in a comfortable lounge chair and may eat and drink, read a book, chat with other patients or medical staff and if necessary, get up and go to the restroom.

It is a fairly comfortable procedure.

WHAT THE STUDIES SHOW

Studies that SEEM to show that EDTA chelation therapy is ineffective

 

The "Danish" Studies :

(American J. of Surg., (1991);162: 122-125 & J. of Internal Medicine (1992); 231: 261-267.)

These so-called double-blind placebo-controlled studies involved 153 patients with peripheral vascular disease and pain in the lower extremities when walking short distances (intermittant claudication). The authors claimed no therapeutic effect after 6 months in patients receiving 20 disodium EDTA infusions without magnesium.

In 1992, J.P. Frackelton, M.D., a very experienced American chelation physician, summarized criticisms in letters to both Elmer Cranton, M.D., President of the American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM, which trains physicians from all over the world the correct technique of EDTA chelation therapy) and to Dr. Jules Hallum of the Office of Scientific Integrity at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Farckelton was denied access to the raw data of the study but was able to obtain information by interviewing about 5% of the subjects in the study. Their signed statements all revealed major irregularities during the study. For example, the researchers did not follow the ACAM protocol as they claimed to do. They did not put magnesium in the I.V. bottles, which decreases the efficacy of the treatment. Also, disodium EDTA without magnesium and without a local anesthetic causes burning at the infusion site for many patients. Yet there was no difference in this symptom between the two treatment groups. Patients were also given a mineral supplement containing iron during the course of chelation therapy without first checking if they had iron deficiency. Excess iron is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Taking additional iron if not needed will tend to reduce chelation efficacy.

Some patients stated that the infusions hurt badly on some days and not on others. Patients were sent home with I.V. needles in their veins for convenience sake and frequently had to start their own I.V.’s! They would take an I.V. bottle from a shelf and hook themselves up without close supervision. All this sugests that the treatment group and placebo group were either mixed up or crossed over.

The investigators found an improvement in walking distances in both groups, thus concluding that the EDTA group fared no better than placebo. But if the two groups were mixed up, that could easily explain the results of this study.

The "New Zealand" Study

(Circulation; 90:3; 1194-1199.)

This was a double-blind placebo controlled study of patients with severe peripheral vascular disease. The treatment group received 20 infusions of magnesium-EDTA. However, both groups received multivitamins in the infusions. Vitamins B1 and C both have their own mild chelating effects. The endpoints of this study were the onset of pain on treadmill walking and the ankle/brachial indices measured at rest and right after treadmill exercise. The ankle blood pressure is equal to the brachial blood pressure in normal subjects. A ratio of 0.3 indicates sever peripheral disease. The patients in this study averaged 0.3 after exercise. Experienced chelation physicians know that such disease generally requires about 30 to 40 infusions to gain substantial relief.

In addition, the smoking status of the patients was not closely monitored in this study. Smoking severely impairs chelation therapy.

60% of the patients in both groups improved their walking distances. But, as stated above, the placebo grup did not receive a placebo! Rather vitamins B1 and C were in their infusions.

Nonetheless, a careful reading of the study shows that the EDTA group came out ahead. Three months after treatment, the EDTA group had improved resting ankle/brachial indices of both the better and worse legs. The femoral pulsatility index (normal range 6 to 15) in the worse leg improved from 3.3 to 4.2 in the EDTA group but decreased from 4.1 to 3.6 in the control group. This latter change was statistacally significant (p< 0.01).

In a review of this study, Godfrey and Chappell (New Zealand Medical Journal, 1996, 8 March; 109:83.) attempted to receive the raw data form the authors who refused! However, they succeeded to get it through the Freedom of Information request since it was a government funded study. The data revealed that one subject was far less diseased at the onset of the study and did far better than anyone in both groups after the treatments. This patient was in the control group and should have been considered an "outlier" or statisticl anomaly, and should have been eliminated from the study. If this single patient is eliminated the data show that the EDTA chelation group did far beter than the control group three months after treatment in a statistacally significant manner. (With EDTA chelation therapy, maximal improvement generally occurs three months after treatment.)

 

So when is Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) surgery indicated?

This operation benefits those patients with severe left main coronary artery stenosis (>70%) and those with triple vessal disease (right main, left anterior descending and circonflex) an markedly decresed left ventricular function, i.e., an ejection fraction of 30% or less. (The ejection fraction measures the percentage of blood pumped put of the left ventricle with each heartbeat.) Induction of ventricular arrythmias or other severe abnormalities on exercise stress testing may also be indications for this surgery. (See Graboys, TB, JAMA; 258:12, 1611-14.)

Unfortuneately, this group of patients constitutes only about 20% of the patients receiving CABG! "The beneficial , lifesaving effects of coronary artery bypass surgery are confined to a select subgroup of patients, for limited duration. Long-term and initial bypass protocol offers neither survival nor symptomatic benefit." (Peduzzi, P. et al. Am.J. Cardiology, 1998, June 15; 81:12, 1393-99.)

Large scale studies have shown no advantage for coronary artery bypass surgery for the great majority of patients with coronary artery disease. Standard treatment with medications has the same long term outcome as the surgery. As far back as 1978, Dr. H. McIntosh and colleagues (Circulation, March 1978; 57(3):405-431) concluded after a review of the first 10 years of CABG surgery, "Despite low operative mortality and rate of graft closure, data do not indicate that initial symptomatic improvement necessarily persists, or that myocardial infarction, arrhythmias,or congestive heart failure will be prevented, or that life will be prolonged in the vast msjority of patients."

Dr. Murphy and colleagues’ Randomized Veterans Administration Cooperative Study (NEJM, Sept. 22,1977; 297(12):621-627) had similar results, "At 36 months, 87% of the medical group and 88% of the surgical group were alive....A major result of this study is the recognition of the favorable mortality rate of a regularly followed and treated group of medical patients as compared to simultaneously followed surgical patients." In an editorial in this same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Eugene Braunwald, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Cardiology at Harvard Medical School, commented,"An even more insidious problem is what might be considered an ‘industry’ is being built around this operation (coronary bypass surgery): the creation of facilities for open heart operations in community hospitals... and proliferation of catheterization and angiography suites... the expansion and development of training opportunities in clinical cardiology, cardiovascular surgery and cardiovascular radiology. This rapidly growing enterprise is developing a momentum and constituency of its own, and as time passes, it will be progressively more difficult and costly to curtail it materially....The financial implications of CABG are profound....the enormoous funds already being devoted to this procedure divert support available for other, perhaps more necessary, aspects of medical care." (NEJM, 297(12):661-663.)

The next long term survival study of CABG surgery vs. medically treated patients was the Coronary Artery surgery Study (CASS) published in 1983 (Circulation; 68(5):939-950). The authors of this study, with a very large patient group of 4600, concluded," The excellent suvival rates observed both in CASS patients assigned to receive medical and those assigned to receive surgical therapy and the similarity of survival rates in the two groups of patients in this randomized trial lead to the conclusion that patients similar to those enrolled in this trial can safely defer bypass surgery until the symptoms worsen tothe point that surgical palliation is required." Once again commenting on the CASS study was Dr. Braunwald (NEJM, 1983; 309(19): 1181-1184.), "Will thefrequency of the procedure continue to increase? Probably not. I believe that a combination of factors will arrest its further growth and may actually cause a decline in its frequency. These include (1) the greater efeectiveness of non-surgical therapy with the widespread use of beta-adrenergic blockers and calcium channel blockers, as well as of coronary angioplasty; (2) the lack of statistical evidence in CASS that survival is improved after surgical treatment in any patients other than those with disease of the left main coronary artery; (3) the increasing efforts to contain the costs of medical care, especially of procedures whose indications have not been clearly established; and perhaps (4) a continued decline in the incidence of coronary artery disease."

Unfortunately, Dr. Braunwald underestimated the financial incentives of CABG surgry to both doctors and hospitals. For since he wrote those words, the number of CABG surgeries in the U.S. has nearly doubled to about a half million a year! Balloon angioplasties, another procedure which does not help the great majority of those who receive it and which has no studies to support its widespread use, also continued to be performed more frequently. They also reached to nearly a half a million a year currently! The New England Journal of Medicine once again editorialized (NEJM;1998; 338(25):1785-1792.) Drs. Lange and Hills hit the nail on the head in stating that the widespread overuse of both CABG surgery and balloon angioplasty was done for " non-medical incentives."

Still another 10 year follow-up study of CASS patients revealed the same conclusions, that CABG surgery and conservative medical management in most coronary artery disease patients produced similar long term survival rates. (Alderman, EL, et al, Circulation, 1990; 82(5):1629-1646.)

Dr. Graboys sugested "second opinions" (i.e. careful medical review) for both those slated for CABG surgery (JAMA,1987; 258(12): 1611-1614.) and coronary arteriograms (JAMA, 1992;268(18):2537-2540). He concluded that this would reduce both procedures by 50%. Of course, no such reviews happened on any scale as both of these procedures continue to increase in number each year.

Further research has revealed that coronary angiograms do not even reliably predict the extent of vessal disease. (NEJM, 1994; 310(13): 819-824). Also, CABG surgery accelerates the progression of atherosclerosis in bypassed vessals compared to comparable arteries not bypassed. (NEJM,1984; 311: 824-828).

Then of course one must consider the operative mortality and mobidity (medical side-effects) of the CABG procedure. It is estimated to have about a 2 to 4 % operative mortality (depending on the center and the experience of the surgeon and surgical team). Side effects include subtle to gross brain damage in about 30% of patients; 20% suffer from depression one year after surgery; the grafts close in 50% of the arteries after 5 years; blood loss, infection and untoward reactions to anesthesia constitute additional risks. For angioplasty, 10% of patients die or suffer another heart attack within 30 days. Even coronary angiograms carry a 1 in 1000 chance of killing you.

Getting Chelation Therapy

People interested in chelation therapy should seek out a physician trained by ACAM in conjunction with The American Board of Chelation Therapy. (Go to www.acam.org for a physician in your area who performs chelation therapy.) Diagnostic work-up, including medical history, physical exam and laboratory tests may be fully covered by insurance companies and Medicare. Recently, a few private insurers have also provided coverage for the EDTA chelation therapy itself.

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For further information for chelation therapy, contact:

---The American College for Advancement in Medicine
23121 Verdugo Drive, Suite 204
Laguna Hills, California 92653 (800- )

 

---Friends of Chelation Society

255 N. El Cielo Road, Suite 670

Palm Springs, CA 92262

(760) 416-2013

---George Milowe, M.D.
11 Bickford Road
Malden, MA 02148
Phone: (781)-397-7408

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(c) Copyright 2001  BoundlessHealth.Com

Written by George Milowe M.D.