Chelation Treatments

Chelation therapy is the controvesial process of using the amino acid EDTA to go through the bloodstream and attach to unwanted minerals, metals and other toxic substances in your body. These substances are thought to be the culprit in many health concerns. Chelation can also be used to remove plaque that lines the walls of arteries.

Treatment

To chelate means to grab onto something. Chelation therapy uses Ethylene-diamine-tetra-acetic acid, or EDTA, to grab onto minerals, metals and other toxic substances in your body such as lead, iron, magnesium, zinc, calcium, plutonium and manganese. An excess of certain minerals and metals in the blood may cause conditions such as hardening of the arteries or atherosclerosis, mercury poisoning, cancer, learning disabilities and possibly autism.

A licensed physician should do the chelation treatment. You will sit in a comfortable chair and have an IV (intravenous fluid needle) put in your arm or hand. The fluid will contain EDTA, which will flow through your body, binding itself to all of the undesirable materials. The EDTA, along with all the substances it attaches itself to, will be urinated out in the next day or two. Usually you will undergo 20 to 50 chelation treatments. Each treatment can take about two to three hours. There is no pain involved, besides a small sting when the IV is placed.

Vitmains

EDTA not only binds itself to toxic substances in your body, but also to all the good vitamins and minerals. You will need to take extra vitamins and minerals, prescribed by your physician, to replace the lost ones.

Risks

The risks involved with chelation therapy are kidney failure if done improperly, excess removal of calcium leading to cramps or future bone loss, swollen and inflamed veins, low blood sugar or insulin shock and congestive heart failure. Proponents of chelation therapy say that all these risks are very minimal to non-existent if the treatment is done correctly.

Pros and Cons

There is definitely opposing viewpoints on the safety of chelation treatment as you can tell from the following two quotes.

According to Holistic Health online, "Chelation therapy, when administered by an experienced therapist at the proper doses, is very safe... The American College for the Advancement in Medicine estimates that over 500,000 patients have undergone chelation therapy safely nationwide... No fatalities have been reported."

According to the American Heart Association (when asked if chelation therapy can be dangerous), "EDTA isn't totally safe as a drug. There's a real danger of kidney failure. EDTA can also cause bone marrow depression, shock, low blood pressure, convulsions, cardiac arrhythmias, allergic-type reactions and respiratory arrest. In fact, a number of deaths in the United States have been linked with chelation therapy. Also, some people are on dialysis because of kidney failure caused, at least in part, by chelation therapy."