English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

2006-12-25 02:06:16 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Health Alternative Medicine

7 answers

Chelation therapy is a recognized treatment for heavy metal (such as lead) poisoning. EDTA, injected into the blood, will bind the metals and allow them to be removed from the body in the urine. Chelation therapy is not approved by the FDA to treat coronary artery disease, but some physicians and alternative medicine practitioners use it for this purpose.

Up to now, there have been no adequate, controlled, published scientific studies using currently approved scientific methodology to support this therapy for cardiovascular disease. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American College of Cardiology all agree with the American Heart Association on this point.

In August 2002, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which are both components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced that they have launched the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT). This will be the first large-scale, multicenter study to find out if EDTA chelation therapy is safe and effective for people with coronary heart disease. This placebo-controlled, double-blind study will involve 2,372 participants age 50 years and older who’ve had a heart attack. They will be representative of the U.S. population. TACT will be more than 20 times larger than any prior study of chelation therapy — large enough to show if chelation therapy has mild or moderate benefits.

This study is being done because there is a public health need to conduct a large, well-designed clinical trial to find out if chelation therapy is safe and effective for treating people with coronary heart disease. If people use chelation therapy and it doesn’t work, they may be deprived of the well-established benefits from the many other valuable methods of treating these diseases, such as lifestyle modifications, medications and surgical procedures.

The trial will take place at about 100 research sites across the United States and will test EDTA chelation therapy by using the most widely practiced means of administering it. Participants will begin being recruited in March 2003; patients will receive 30 weekly intravenous treatments, then 10 more treatments given bimonthly, over a 28-month period. They will also receive high doses of vitamins, which are also often given with chelation therapy. (The effect of such vitamin doses will also be examined in the trial.) Once recruitment begins, the study will take about five years to complete. To learn more about this study, visit nccam.nih.gov and ClinicalTrials.gov.

2006-12-25 04:08:10 · answer #1 · answered by dedum 6 · 0 1

chelation is a valid medical procedure used on both humans and animals who have ingested heavy toxic metals. It is most often used in cases of acute lead poisoning. It is administered by injection or IV drip and can be life saving. My vet told me he worked in New York for a while and used it to save the lives of birds that have eaten lead.

2006-12-25 11:03:50 · answer #2 · answered by mr.answerman 6 · 2 0

From Wikipedia:
"Chelation therapy is a process involving the use of chelating agents to remove heavy metals from the body. For the most common forms of heavy metal intoxication, those involving lead, arsenic or mercury, the standard of care in the US dictates the use of DMSA. This, in addition to other chelating agents such as DMPS and alpha lipoic acid (ALA), are used in conventional and alternative medicine.

"Chelating agents were introduced into medicine as a result of the use of poison gas in World War I. The first widely used chelating agent, dimercaprol, also named British Anti-Lewisite, or BAL, was used as an antidote to the arsenic based poison gas, Lewisite.

"After World War II, medicine was confronted with a large number of navy personnel suffering from lead poisoning through their jobs repainting the hulls of navy ships. It is at this time that EDTA was introduced into medicine as a lead chelating agent."

Also, in alternative medicine, there are several products for doing "oral chelation" safely at home. Generally, this involves the use of several herbs and supplements known to cleanse the blood & especially the liver.

In Mexico, chelation is more assertive than what is considered safe in the U.S. and has obtained dramatic results, especially in cleansing the blood of excess lipids, resulting in better heart health & immunity, with the side effect of better vision & energy levels.

2006-12-25 05:03:44 · answer #3 · answered by Janet S 6 · 2 1

Kelation

2016-12-16 16:02:52 · answer #4 · answered by ? 4 · 0 0

It's chelation, a type of therapy.

It has practical uses but is also widely MISused in "alternative medicine."

2006-12-25 02:08:12 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 4 0

It's supposed to be therapeutic, but it's quackery.

2006-12-25 02:09:25 · answer #6 · answered by forbidden_planet 4 · 2 2

dont know

2006-12-25 02:08:22 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0 2

fedest.com, questions and answers