Chelation therapy is used to treat mercury and lead poisoning and also is proposed as a way to treat coronary artery disease, according to the Mayo Clinic. Most commonly, chelation therapy involves delivering a dose of medication called ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, or EDTA, via an intravenous line. Chelation therapy also can be administered orally, either with EDTA as the active agent or other "natural" products said to have chelating properties. Always consult a health care provider before attempting any form of chelation therapy.
Time Frame
Using EDTA to treat coronary artery disease is not approved by the Federal Drug Administration. However, some alternative medicine practitioners and physicians do recommend EDTA chelation to treat this disorder, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. One chelation treatment lasts two to four hours. As of 2010, it cost $50 to $100, according to the AHA. During your first month, you'd receive between five and 30 treatments, with the higher number of treatments being most common. After that you'd likely be advised to continue preventive treatment once a month. You'd have to pay for this treatment yourself because Medicare and insurance companies won't reimburse for it, note the experts at AHA.
Theories/Speculation
In theory, EDTA may help remove calcium deposits from your arteries. When the calcium is removed, the other elements in the plaque are supposed to break up. This causes artery-clogging plaque to clear away, according to AHA. There are other theories on how chelation may benefit you. The first is that chelation may either lower your cholesterol levels or stimulate release of a hormone that causes calcium to be removed from plaque. The other theory on chelation therapy says it reduces damaging effects of oxidative stress on your blood vessel walls, which may reduce inflammation in your arteries, according to NCCAM.
Potential
Some advocates of chelation say that, due to the number of chemicals we are exposed to in the modern-day world, our bodies accumulate heavy metals in small amounts daily. This long-term and chronic exposure can cause adverse health effects over time, including heart disease, cancer and immune system dysfunction because the body eventually accumulates more toxins than it can eliminate, according to Gregory Pouls, author of the book "The Chelation Controversy." Pouls promotes chelation as a way to rid the body of these accumulated and stored chemicals and metals.
Method
Oral chelation is another proposed mechanism for using chelating agents to treat a variety of diseases, including Parkinson's disease, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's and psoriasis, in addition to coronary artery disease and peripheral vascular disease, says Dr. Pete Bowden of Creighton University in Nebraska. Oral chelation proponents make the same therapeutic claims as proponents of intravenous chelation. They also say oral chelation has a general cleansing effect. Oral chelation may utilize oral preparations of EDTA or combinations of "natural" supplements, vitamins and minerals said to have inherent chelating properties. Proponent C.M. Hawken, author of "Chelation Therapy: An Effective Method for Maintaining Cardiovascular Health," says the chelating powers of such treatments apply to all systems of your body, including tissues, cells and organs.
Warning
The AHA, the American College of Physicians, the American Medical Association and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, or NHLBI, a division of the National Institutes of Health, speak out against chelation for trating coronary artery disease. The experts at AHA are worried that if you rely on this therapy you may delay using proven therapies such as surgery or drugs until it's too late. Chelation therapy can cause permanent kidney damage or kidney failure, note the experts at the Mayo Clinic, and some people participating in chelation studies have died. Side effects can include fever, a sudden drop in your blood pressure, inability to create new cells, headache, nausea or vomiting, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Expert Insight
Positive results from chelation may be due to the fact that therapists often require patients to make lifestyle changes while undergoing the therapy, according to the AHA. These may include losing weight, quitting smoking, exercising, eating more fruits and vegetables, and cutting out foods high in saturated fats. Making these healthy changes at the same time as chelation therapy clouds the issue because such lifestyle changes have proven to improve quality of life and a sense of well-being. The AHA, in fact, has promoted these lifestyle changes for years.
Considerations
NCCAM and NHLBI are sponsoring a study called the trial to assess chelation therapy, or TACT. TACT is the first large-scale study to determine the safety and effectiveness of chelation therapy for people who have coronary artery disease. Study participants were being followed through 2011, with results set to be analyzed in 2012.
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