Is Living Proof Enough?

Natural Health, April, 1999 by Winifred Yu

SOME PATIENTS SAY REMOVING METALS FROM THEIR BODIES THROUGH CHELATION THERAPY ENDED THEIR HEART DISEASE. BUT MANY EXPERTS SAY IT'S A FRAUD.

IN THE SUMMER OF 1997, Helene Widing had a heart attack and underwent angioplasty to open her arteries. But the surgery didn't stop the persistent pain in her arms, pain so severe that Widing feared she would have another heart attack.

"My doctor said it was coming from some small arteries and to just ignore it," says Widing, 66, a retired real estate broker who lives in Warren, Conn. "But the pain kept getting worse, so I finally gave up on him and decided to try another avenue."

That's when her friends began telling her of their success with chelation (key-LAY-shun), an intravenous therapy that, according to some, can improve circulation and reduce the symptoms of cardiovascular disease. Desperate to stop her pain, Widing was willing to try anything. Last spring she began getting chelation therapy, driving an hour and 15 minutes to Rhinebeck, N.Y., twice a week for the three-to-four-hour treatment, at a cost of $100 each visit. "Now, after 41 treatments, I'm pain free," she says.

Despite testimonials like Widing's, chelation therapy remains a controversial treatment. Practitioners say chelation can help people avoid invasive surgery and provide lasting relief. But detractors, including the American Medical Association and Stephen Barrett, M.D., founder of the website quackwatch.com, say chelation is at best scientifically unproven and at worst dangerous. What's more, critics say the success of chelation may be explained by the lifestyle changes--diet modification, stress reduction, and mild exercise--that are regularly prescribed along with the chelation therapy. However, Kenneth Bock, M.D., who runs the Center for Progressive Medicine in Albany, N.Y. and the Rhinebeck Health Center in Rhinebeck, N.Y., says, "Lifestyle modifications are indeed a helpful part of every treatment regimen. However, for many patients chelation provides benefits that wouldn't be seen with lifestyle modification alone."

WHAT IS CHELATION THERAPY? Chelation therapy is a process first developed to remove metals from the body. It originated in the early 1950s as a treatment for lead poisoning. A synthetic amino acid called ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) is injected intravenously into the body, where it binds to iron, lead, mercury, cadmium, nickel, aluminum, and other metals that are then excreted through the kidneys.

Today, amid much debate, some medical professionals believe that by eliminating these metals, chelation therapy helps reduce the incidence and symptoms of cardiovascular and circulatory diseases. Chelation practitioners theorize that too many metallic ions in the body--which accumulate over time through high-fat diets, exposure to air pollutants, or habits such as smoking--increase the body's free radical population. Free radicals are highly reactive oxygen compounds that can damage healthy cells, breaking down cell walls, damaging protein enzymes, and harming the mitochondria that produce energy. Scientists believe that this cell destruction leads to many degenerative illnesses, including heart disease and cancer.

According to Elmer Cranton, M.D., author of Bypassing Bypass (Medex Publishers, 1997) and a chelation practitioner since the early 1970s, the production of free radicals slows dramatically in the presence of EDTA.

THE PRAISE Proponents say chelation therapy is less invasive than surgery and improves blood flow and circulation, reduces blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and relieves angina. Some say it may even relieve the symptoms of Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis, and reduce the risk of cancer. "It's a kinder, gentler way to avoid surgery," Cranton says. "It's enormously safe, and I think it's only prudent to use it."

Cranton points to two 1989 studies published in the Journal of Advancement in Medicine. In one, conducted by H. Richard Casdorph, M.D., Ph.D., an internist in Long Beach, Calif., 15 patients with impaired cerebral blood flow were each given 20 intravenous infusions of EDTA. All but one patient showed measurable improvements in cerebral blood flow after the chelation therapy.

Those results were replicated in a similar study by Edward W. McDonagh, D.O., a chelation practitioner in Kansas City, Mo. McDonagh evaluated the cerebral blood flow of 57 patients who each received 28 chelation treatments. Blockage of the blood vessels to the brain decreased by an average of 18 percent after therapy, with 88 percent of the patients showing measurable improvements in cerebrovascular blood flow.

Kenneth Bock has practiced chelation for 17 years and administered it to hundreds of patients. He says he measures the results in stress tests in which the patients walk or run on a treadmill. After chelation, many patients are able to move at a faster speed and a higher incline before showing signs of cardiovascular distress such as chest pain or difficulty breathing. According to Bock, many of his patients are able to resume normal activities, such as walking and mowing the lawn, that they found difficult before treatment.