This page contains several different articles about
the effectiveness of EDTA Chelation Therapy for cardiovascular
disease. Click the headings below to jump directly to these
articles.
Benefits and Uses
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It removes the effects of a heart attack.
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It removes or reduces angina pectoris -- chest pains.
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It removes or reduces cardiac stress intolerance.
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It reduces shortness of breath in coronary artery disease.
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It can bring back the elderly from senility, and improve memory and reduce the incidence of Pick's Atrophy and Alzheimer's disease.
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It reduces blood pressure in about 60% of high blood pressure patients.
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It can eliminate intermittent claudication (leg cramps and leg pain and numbness due to poor circulation).
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It can reverse diabetic gangrene. It can restore impaired vision, particularly in the diabetic whose suffering from macular degeneration.
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It improves memory, can prevent the deposition of cholesterol in the liver, it reduces blood cholesterol levels, it reverses toxic effects from digitalis excess.
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It can convert and normalize 50% of irregular heart rhythms. Chelation reduces or relaxes excessive heart contraction. It reduces heart irritability and increases potassium within the cells of your body.
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Chelation removes lead and cadmium and other heavy metals from the body.
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It removes calcium from arteriosclerotic plaque. It dissolves kidney stones, reduces serum iron and protects against iron poisoning and iron storage disease of the liver.
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Chelation reduces heart valve calcification, improves heart function and detoxifies several snake and spider venoms. It reduces dark pigmentation associated with varicose veins.
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It heals calcified necrotic ulcers. It can improve the vision in diabetic retinopathy. It dissolves small cataracts. It makes arterial walls more flexible.
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It helps to prevent and reduce osteoarthritis. It reduces and alleviates the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Chelation helps to smooth skin wrinkles, lowers insulin requirements for diabetics. It even dissolves large and small clots or thrombii.
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It can reduce or reverse the effect of a stroke, particularly after the stroke, but even as late as two years following a stroke. It can reduce the effects of scleroderma. It reduces the need for bypass surgical procedures. EDTA can greatly reduce the need for lower extremity amputations.
Grants and aid for research on EDTA chelation
therapy have been given by:
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The National Institutes of Health
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The U.S. Public Health Service
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The National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Disease
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The University of California
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The American Cancer Society
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The Charles S. Hayden Foundation
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The Oscar Meyer Foundation
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The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
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The John H. Hartford Foundation Providence Hospital Research Department
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The U.S. Public Health Department -- Division of General Medical Sciences
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The Mayo Clinic
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The Mayo Foundation
A search through the medical literature of the past
will turn up no less than 1,554 mentions of chelation therapy.
Chelation therapy is not a new treatment -- it is one of the best
guarded secrets that is known for health improvement.
Chelation therapy will remove excessive levels of 13
minerals from your body -- lead, mercury, nickel, cadmium, and
aluminum -- all toxic minerals. It also will remove some good
minerals from your body as well -- such as chromium, copper, iron,
magnesium, manganese, and calcium. It is important to take
mineral supplements to counteract this while on chelation therapy.
What happens if you take chelation therapy for
several months and your chest pain disappears, you're able to walk
up a mountain, you feel wonderful and have thrown your
nitroglycerine tablets away, and as far as you're concerned, you're
cured? What will happen to you? If you do nothing after
chelation therapy, surely and slowly your disease process will
return upon you.
Chelation therapy is not a cure. It backs out
disease very well, opens blocked blood vessels, and restores
circulation, but it is not a cure. If you do not pay attention
to diet, if you don't stop smoking, if you don't take the proper
nutritional supplements, if you don't exercise regularly, if you
don't make those very important basic changes which control the
disease, then surely the disease process will settle back in upon
you at some point in the future.
It is believed that in addition to following good
diet and exercise, taking supplements, and not smoking, you should
be taking additional maintenance doses of EDTA on a continual basis.
Four Reasons to Consider It
EDTA Oral Chelation has a rejuvenating effect on the
body, slowing down the biological clock of aging because of its
powerful anti-oxidant, free-radical scavenging ability. EDTA
is a weak, synthetic amino acid related to vinegar that was
developed by the Germans in 1931 as a solution for heavy-metal
poisoning (due to the ingestion of lead, mercury, aluminum, cadmium,
etc.). It also has been found to have a wide range of positive
results in many other health conditions.
1. Cardiovascular disease is today's number
one killer. EDTA can be the solution to many people's health
problems, because it cleans out the cardiovascular system not only
of heavy metals, but also of the plaque and calcium that restricts
and impedes the flow of blood and oxygen to the organs and
extremities. In an 18-year study, Dr. Walter Blumer of
Switzerland used EDTA to reduce the incidence of heart disease and
cancer in his patients by 80 percent.
2. EDTA offers a solution for reversing
osteoporosis or bone loss. Through a complex action of the
parathyroid gland, EDTA actually stimulates bone growth. Thus,
while it's removing calcium from plaque in blood vessels, EDTA has
the ability to make bones stronger and denser. Women have
reported the reversal of bone loss in as little as two months using
EDTA Oral Chelation.
3. Persons having diabetes can benefit from
EDTA Oral Chelation. It has produced great results in diabetic
retinopathy, macular degeneration, cataracts, floaters, and
preventing diabetic gangrene by restoring blood flow and circulation
to the body extremities and appendages.
4. If you or someone you know is on any kind
of blood thinner, be aware that people can get off these drugs with
the use of EDTA Oral Chelation. A 31-page supplement published
in the British medical journal Lancet in November 1996 pointed out
that common anti-clotting drugs such as aspirin and coumadin are
effective against only one-third of the cases of excessive platelet
aggregation and coagulation. None of them gets at the whole
problem. EDTA, on the other hand, appears to work against all
clotting mechanisms, acting as a preventative in keeping the blood
sufficiently thin so that one does not fall victim to heart attack
and stroke.
Excerpts
from
Chelation Can Cure
Ethylene Diamine Tetra-acetic Acid (EDTA) is a
non-toxic amino acid that was synthesized in Germany in 1931.
It was designed to treat patients who were severely lead-poisoned.
Prior to its development, little could be done for these unfortunate
people. They died because of the tremendous toxic effect of
lead on the brain, nervous system, and other major organs.
Chemists in the food processing industry are quite
familiar with chelation chemistry and EDTA. The research
literature contains more than 3,000 reference papers concerning
EDTA. EDTA is used as a preservative in countless foodstuffs
-- canned, bottled, and dry-packed.
The chemistry of blood banking is another source of
EDTA information. The substance is used in the performance of
many blood tests. Small amounts of EDTA are added to banked
blood to prevent blood cells from breaking down.
EDTA is known to be a calcium-blocking agent and a
potent coronary vasodilator. In other words, EDTA can bind or
chelate calcium, as well as other minerals in the body. It
removes calcium particles deposited in arterial wall plaques and
atheromas. In addition, EDTA blocks the slow calcium currents
in the arterial wall, resulting in arterial vasodilation.
Probably the major underlying condition leading to
cardiovascular disease is atherosclerosis, also known as hardening
of the arteries. In time, this degenerative disease can narrow
or block arteries in the heart, brain, and other parts of the body.
It may begin early in life. The linings of the arteries become
thickened and roughened by deposits of fat, cholesterol, fibrin (a
clotting material), cellular debris, and calcium.
As this buildup on the inner walls becomes hard and
thick, arteries lose their ability to expand and contract. The
blood moves with difficulty through the narrowed artery channels.
This makes it easier for a clot to form that will block the channel
(lumen) and deprive the heart, brain, and other organs of the
necessary blood supply. In such a situation, how can dilator
drugs possibly be effective?
When a complete blockage occurs in a vessel to the
brain, the result may be a cerebral thrombosis, a form of stroke.
Based on what is known, scientists acknowledge the relationship
between the amount of cholesterol and saturated fats in the
bloodstream, and coronary artery disease -- a blockage of the
arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle itself.
To review precisely what chelation is, consider the
following: the electromagnetic attraction of fats and proteins for
divalent calcium that has wandered through the injuries in blood
vessel walls is the same process that enables EDTA to remove calcium
and fat from the plaque that occludes the vessel. A study of
over six hundred human aortas has demonstrated alterations in the
elastic tissue with accumulations of calcium prior to the deposition
of fat and cholesterol. (Blumenthal, 1944).
Calcium has two positive charges which are called
valences. Hence, calcium is divalent. Calcium is
strongly attracted electromagnetically by the open-ended molecular
structure of EDTA that is circulating in the blood during the
chelation treatment. This results in the calcium ion being
incorporated into the EDTA molecular structure, forming a closed
ring. When this process takes place, the metal is said to be
chelated, and EDTA is termed the chelating agent.
When calcium (or other divalent metals such as lead,
mercury, cadmium, aluminum, etc.) is chelated by EDTA, the original
electromagnetic attraction is lost, and the fatty debris is
dissolved by circulating blood and metabolized. The
calcium-EDTA molecule, now inactive and non-toxic, is carried by the
blood until it passes through the kidneys. It then is removed
from the body via the urine.
The solid sticky plaque goes into solution and is
harmlessly removed. By this unique mechanism, dangerous solids
are converted to a liquid, then transported away to be eliminated.
This is a natural, normal phenomenon of body chemistry.
Norman E. Clarke, Sr., M.D., a cardiologist at
Providence Hospital in Detroit, was the first American to discover
the many beneficial effects of EDTA chelation. When he treated
battery factory workers for lead poisoning, they reported relief of
their symptoms of chest pain (angina), arthritis, intermittent
claudication (severe leg pain due to plugged arteries in the legs),
as well as their symptoms of lead poisoning.
Dr. Clarke, now in his eighties and very active in
practice and on the lecture circuit, is recognized as a chelation
pioneer in the Soviet Union. The Russians use chelation
therapy as the second most common treatment for arteriosclerotic
artery disease. It is also the preferred method of treatment
in Czechoslovakia. EDTA chelation is administered with great
success for blood vessel disease, stroke, senility, diabetes, kidney
diseases, and other degenerative diseases in Germany, Switzerland,
Mexico, and Canada, to name just a few countries.
Chelation
Therapy and
High Blood Pressure
High Blood Pressure
People with greatly elevated blood pressure commonly
have symptoms of dizziness, shortness of breath, headache, and
blurred vision. In mild to moderate blood pressure elevation,
there may be no symptoms. The diastolic or resting heart
pressure is the second number of the blood pressure reading.
In younger patients with diastolic pressures of 110 millimeters of
mercury or higher, headaches in the morning are common.
Breathlessness produced by easy effort, such as slow
walking, is common. The patient may notice pulsation of neck
veins, which may also be swollen and distended. A clicking or
roaring or ringing in the ears is a frequent finding.
High blood pressure patients commonly complain of
frequent need to urinate after they have gone to bed for the night,
even though kidney function may be normal. Hypertension
commonly occurs as the result of local ischemia (loss of oxygen
carried by the blood) which has resulted from atheromatous narrowing
(occlusion) of an artery in the brain, heart, or lower limbs.
As the pressure continues its abnormal rise, death
or damage to the heart, brain, or kidneys is likely. The heart
will enlarge, kidneys begin to fail, and uremia is present.
Stroke is common.
These patients commonly range in age from forty to
seventy. Their blood pressure is above 110 millimeters mercury
diastolic. Systolic pressures (the first number of the blood
pressure reading) range from 130 to 170 or more. In a
35-year-old man with a normal blood pressure of 120/80, the risk of
death over the next twenty years would double if his pressure were
142/90. That risk increases 2.2 times at 142/95. At
152/95, the twenty year mortality risk is 2.5 times. LDL
cholesterol is directly and independently associated with
cardiovascular risks. HDL cholesterol, on the other hand,
appears to offer protection.
Aerobic exercise, liver function, and
supplementation with digestive enzymes and selected amino acids can
enable the patient to favorably adjust the HDL/LDL ratio, and hence
reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
In addition to selenium deficiencies, these patients
usually have reduced magnesium and potassium. Protein and
microscopic bleeding are commonly found in the urine. Damage
to the retinal membranes of the eye results from leaking arterioles.
Flame hemorrhages, cotton wool exudates atrioventricular nicking,
and scaling of the arterioles can be seen on examination. As
blood pressure rises, the arterioles constrict and eventually give
way to the pressure. Leakage occurs and this seeing membrane
(retina) swells. Visual loss results.
Similar damage occurs in the brain. Patients
with abnormally high blood pressure and increasingly severe
headaches can progress eventually to impairment of brain function
and stupor. The brain swells as plasma leaks out from the
arterioles. Abrupt onset of neurological signs such as
numbness, nausea, vomiting, loss of muscle function in the face,
arm, or leg, followed by unconsciousness signifies the onset of
bleeding inside the skull. This is a stroke. EDTA
produces remarkably beneficial effects in the human body.
Every cell benefits. Results are seen first in the blood
vessels, notably the arteries.
Abnormal calcium is removed, and the occluded
(plugged-up) vessels are reopened. This effect is produced
only upon metastatic calcium (calcium found in areas where it should
not be), and not upon normal tissue calcium, as shown consistently
by the lack of development of osteoporosis or of increased dental
caries. Increased X-ray bone density is observed in cases of
osteoporosis after they have been treated with EDTA.
This process may go on for months and explain the
frequently described phenomena of continued clinical improvement
after chelation has ceased, such as improved joint function, because
arthritic joint deposits are decreased.
Some critics have complained that treatment with
EDTA is not "permanent." These uninformed experts would know, if
they had any experience with the treatment, that the results are
probably more permanent than any other vascular treatment utilized
in this country today. Once the occluding slag and sludge is
removed from the inside walls of the arteries, they can carry blood
efficiently once more and elasticity returns. In other words,
ischemic atherosclerosis is reversed.
Tissues, organs, and cells downstream of the
formerly plugged artery can now obtain the nutrients and oxygen that
were once denied. These cells which were once dormant, or
partially dormant, can now revive and carry on their normal
metabolic chemistry. Toxins and waste products that have not
been properly removed due to inadequate circulation are eliminated
as the perfusion normalizes.
EDTA chelation treatment can help patients with very
advanced chronic diseases and in the majority of cases bring the
patient back to normal functioning. The treatment can clean up
the blood vessels and organs of even the most severely ill patients,
and many times the patient can then be successfully treated with the
usual conventional treatments. Another common medical practice
in this country is that of treating patients only when they exhibit
symptoms of chronic illness. The rule seems to be, "If it ain't
broke, don't fix it," which is fine, as long as it's someone else's
health that needs to be "broken." How much better would it be if we
could spend more resources and attention on keeping people well,
rather than concentrating on trying to make people better after they
are sick. We should concentrate on health improvement and
maintenance.
Treatment with EDTA has many advantages that
conventional medicine can never offer. This treatment can:
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Treat several areas of illness in the body at the same time.
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Be combined with drug, antibiotic or other therapy to treat the disease conditions. The patient makes a faster response, and can then be weaned from drug therapy. Chelation and supplementation can complete the recovery.
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Eliminate the need for hospitalization for most chronically ill patients.
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Greatly reduce the costs to patients for drugs.
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Keep wellness (health) intact longer, once it has been attained.
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Greatly increase the effectiveness in the treatment of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, gangrene, retinitis, macular degeneration, kidney disease, and many other difficult medical conditions.
About Oral EDTA
Unlike intravenous chelation therapy, NaturoDoc's
EDTA powder is taken by mouth. A small one-ounce scoop comes
inside each bottle, and twice a day, morning and night, you place a
scoop of our oral EDTA underneath your tongue and hold it there for
a few minutes without swallowing to let it be absorbed through the
mucous membranes of the mouth. We recommend you just keep your
bottle of EDTA next to your toothbrush. A bottle lasts about a
month at this rate, after which you should stop and reevaluate
before possibly continuing for another month.
How does EDTA taste? Quite tolerable,
actually; it's somewhere between salty and sweet.
Oral EDTA should be taken away from meals so that
its action does not remove the beneficial nutrients in your food.
You should also supplement your diet with B vitamins and minerals
while taking EDTA.
The body absorbs about 50 percent of the oral EDTA,
and this sublingual (under the tongue) administration is much
quicker, easier, and cheaper than intravenous (IV) administration.
While the IV method does get 100 percent of the EDTA into your
bloodstream, it is much more costly, time-consuming, and requires a
medical technician and thus an office visit.
NaturoDoc's oral EDTA powder is the most
cost-effective, convenient way we have found to make the vast
benefits of chelation therapy available to all.
At a time when health care costs are threatening to
bankrupt the nation, too little attention has been paid to
procedures and treatments that have failed to show benefits, and not
surprisingly, are some of the costliest medical interventions
around. There is so much talk about unproven treatments and
quackery aimed at the alternative medical practices that few people
ever stop to question or investigate the efficacy, or even safety,
of high-tech medical procedures.
Even research that shows that over 80% of bypasses
and angiograms being recommended are not necessary has failed to
change the lucrative methodology of cardiologists. Since heart
disease accounts for a major portion of our health care dollars, it
is a perfect example of how vested interests manipulate the public
and bury any criticism of the methodology in the name of profit.
In Heart Frauds, Dr. Charles McGee documents
the statistics, studies, and hidden failures surrounding the
treatment of heart disease, particularly angiograms and bypass
surgery. Although one-third of the population now prefers some
alternative medical care, when it comes to heart attacks, the scare
tactics used to sell these procedures are almost foolproof.
Doctors tell the frightened heart attack patients they have a "widow
maker," referring to a blocked artery, or that they are living with
a "time bomb." Coronary bypass surgery and angioplasty are said to
be absolutely necessary to get them through the next few days alive.
Few people in this situation (usually drugged, as well) can mount an
intelligent argument against these "specialists."
If alternatives are discussed at all, such as the
recent publicized results of diet and lifestyle changes, they are
shrugged off by the cardiologist as too time-consuming, difficult to
comply with, and haven't really been proven to work.
Specialists, particularly, have made medicine into business, and in
business, as any American can tell you, it's only the bottom line
that counts.
Dr. McGee uses satire and humor in his presentation
of an appallingly unethical use of balloon angioplasty as "the
invasive cardiologist's claim to a lifestyle of the rich and
famous." Ironically, the bypass surgeons saw the cardiologists
using angioplasty as enemies initially (to their bank account), but
soon learned that there was a big enough pie for all to share.
As more angioplasties were performed, the number of Coronary Artery
Bypass Grafts (CABG), referred to routinely and affectionately as
cabbage, also increased.
"Surgical procedures on the heart resembled a
bottomless pit …. If more physicians begin to divide up a
medical pie, doctors can increase the size of the pie simply by
recommending more procedures." In 1990 cardiologists performed
about 285,000 balloon angioplasties, and cardiac surgeons cracked
380,000 chests. "It is not unusual to see patients who have
had 3 or 4 balloon procedures followed by a 'cabbage,' all within 4
or 5 months, and all failing to help."
Dr. McGee cites the studies done on these procedures
in detail, and it is clear that the public has been kept ion the
dark. In three major controlled studies, bypass surgery was
shown not to extend survival rates past 11 years, and that "early
surgery is unlikely to increase the prospect of survival."
In an editorial that accompanied one study, Eugene
Braunwald, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, pointed
out that an increasing number of patients were being operated upon,
not because of the presence of intractable angina, but because of
the hope, "largely without objective supporting evidence at present,
that coronary bypass surgery prolongs life."
He further stated that "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.…" He wrote, "I believe that this
operation should and increasingly will be restricted to patients in
whom intensive medical therapy has failed, or in whom improved
survival after surgery has been unambiguously demonstrated, rather
than as a panacea for coronary artery disease." These remarks were
made in 1977 and his fears that this "enterprise" would become more
difficult to curtail were fully realized in the decade following.
Although angiography and bypass surgery are the most
high-profile and costly abuses in the treatment of heart disease,
Dr. McGee shoots down the cholesterol theory, too, as another failed
approach to treating heart disease. The pharmaceutical drugs
to "treat" high cholesterol have not only failed to show efficacy,
but are known to be dangerous as well. Perhaps the worse
consequence of these hyped treatments is that patients do not get
better, as they might on the diet and lifestyle change programs.
The first half of Heart Frauds is a careful examination of
the rationale and results of this "standard of care," and Dr. McGee
has no problem documenting the failure of these treatments to
benefit heart patients.
Although it may take some time to dislodge the
"enterprise," in the second half of the book, ample evidence is
given of the alternative, non-invasive (and inexpensive) treatments
that have shown efficacy in the treatment of heart disease.
The diet and nutritional approach to treating coronary artery
disease is documented by many recent studies, especially Dr. Dean
Ornish's program, and Dr. McGee brings them all together, showing
the consistent success of this approach.
Interesting studies are cited showing the long-term
effects of the introduction of refined carbohydrates into our diet;
for instance, EDTA chelation therapy is given top billing as well
for its documented ability to reverse artery disease. An
important aspect of these approaches is that they prove that
coronary heart disease can be reversed, and that the body will heal
itself if we will do just two things: remove the things that make
us sick, and augment the things our bodies are lacking.
Nutrients are examined in detail, citing studies
that show the anti-oxidants, in particular, to be greatly preventive
of heart disease, and some of the more widely studies nutrients
associated with heart disease. Other risk factors, such as
lack of exercise and chlorinated water, are explored as well.
Dr. McGee speculates that the cholesterol theory is
so well established now (as part of the "enterprise") that it will
take time for the oxidative theory of the development of
atherosclerosis to replace it, despite the plethora of new studies
on anti-oxidants. However, as you may have noticed, change is
the watchword of the day; old institutions and old ideas are
changing rapidly at the end of this century, and especially in the
area of nutrition and lifestyle.
Heart Frauds is a well-documented expose' of
the waste of approximately $35 billion a year in the standard
treatment of heart disease, wasted because these approaches to
treating heart disease are not shown to be beneficial, yet take a
huge chunk out of the healthcare dollars. Dr. McGee
acknowledges that the basic problem is politics and commercial
interests -- putting profit ahead of the welfare of the patient.
Becoming informed, with the help of books like this one, is the
first step toward changing the standard of care, both for patients
and doctors alike.
