Conditions Benefited by Chelation Therapy
"According to current drug safety standards, aspirin is about three and a half times more toxic than EDTA."
By 1948 the U.S. Navy had begun using EDTA to safely and successfully treat lead poisoning. At the same time, EDTA was being used to remove calcium from pipes and boilers.
Norman Clarke, Sr., M.D., Director of Research at Providence Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, hypothesized that because calcium plaque is a prominent component in atherosclerosis, EDTA would be an effective treatment for heart conditions. His experiments with EDTA chelation treatments for heart patients validated his theory. Patients with angina reported dramatic relief from chest pain. Healing was also reported by patients with gangrene. For many patients, memory, sight, hearing, and sense of smell improved, and most reported increased vigor.(3)
EDTA chelation therapy has since proven to be safe and effective in the treatment and prevention of ailments linked to atherosclerosis such as coronary artery disease (heart attacks), cerebral vascular disease (stroke), peripheral vascular disease (leading to pain in the legs and ultimately gangrene and amputation), as well as arterial blockages from atherosclerosis elsewhere in the body.
According to current drug safety standards, aspirin is nearly three and a half times more toxic than EDTA.(4)
Warren Levin, M.D., of New York City, once administered chelation therapy to a psychoanalyst on the staff of a major New York medical center. "He was in his fifties and looked remarkably healthy, except that he was in a wheelchair. He had awakened that morning to discover his lower leg was cold, numb, mottled, and blue, with two black-looking toes. He rushed to his hospital and consulted the chief of vascular surgery, who recommended an immediate amputation above the knee. He asked this world-renowned surgeon about the possibility of using chelation in this situation, and was told, 'Don't bother me with that voodoo.'
"The ailing man decided to get a second opinion. This physician also urged him to have an immediate amputation. When asked about chelation therapy, the second doctor's response was, 'You can try it if you want, but it's a waste of time.'
"Through his own tenacity, the psychoanalyst showed up in my office. We started emergency chelation and after approximately nine treatments-one taken every other day-he was pain free and picking up. After approximately seventeen chelation treatments, he was walking on the leg again. He never had an amputation, and he lived the rest of his life without any further complications."
Anecdotal stories of patient success tend to mean little to a medical researcher like Morton Walker, D.P.M. "But," he writes, "what must an investigative medical journalist do when exposed to story after story of potentially imminent death, blindness, amputation, paralysis, and other problems among people, and upon visiting those people to check their stories, finds them presently free of all signs of their former health problems? About two hundred individuals who were victims of hardening of the arteries are . . . [now] vibrant, productive, youthful looking, vigorous, full of zest, and enthusiastically endorse chelation therapy as the cause of their prolonged good health. I have turned up not a single untruth."(9)
Medical journalists Harold and Arline Brecher, who have written extensively about chelation therapy, note that physicians who use it not only advise it for their patients, but use it for themselves, unlike many of their orthodox colleagues. "We have yet to find a physician who offers chelation to his patients who does not chelate himself, his family, and friends," they report.
Chelation therapy could save billions of dollars each year by preventing unnecessary coronary bypass surgeries, angioplasties, and other expensive procedures related to vascular disorders. One study documented significant improvement in 99 percent of patients suffering from peripheral vascular disease and blocked arteries of the legs. Twenty-four percent of those patients with cerebrovascular and other degenerative cerebral diseases also showed marked improvement, with an additional 30 percent having good improvement. Overall, nearly 90 percent of all treated patients had marked or good improvement as a result of chelation therapy.(10)
A double-blind study in 1989 revealed that every patient suffering from peripheral vascular disease who was treated with chelation therapy showed a statistically significant improvement after only ten treatments.(11)
In another study published in 1989, 88 percent of the patients receiving chelation therapy showed improvement in cerebrovascular blood flow.(12)
Other documented benefits of chelation therapy include:
Normalization of 50 percent of cardiac arrhythmias(13)
Improved cerebrovascular arterial occlusion(14)
Improved memory and concentration when diminished circulation is a cause(15)
Improved vision (with vascular-related vision difficulties) (16)
Significantly reduced cancer mortality rates (as a preventive) (17)
Protection against iron poisoning and iron storage disease(18)
Detoxification of snake and spider venoms(19)
Research is needed to validate the effectiveness of chelation therapy in reversing atherosclerosis and related circulatory conditions. If approved by the FDA as a treatment for atherosclerosis, chelation therapy could save thousands of lives annually.
According to Elmer Cranton, M.D., of Troutdale, Virginia, chelation therapy has a profound effect on overall health. "In my clinical experience there is no doubt that intravenous EDTA chelation therapy to some extent slows the aging process," says Dr. Cranton. "Allergies and chemical sensitivities also seem to improve somewhat due to a better functioning of the immune system. All types of arthritis and muscle and joint aches and pains seem to be more easily controlled after chelation, although it is not a cure. In most cases, the progression of Alzheimer's disease will be slowed, and in some cases the improvement is quite remarkable and the disease does not seem to progress. Macular degeneration, a major cause of visual loss in the elderly, is often improved and almost always arrested or slowed in its progression by chelation therapy."
Chelation Therapy Versus Bypass Surgery and Angioplasty
In 1988 nearly 1 million Americans died of cardiovascular disease, making it the number one killer in the United States. Each year nearly three hundred thousand bypass surgeries and two hundred-fifty thousand angioplasties are performed in the United States. Furthermore, nearly twenty thousand deaths occur each year as a result of these procedures.(5)
In 1992, Nortin Hadler, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, wrote that none of the two hundred-fifty thousand balloon angioplasties performed the previous year could be justified, and that only 3 to 5 percent of the three hundred thousand coronary artery bypass surgeries done the same year were actually indicated. Yet a cost comparison study prepared for the Great Lakes Association of Clinical Medicine in 1993 estimated that $10 billion was spent in the United States in 1991 on bypass surgery alone.(6)
At a symposium of the American Heart Association, Henry McIntosh, M.D., stated that bypass surgery should be limited to patients with crippling angina who do not respond to more conservative treatment.(7)
Chelation therapy offers a viable alternative.
In a 1988 study of 2,870 cases, Efrain Olszewer, M.D., and James Carter, M.D., head of nutrition at the Department of Applied Health Science, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University, documented that EDTA chelation therapy brought about significant improvement in 93.9 percent of patients suffering from ischemic heart disease (coronary artery blockage).(8)
Elmer Cranton, M.D., of Troutdale, Virginia, estimates chelation therapy can help avoid bypass surgery in 85 percent of cases. He points out that during all the time that chelation therapy has been administered according to established protocol, not one serious side effect has been reported.
References
3. Farr, C. H., M.D.; White, R.; and Schachter, M., M.D. "Chronological History of EDTA Chelation Therapy." Presented to the American College of Advancement in Medicine, Houston, TX., May, 1993.
4. Walker, M.; and Gordon, G. The Chelation Answer: How to Prevent Hardening of the Arteries and Rejuvenate Your Cardiovascular System. New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1982.
5. Strauts, Z., M.D. "Correspondence Re: Berkeley Wellness Letter and Chelation Therapy." Townsend Letter for Doctors 106 (May, 1992): 382-383.
6. Chappel, T. L., M.D. "Preliminary Findings From the Meda Analysis Study of EDTA Chelation Therapy." From a paper presented at the American College of Advancement in Medicine meeting May 5-9, 1993, in Houston, TX.
7. Walker, M.; and Gordon, G. The Chelation Answer. New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1982, 175.
8. Olszewer, E., M.D.; and Carter, J. P., M.D. "EDTA Chelation Therapy: A Retrospective Study of 2,870 Patients." In A Textbook on EDTA Chelation Therapy, ed. E. M. Cranton, M.D. Special Issue, Journal of Advancement in Medicine 2 Nos. 1-2, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1989, 183.
9. Walker, M. Chelation Therapy. Stamford, CT: New Way of Life, Inc., 1984. Currently out of print.
10. Olszewer, E., M.D.; and Carter, J. P., M.D. "EDTA Chelation Therapy: A Retrospective Study of 2,870 Patients." In A Textbook on EDTA Chelation Therapy, ed. E. M. Cranton, M.D. Special Issue, Journal of Advancement in Medicine 2 Nos. 1-2, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1989, 197-211.
11. Olszewer, E., M.D.; and Carter, J. P., M.D. "EDTA Chelation Therapy: A Retrospective Study of 2,870 Patients." In A Textbook on EDTA Chelation Therapy, ed. E. M. Cranton M.D. Special Issue, Journal of Advancement in Medicine 2 Nos. 1-2, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1989, 197-211.
12. McDonagh, E. W.; Rudolph, C. J.; and Cheraskin, E., M.D. "An Oculocerebro-vasculometric Analysis of the Improvement in Arterial Stenosis Following EDTA Chelation Therapy." In A Textbook on EDTA Chelation Therapy, ed. E. M. Cranton, M.D. Special Issue, Journal of Advancement in Medicine 2 Nos. 1-2, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1989, 155-166.
13. Alsleben, H. R., M.D.; and Shute, W. E., M.D. How to Survive the New Health Catastrophes. Anaheim, CA: Survival Publications, Inc., 1973.
14. McDonagh, E. W.; Rudolph, C. J.; and Cheraskin, E., M.D. "An "oculocerebrovasculometric Analysis of the Improvement in Arterial Stenosis Following EDTA Chelation Therapy." In A Textbook on EDTA Chelation Therapy, ed. E. M. Cranton, M.D. Special Issue, Journal of Advancement in Medicine 2 Nos. 1-2, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1989, 155-166.
15. Casdorph, H. R., M.D. "EDTA Chelation Therapy: Efficacy in Brain Disorders." In A Textbook on EDTA Chelation Therapy, ed. E. M. Cranton, M.D. Special Issue, Journal of Advancement in Medicine 2 Nos. 1-2, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1989, 131-153.
16. Alsleben, H. R., M.D.; and Shute, W. E., M.D. How to Survive the New Health Catastrophes. Anaheim, CA: Survival Publications, Inc., 1973.
17. Blumer, W., M.D.; and Cranton, E. M., M.D. "Ninety Percent Reduction in Cancer Mortality After Chelation Therapy with EDTA." In A Textbook on EDTA Chelation Therapy, ed. E. M. Cranton, M.D. Special Issue, Journal of Advancement in Medicine 2 Nos. 1-2, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1989, 183.
18. Alsleben, H. R., M.D.; and Shute, W. E., M.D. How to Survive the New Health Catastrophes. Anaheim, CA: Survival Publications, Inc., 1973.
19. Alsleben, H. R., M.D.; and Shute, W. E., M.D. How to Survive the New Health Catastrophes. Anaheim, CA: Survival Publications, Inc., 1973.