HWN Suggests

There Is No “Alternative Medicine”

For me, this is the big one.” Gervasio Lamas, the chief of Columbia University’s cardiology division at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, took out his phone and tapped the battery. “Cadmium. This thing ends up in the dump in West Palm Beach, and then I end up drinking it.”

Having recently finished a $31 million study of chelation therapy—a study that unexpectedly, divisively suggested that using chelation to rid the body of metals could prolong some lives—Lamas has joined a growing battalion of physicians concerned about the health effects of heavy metals.

Chelation has for some time occupied a crucial niche in mainstream medicine.…

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Articles of Interest

Much-Debated Treatment for Heart Disease Shows Slight Benefit in Clinical Trial

To the surprise of many cardiologists, a controversial alternative therapy proved beneficial to people with heart disease, reducing the rate of death and cardiovascular problems in a clinical trial... The benefit of the treatment, known as chelation therapy, barely reached statistical significance, and there were questions about the reliability of the study

Trial of Chelation Therapy Shows Benefits, but Doubts Persist

Chelation therapy has been used as an alternative treatment for heart disease since the 1950s, but with scanty evidence to support the practice, most medical doctors have long dismissed it as little more than quackery. But now a prestigious medical journal has published the results of a large, long-term clinical trial of chelation in heart disease patients. While critics were quick to point out the study’s myriad irregularities, the findings have dumbfounded cardiologists: The results suggest chelation, originally used to treat lead poisoning, just might help heart patients.

Autism and Chelation: Where is the Science?

Does chelation therapy work? We just don’t know. Could it be dangerous, even deadly, for children with autism? Perhaps, but there’s no hard science available one way or the other.

Chelation for Coronary Heart Disease

Overall, TACT showed that infusions of disodium EDTA chelation therapy produced a modest reduction in cardiovascular events. However, further examination of the data showed that chelation therapy benefitted only the patients with diabetes.

Chelation Remains A Hopeful Heart Therapy

These results showed that chelation therapy modestly reduced the risk of bad cardiovascular outcomes, but though the study provided a platform for further research, researchers cautioned that the study wasn't conclusive enough to support routine use of the therapy after heart attack.

Chelation Therapy: Benefits and Risks

Within this article we will examine chelation therapy and how the method works. Additionally, we will also discuss its relation to fibromyalgia.

Chelation Therapy: Unproven Claims and Unsound Theories

This article identifies the major claims made for EDTA chelation and examines each in light of established scientific fact. The sources used for this review included position papers of professional societies, technical textbooks, research and review articles, newspaper articles, patient testimonials, medical records, legal depositions, transcripts of court testimony, privately published books, clinic brochures, and personal correspondence.

Chelation Therapy: What To Do With Inconvenient Evidence

What do we do with inconvenient evidence? Imagine studying a seemingly absurd practice that is used to an alarming extent by those who believe in it despite the lack of evidence – and finding that the intervention improves outcomes.

Chelation: How MDs Use it And the Off-Label Uses You Should Know About

Physicians will tell you that the benefits of EDTA chelation treatment for lead poisoning and excessively high calcium levels are undisputed. Sadly, the chelation discussion ends there with mainstream medicine. And that’s what’s so perplexing to me…

Chelation: Therapy or 'Therapy'

Chelation therapy is a treatment for heavy metal poisoning: iron, mercury, arsenic, and lead. Some people give chelation "therapy" for other conditions such as cardiovascular disease, autism, and Alzheimer's. This exposes patients to risks without benefit. A large study of chelation therapy for cardiovascular disease leads some researchers to suggest further study.

Detox with Chelation Therapy — Help Your Heart & Brain

Chelation therapy is considered an alternative medicine that has the purpose of removing “heavy metals” and toxins from the body.

NIH Trial Gives Surprising Boost To Chelation Therapy

With a result that is likely to surprise and baffle much of the mainstream medical community, a large NIH-sponsored trial has turned up the first substantial evidence in support of chelation therapy for patients with coronary disease.

The facts and fictions of chelation therapy

Often dismissed as quackery, chelation therapy was the subject of a recently completed NIH study (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy [TACT]) that showed the practice to be of moderate benefit to heart-attack survivors. Yet the controversy continues unabated, with some calling the study misguided or flawed and few in the conventional medical community willing to embrace chelation therapy as a legitimate option for heart patients.


Resources

Chelation Watch

A Skeptical View of Chelation Therapy Operated by Stephen Barrett, M.D.