Research Chelation Therapy

Oral Chelation Therapy: A Class Apart from Intravenous Chelation in Heavy Metal Toxicity

Efficient oral chelation therapy for mercury toxicity and other heavy metal poisoning is now available with DMSA (Meso-2, 3-dimercaptosuccinic acid) and DMPS (2, 3-dimercapto propane-1-sulfonic acid). These oral chelators are water soluble and can be administered in the tablet form. The sulf-hydryl structures present in their structure is responsible for the property of chelation. These structures bind mercury in the body, leading to its excretion.

Oral chelators were derived from dimercaprol, also known as British anti-Lewisite, (BAL). BAL has been used for chelation therapy in heavy metal poisoning since the 1940’s. In 1975, Friedheim demonstrated that DMSA was a better choice than BAL for chelation therapy in mercury toxicity. These oral chelators also have a milder toxicity profile compared to BAL and D-penicillamine. Ever since then, DMSA has been the first choice for oral chelation therapy for mercury poisoning.

In acute mercury toxicity, DMSA is given at a dose of 10 mg for every kilogram body weight divided over three times a day for five days. For example, a 60 kg person would be prescribed 200mg of DMSA, three times a day, for 5 days. Then the frequency of administration is reduced to twice a day for the next fourteen days. Thereafter, oral chelation therapy is guided by blood and 24-hour urine mercury levels. Chelation should be continued until the mercury blood level and the 24-hour urine mercury level falls below 20 microgram per liter.

Comparison of Oral Chelation Therapy with BAL in Mercury Toxicity:

• Convenience of administration: Oral chelators are taken in the tablet form, whereas BAL needs to be given as painful injections into the muscles. Oral chelators are especially useful in chronic mercury toxicity (apart from acute toxicity) where long-term chelator therapy is required.

• Oral chelators are stable at room temperature for long periods. They retain their chemical structure and function despite exposure to the environment whereas BAL is unstable and very susceptible to oxidation.

• Chelation therapy using oral chelators like DMSA does not have any toxic effects on the brain. Some injectable chelators, like BAL for example, redistribute organic mercury from the system to the brain and may worsen the neural function in organic mercury toxicity. On the other hand, an oral chelator like DMSA removes mercury from the brain. Studies done on animals also highlights that oral chelation with DMSA is the most effective chelation therapy, reducing mercury levels up to 66.6% from the brain in organic mercury toxicity.

• High Safety Margin: The dose required to produce toxicity using oral chelators is very high compared to the dose required for therapy. This room for error allows oral chelation therapy to be used safety without close monitoring by a physician. On the other hand, chelation therapy with BAL has to be monitored very strictly.

• The safety and efficacy of oral chelators has been proven in multiple studies on animals and human beings. Treatment with DMSA results in the greatest urinary excretion of mercury compared to other heavy metal chelators. DMSA is highly effective in removing mercury from the blood, liver, brain, spleen, lungs, large intestine, skeletal muscles and bones.

Adverse effects:

Oral chelators generally do not produce any major side-effects other than stomach upsets, skin rashes. Very rarely chelation therapy may result in a reduction in blood cells and elevate the liver enzymes. However, they can cause deficiency of copper, zinc manganese and molybdenum. These minerals must be supplemented when oral chelation therapy is prescribed. The oral chelator, DMPS may cause asthmatic attacks and a reduction in blood pressure in some patients. Oral chelators remove mercury by excretion in urine. Therefore, they can only be used in people with normal kidney function.

Reference:

1. Anderson O (2004) Chemical and biological considerations in the treatment of metal intoxications by chelating agents. Mini Reviews in medicinal chemistry 4, 11-21.

2. Anderson O, Aaseth J (2002) Molecular mechanisms of in vivo metal chelation: implications for clinical treatment of metal intoxications. Environmental Health Perspectives 110, 887-90.

3. Miller AL (1998) Dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA), a non-toxic, water-soluble treatment for heavy metal toxicity. Alternative Medicine Review 3, 199-207.

4. Clarkson TW, Magos L, Myers GJ (2003) The Toxicology of Mercury — Current Exposures and Clinical Manifestations. New England Journal of Medicine 349, 1731-37.

About the Author: Dr.Nelson Hargove is a practising physician and seeks to provide the latest medical consensus from peer-reviewed medical literature.

Further information on Oral Chelation Therapy is available at Awake Nutrition (http://www.awakennutrition.com). You could also find some very effective oral chelating agents, like PCA-rx, here (Oral Chelators: http://www.awakennutrition.com/about.html ).
Article courtesy by: Kamikaze World News Portal

Bypassing Bypass SurgeryChelation Therapy: A Non-Surgical Treatment for Reversing Arteriosclerosis, Improving Blocked Circulation, and Slowing the Aging Process

In his definitive book on chelation therapy, Dr. Cranton clearly explains what chelation is, what it does, and how it works.

Chapter Listing:
1. Chelation? It must be something new!
2. The Making of a Chelation Doctor
3. The Story of Judy
4. Chelation Therapy: What it is, What it does, and How it works.
5. To Be — or Not to Be — Chelated: What Every Heart Patient Should Know.
6. The Calcium-Chelation misconception
7. First, the Good News: Other Chelation Payoffs
8. Now, the Bad News: You’ll Have to Foot the Bill
9. Harvard Snubs Chelation
10. Clinical Research: All Good!
11. The Real Dangers You Haven’t Been Warned About.
12. The Chelation Experience
13. You Have Other Alternatives
14. Anti-Free Radical Prolongevity Diet
15. Life After Chelation — Eight Things You Can Do to Live Healthier, Longer
16. What About Bypass Surgery and Angioplasty?
17. The Final Word — Take This to Your Doctor
18. Case Histories

Iron Chelation-Quality of Life SurveyWith the potential for major changes to available iron chelation in the near future, the Anemia Institute has undertaken a couple of research studies to learn more about the impact of Desferal chelation on quality of life and school, work, social life, etc. These studies will significantly help patients and open doors for other oral chelators that are on the horizon so that patients will have a choice of options for their iron chelation. Your answers and contact information will be kept strictly confidential.
Open to Canadian patients only.

Critics, backers weigh in on chelation therapy

Updated Mon. Sep. 5 2005 9:02 PM ET

Avis Favaro, Elizabeth St. Philip, CTV News

Desperate parents of some Canadian children with autism are turning to a radical and unproven treatment, using drugs to remove often disturbingly high levels of toxic environmental chemicals being found in their bodies.

They claim that it’s helping their once incommunicative, unsociable children act and learn more normally. But some doctors worry that these well meaning parents may be unwittingly endangering the health of their children with medications that carry serious risks.

For the parents of 9-year-old Nathan Cromie, the decision to try chelation therapy was made out of desperation. He was diagnosed with mild to moderate autism when he was three years old. He spent his days rocking back in forth, unable to respond to requests.

“His language was limited. He made noises … He would [make the same noises] over and over and over again,” said Nathan’s father Charles Cromie.

“I found him hard to manage. It was like talking to a wall. He wasn’t just unresponsive. He was unreachable,” said his mother, Julie Cromie.

Doctors told Julie and her husband Charles that Nathan would likely never be able to dress himself.

When they went looking for a cause for the autism, there was none. Treatment programs to help with Nathan’s language and behavioural problems had long waiting lists.

The Cromies tried a number of approaches, including special diets, vitamin supplements, self-administered programs to improve his attention skills. With each program, they saw small improvements but nothing they considered significant.

Then they discovered the theory that some children with autism may have a genetic abnormality that allows their bodies to store unusually high levels of toxic environmental chemicals, like mercury and lead.

It’s part of a highly-debated question that suggested mercury — which until recently was included as a preservative in childhood vaccines — caused autism. Studies have consistently found no link between vaccines and the illness.

But some doctors suspect environmental chemicals being dumped into the air and water may be playing a role in autism.

“In the autistic group, there seems to be a higher incidence of heavy metals — mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic,” said Dr. Paul Cutler, a family doctor working in Burlington Ontario.

That’s why he and a small group of Canadian doctors are trying out chelation therapy on autistic children found to have high levels of metal.

Chelation therapy has been used for decades to treat metal poisoning. Drugs are administered in pill form or in intravenous solutions to bind to the metals in the body and them flush them. They are excreted in the urine.

“You don’t know until you remove the metals and then you see what improves,” explains Cutler.

One of Cutler’s patients is Nathan. His first blood and urine tests three years ago showed mercury levels that far exceeded recommended minimum limits and high levels of lead and arsenic.

According to Cutler, lead levels should be less than 20 micrograms per deciliter of urine. Nathan had over 100 micrograms. Mercury levels, meanwhile, should not be over 5 micrograms per deciliter; Nathan’s were in the 20s.

Where the chemicals came from, his parents don’t know. But they do know that as soon as Cutler began administering the chelation therapy, Nathan started making progress they had never seen before.

“Within a couple of weeks, it was like a penny dropped. All of a sudden, he wasn’t afraid to go to the toilet anymore,” said his mother Julie.

“You have to realize how dramatic that is for a parent. You have a six-year-old and it’s hard to find diapers,” said Charles.

Subsequent tests have shown that the levels of these chemicals in Nathan have been dropping, from 51 units of mercury to 5.4 in the latest test. Aluminum is all but gone in his system, although there are still significant levels of lead.

Autism occurs in 5 per 1,000 children, making it one of the most common childhood illnesses — more common than Type 1 diabetes and Down’s syndrome. There are treatments to improve behaviour and social skills. But there are often long waiting lists for therapy and not all children improve.

The chelation movement is in part being pushed because parents simply have few options in the standard medical world. Its advance is fuelled by anecdotal reports by parents who say it’s helped their children and by some preliminary studies.

But autism specialists aren’t impressed with the data so far and consider chelation dangerous.

“We absolutely do not have any of what I consider scientifically sound evidence that chelators are going to make a difference for children with autism,” said Dr. Wendy Roberts, who treats autistic children at the Bloorview MacMillan Children’s Centre in Toronto.

The drugs can cause damage to the liver and kidney, as well as to bone marrow.

Last month, a five-year-old autistic boy went into cardiac arrest and died after receiving intravenous chelation treatment of EDTA at the Advanced Intergrative Medicine Center in Portersville, Penn.

The coroner’s office has performed an autopsy. Results will be known in a month. Though a link hasn’t been confirmed, the news unnerves some autism specialists.

“I don’t think it is a good idea. There is no clinical benefit of chelation therapy for autism and clearly a proven risk,” said Dr. Donna Seger, Medical Director of the Tennessee Poison Center and past president of the American Academy of clinical toxicology

Dr. Cutler agrees. Chelating drugs can have side effects, but says accredited practitioners order regular blood and urine tests to watch for problems.

Still, researchers say there’s no evidence heavy metals are linked to autistic symptoms. What’s more, many children improve on their own – advances that parents may attribute to autism. Finally, there have been no gold-standard studies to convince experts the therapy works.

Julie Cromie says chelation hasn’t completely cured Nathan. He still has some symptoms of autism, but he has improved to where he is a social talkative nine-year-old who will enter a main-stream school program this fall. Her faith in chelation, she feels, has been rewarded.

“The thing is there is hope for us now, whereas before it felt hopeless. We now feel there is hope he will have a normal life if he continues to make the progress he is making,” said Cromie.