Removing plaque from arteries
Removing plaque from arteries
8/28/2004 12:00 PM
By: Ivanhoe Broadcast News
According to the National Institutes of Health, coronary artery disease (CAD), is the most common form of heart disease.
In CAD, the coronary arteries — the vessels that bring oxygen-rich blood to the tissues of the heart — are blocked by deposits of a fatty substance called plaque. As plaque builds, arteries become narrower and less oxygen and nutrients are transported to the heart.
The condition can lead to serious problems, such as angina (pain caused by not enough oxygen-carrying blood reaching the heart) and heart attack. Approximately 7 million Americans suffer from CAD. It is the leading cause of death among American men and women and more than 500,000 Americans die of CAD-related heart attacks each year.
The National Institutes of Health has launched the Trial To Assess Chelation Therapy. TACT is the first large-scale, multi-center study to determine the safety and efficacy of EDTA chelation therapy for individuals with coronary artery disease.
Chelation is a chemical process in which a substance is used to bind molecules, such as metals or minerals, and hold them tightly, so they can be removed from the body. In medicine, chelation has been scientifically proven to rid the body of excess or toxic metals. For example, a person who has lead poisoning may be given chelation therapy to bind and remove excess lead from the body before it can cause damage.
In the case of EDTA chelation therapy, the substance that binds and removes metals and minerals is EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid), a synthetic amino acid that is delivered intravenously.
EDTA was first used in the 1940s for the treatment of heavy metal poisoning. EDTA chelation removes heavy metals and minerals from the blood, such as lead, iron, copper, and calcium. It is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in treating lead poisoning and toxicity from other heavy metals.
Although it is not approved by the FDA to treat CAD, some physicians and alternative medicine practitioners have recommended EDTA chelation as a way to treat the condition. Some researchers say chelation therapy works by removing calcium from the arteries. The American College for Advancement in Medicine estimates more than 800,000 visits annually are made for chelation to treat CAD.
Cardiologist Harmony Reynolds, who heads the trial at New York University, said chelation is controversial mainly because patients often seek it in lieu of the many standard therapies available for coronary artery disease.
Clinical Cardiologist John Barnard, from St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, calls chelation therapy “a worthless therapy that is expensive and time-consuming.”
The theory that chelation could treat calcified arteries doesn’t make sense, he said.
“The more calcium that is in the arteries, or the higher the calcium score, the more likely and the more severe the coronary artery disease is, so the theory always was if you get rid of the calcium then that should fix the arteries and the arteries should improve,” Barnard said.
Barnard said the problem is calcium buildup forms later after cholesterol so once the arteries are calcified, the damage is already done.
“If you start removing calcium from the body, the calcium in the arteries and the blood vessels compared to the calcium in the bones is really a drop in the bucket,” Barnard said.
The issue then becomes how to remove calcium from the arteries and not the bones, Barnard said.