Is Chelation Therapy an Effective Alternative for Heart Surgery?

The rate at which people age and decay is dependant on many factors relating to genes and physiology. However people can age at a more rapid rate due to malfunctioning of sensitive organs of the body like heart, lungs, kidney and liver. Probably more people die every year due to heart diseases than any other medical problem. Conditions like cardiovascular degeneration, peripheral circulatory dysfunction and arteriosclerosis are some of the most common heart related causes for deaths. Though there are several highly skilled surgical procedures to cure or control cardiovascular diseases many also cause severe side effects and other health related problems. In spite of some highly effective medicines and drugs people still die due to various heart problems. Many people believe that such cardiovascular afflictions could be treated by using chelation therapy. It is believed to reduce very common symptoms of heart ailments by slowing down the onset of the disease. Thousands of people each year receive chelation therapy to get a sustained cure or as a prevention of heart problems.

Evidences accumulated so far suggest that most of the common heart ailments occur, most probably, due to the excessive presence of some dangerous heavy metals like iron, copper and calcium in the blood. A constant flow of these poisonous metals in the blood stream over a period of time may cause the blood vessels to grow brittle or weak. Subsequent hardening and ensuing deposits of calcium along the blood vessel may complete the process of degradation of the circulatory system in a gradual process. Early research suggested the possible therapeutic effects of eliminating such dangerous deposits from the blood vessels. Contradictory perceptions indicate that the presence of deposits of calcium, copper and iron is actually a symptom and not a cause. In spite of these differing views, certain sections of medical fraternity continued to show an active interest in removing those deposits of calcium, and thus chelation therapy was a natural outgrowth of this view.

However, the basic question that is asked by many medical experts revolves around one simple query: Is chelation therapy an alternative for by-pass surgery and stints? While this therapy has been followed by people for more than 55 years, neither the drug enforcement authorities nor the medical fraternity has given a clear nod for its effectiveness in treating heart diseases. But, some independent research reports have clearly indicated the possibility of using chelation therapy as a means of curing heart ailments.

Chelation therapy to cure heart diseases is rather simple. In most cases it involves intravenous infusions of well known EDTA (also known as Ethylene Diamine Tetraacetic Acid) to remove toxic deposits of calcium from the blood vessels. EDTA is known to work very well in removing lead from the blood stream of the human body. Supporters of chelation therapy claim that this method is an effective alternative to treatment of heart ailments, either by surgery or by drugs. Though chelation therapy has been used for many years its efficacy in treating heart diseases is yet to be confirmed. The results obtained so far are rather very vague, as well as contradictory, at least in the group trials. It may take a while to create an impeccable treatment regime using chelation therapy.

Patients who are undergoing chelation therapy are advised in taking proper care to counter the possible side effects. Some of these side effects may harm such vital organs like kidney and liver. However, chelation therapy is not really harmful in itself if the procedure is performed according to the rules and treatment guidelines. It is recommended to undergo chelation therapy provided by a physician of high standards.