Some people contend that the pollutants we are bombarded with daily cause a buildup of lead, other metals, and harmful minerals in the blood. They further suggest that this is a major cause of heart disease.
I’ve long been a skeptic, but new research has persuaded me to take a second look.
Every year, about 100,000 Americans undergo chelation, an intravenous process that uses a chemical substance (EDTA) to bind minerals and metals in the body so that they can be excreted through the urine.
I had long dismissed chelation for treating heart disease because I didn’t see evidence that it works. But the results of a recent clinical study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine indicate otherwise.
For this multicenter trial, called TACT (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy), researchers divided 1,708 heart attack survivors into two groups; one half received chelation therapy and the other half got a placebo treatment.
The subjects were followed for about five years to determine whether chelation reduced the likelihood that they would suffer a cardiovascular event such as:
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Angioplasty
• Cardiac bypass surgery
• Hospitalization for chest pain
Thus far, two studies have been presented from this research. In March, scientists presented findings to the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions demonstrating that chelation therapy, given in combination with high doses of vitamins, reduced the risk of cardiovascular events by 18 percent.
In the part of the study that looked at vitamins alone, there was no effect.
A few months earlier, using the same data, researchers had found that patients who received chelation alone also reduced their risk — though not as much as when vitamin therapy was added.
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