The human body requires essential metals that facilitate biological processes crucial for protein synthesis, wound healing and strengthening tissues. Iron is essential for the formation of hemoglobin, calcium can strengthen bones and copper is required to sustain healthy blood pressure. Your anatomy is regulated by a delicate balance of chemical and physical processes which, if interfered with, can set off a chain of debilitating and potentially fatal dysfunction.
Increasing amounts of metals in your blood can turn toxic to compromise your health and possibly also cause illnesses like diabetes, heart attacks and kidney failure. Chelation therapy is an intravenous treatment that can be used to eliminate toxic metals from the blood by using special chemical compounds (such as Calcium EDTA, Disodium EDTA, DMPS and DMSA) which draw out these metals from the blood and tissues of the body to be excreted out.
The procedure is regularly implemented as treatment for lead poisoning, since Calcium EDTA is particularly effective at binding with lead. Recently, however, an increasing amount of evidence has been presented for the procedure’s efficacy in helping treat Cardiovascular Disease (CVD). The TACT (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy) found that diabetic patients who received chelation therapy had a 52% reduction in recurrent heart attacks, 40% reduction in death from heart disease and many similar promising conclusions. Thus, chelation therapy presents a significant advantage in helping to reduce the risk of heart attack or death from CVD.
How Do Metals Cause CVD and Heart Disease
There is significant evidence that links exposure to heavy metals such as lead to cardiovascular disease. These metals cause damage to the blood vessels by causing oxidative stress from free radicals.
Oxidative stress is associated with a wide range of malfunctions in the body. It occurs from the production of free radicals, which occur naturally in the body in small amounts. When these free radicals are created in high amounts, such as which occurs from a high heavy metal burden as in lead toxicity, the tissues exposed to the free radicals become damaged. Over time, this microscopic level damage accumulates, resulting in disease.
How Does Chelation Therapy Help?
Considering the role of the heavy metals in causing oxidative stress which leads to cardiovascular disease, it is important to remove excess amounts of these metals from the body. This is effectively done by chelation therapy. Chelation medications such as EDTA Disodium can bind with heavy metals in the body, allowing them to be excreted through urine.
How Does EDTA Disodium work?
Disodium EDTA and other chelators are highly soluble in blood and have a strong ability to bind the heavy metals found in the blood. Without the chelation treatment, many heavy metals can remain in the body for a long time, even your whole life. Once they binds to these metals, the new chelate-metal compounds can be carried to the kidneys to be filtered out, thus reducing your ‘body burden’ of the heavy metals.
Chelation Therapy and Integrative Medicine
Integrative Medicine is one branch of medicine that takes a holistic approach to medical treatment. When presented with a symptom, conventional doctors may treat each symptom or condition on its own to help manage the condition.
Integrative doctors on the other take into account the underlying common threads between multiple symptoms and conditions that affect different systems of the body, placing importance on addressing the fundamentals of health such as diet and nutrition, as well as diving deep into each affected system, to identify the deeper root causes for the issues. Once identified, these specialists treat these root causes – in this case, excessive heavy metals – to help treat the illness.
Integrative medicine uses chelation as a preventive measure and as a treatment method for existing CVD (cardiovascular disease).
Other uses of Chelation Therapy include treatment for metal poisoning. Some metals that are of concern and may need to be treated with chelation include: cadmium, lead, mercury, arsenic, cobalt, and gadolinium.
IV Therapy in Sherman Oaks
Vitality Integrative Medicine is an integrative medicine clinic located in Sherman Oaks that offers many kinds of IV therapy including: Vitamin C IV therapy, Chelation IV Therapy, and Ozone IV Therapy. Send them a message to schedule an appointment or give Dr. Jeremy Fischer a call at (424)278-4325 to discuss your treatment options.