Chelation Therapy In Florida -- Government Hearings
| Subject : | Florida study to assess controversial chelation therapy as treatment for heart d | |
| From : | Norm³©® - storman3@gate.nospam.net | |
| Date : | 2001-03-08 (16:57:56) |
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Published Thursday, March 8, 2001, in the Miami Herald QUACKERY, OR QUICK FIX? South Florida study to assess controversial chelation therapy as treatment for heart disease. BY CHRISTINE MORRIS cmorris@herald.com Sylvia Green says chelation therapy saved her life. Six years ago, the right artery leading from her heart to her brain was 95 percent blocked. She was told surgery was her only hope, and the prospect terrified her. In search of an alternative, she decided to try chelation, a controversial but widely used infusion of a synthetic amino acid called EDTA. Two years later, her carotid artery was less than 50 percent blocked. By the summer of 1999, it was down to 30 percent. ``If it weren't for chelation,'' said Green, 92, who lives in Sunny Isles Beach, ``I wouldn't be here talking to you.'' Dr. Gervasio A. Lamas, director of cardiovascular research and academic affairs at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute, wants to find out how chelation might have worked for Sylvia Green -- and whether it could help other people with artery disease. ``A conventional physician will say, `That's a crazy idea,' '' Lamas said. ``It may be, but I don't know that.'' Thousands of patients swear that intravenous chelation treatments have helped them with everything from hypertension to impotence, from memory loss to diabetes. Case reports are legion, but thorough scientific studies are few. In the Pilot to Assess Chelation Therapy, Lamas will be joined by doctors at several other medical centers to figure out how patients with a history of heart disease might respond to chelation. ``Most conventional doctors have decided that it's quackery, and alternative medicine doctors have decided that it's a panacea,'' Lamas said. ``I don't know where the truth is.'' Even the practitioners who swear by it as a treatment for all kinds of ailments aren't sure exactly how chelation, an intravenous drip of ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid, works to help arteries. `A LOT OF THEORY' ``That is a subject of a lot of controversy and a lot of theory,'' said Dr. Martin Dayton, Green's physician in Sunny Isles Beach and the author of a self-published book on chelation. ``The idea is to improve body chemistry by removing toxic materials.'' The explanation may lie in the fact that the infusion, which also includes several vitamins, is a major anti-oxidant. If chelation works, Lamas said, it works by decreasing the oxidation (cell change) of LDL, or bad cholesterol. Oxidized LDL is much more toxic to the lining of blood vessels than regular LDL, Lamas said. It is taken up rapidly by the white blood cells and forms atherosclerotic plaque. ``By decreasing the amount of oxidation that occurs we will be able to block some of this effect,'' Lamas said. After chelation treatments the researchers will measure the function of the lining of the blood vessels, called the endothelium. The EDTA binds with iron and copper, both of which are involved in oxidizing LDL. It is this binding with metals, after which the body excretes the resulting chemicals, that forms the basis of chelation's longtime use as a treatment for lead poisoning. In the 1940s and '50s, Lamas said, patients getting chelation for lead poisoning began noticing that their angina was going away. ``That began an increasingly controversial use of chelation therapy for coronary artery disease,'' Lamas said. The chelation controversy has been pronounced in Florida. The state Board of Medicine conducted public hearings last year, deciding after being overwhelmed by proponents that it wouldn't clamp down on the treatment. AMA POSTURE The American Medical Association supports the use of chelation for only a few conditions, including heavy metal toxicity. The Food and Drug Administration also considers the treatment investigational for such ailments as cardiovascular disease. ``But we find that many drugs are used for many purposes quite effectively without having actually been approved by the FDA,'' said Dayton, who is both an MD and doctor of osteopathy. He and other proponents say chelation, which is often accompanied by nutritional and lifestyle changes, combats degenerative processes throughout the body. ``I'm thrilled and I applaud Dr. Lamas for having the courage to look into this,'' Dayton said. ``Hopefully, he'll have a non-biased study done appropriately that will satisfy all people on both sides of the issue.'' Lamas' interest began when a patient asked him if he should try chelation. ``I realized I didn't have any basis for saying no,'' Lamas said. He launched his study with funding from the Miami Heart Research Institute. Infusions, which will be conducted in Dayton's office, should begin in the next couple of months. Thousands of case reports claim benefits from chelation, Lamas said. But few randomized trials have been done. ``It's pretty different -- it's cool,'' Lamas said. ``Large studies always start when I ask myself, `Why am I saying this? Why am I doing this?' '' Dayton says chelation has given his patients relief from the leg pain and poor circulation of diabetes. He also says it has provided dramatic improvement for some people with macular degeneration. Sylvia Green, who received chelation infusions three times a week for three or four hours each time, says they helped her arthritis as well as her clogged artery. In a draft report about Green's case, Dayton writes, ``This controversial so-called experimental or investigational therapy may become the future standard of care for avoiding geriatric vascular surgery in appropriately selected cases.'' SUPPORT URGED Dr. L. Terry Chappell, who has performed chelation therapy in Bluffton, Ohio, for years, testified before the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform in 1999, urging more support for chelation research. ``The potential benefit is staggering,'' he told the committee in citing reports that chelation patients had avoided bypass surgery. ``Not only might we lower the major causes of death and improve the quality of life for millions of patients, but we might also define an effective therapy for such problems as macular degeneration, critical limb ischemia and vascular related dementia, all of which have no treatment from conventional medicine that is effective.'' Green tells of sitting in Dayton's office one day, getting her chelation infusion, when a couple walked in and began asking questions about the treatment as a possibility for the woman's blocked carotid artery. Green took the woman under her wing. ``I told her what had happened to me,'' Green said. The patient decided to try the therapy. ``Six months later, so help me God, she said she didn't need an operation,'' Green said. ``What more can I say?'' http://www.miami.com/herald/content/features/health/digdocs/014266.htm |