Dangers of Chelation Therapy

By Lawrence Wilson, MD

 

Chelation therapy, a method to remove some toxic metals, is not recommended because it is dangerous and less effective than nutritional balancing in almost all cases.  Chelation therapy is the use of specific substances, either synthesized chemicals or natural ones, to remove toxic metals from a person’s body.  It is widely used by some holistic doctors and naturopaths.  Even drinking reverse osmosis water or distilled water are simple forms of chelation that should be avoided.  Many people today are told that the more they chelate their heavy metals, the better.  This is insane advice, as this article will explain.

Chelation is effective to remove some lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, copper, manganese, and perhaps one or two other toxic metals.  It is also better than bypass surgery in most cases.  However, it will not remove the other dozen or so toxic metals.  Also, and more important, it always removes some vital minerals along with the toxic ones.  These are not easily replaced.  This affects mental development in particular.  It also does not remove as much of the metals as a nutritional balancing program can remove.  Finally, the chelating agents themselves are slightly toxic. These are just a few of the  main reasons I do not recommend it.

 

Chemicals used for chelation. The substances that can be used include prescription drugs such as DMPS, DMSA, EDTA, penicillamine, deferoxamine and others.  The latter two are so toxic they are rarely used.  They also include more natural substances such as high-dose vitamin C, zeolite, montmorillonite, distilled water, reverse osmosis water, some alkaline waters, extracts of cilantro and chlorella, sulfur-bearing amino acids found in garlic, and isolated amino acids such as L-cysteine, L-methionine and L-taurine.  They also include several herbs such as yellow dock and bugleweed.  These substances are sometimes used intravenously, intramuscularly, orally, or more recently in rectal suppository form.

The word ‘chelate’ means to grab onto something.  Thus, chelating agents are substances that have a strong ability to grab onto toxic metals and dislodge them from the tissues so they can be removed.

Chelation therapy is completely different from the concept of chelated minerals.  The latter are minerals that are tightly bound to specific mineral transporters so that they are absorbed faster and better into the body inside the intestinal tract.  In fact, our bodies chelate or bind minerals in the stomach and intestines in order to absorb them properly.

Chelation therapy, however, has nothing to do with absorbing minerals.  It has to do with removing minerals by the use of a specific type of chemical that binds to them tightly and removes them from the body.

 

HOW EFFECTIVE IS CHELATION THERAPY?

Heart disease (arteriosclerosis).  Chelation therapy definitely removes some toxic metals and can improve blood flow to the heart and other organs.  Over one thousand studies confirm this.  Chelation therapy for heart disease, unfortunately, is not medically accepted.  The likely reason for this is that it competes directly with heart bypass and other common surgeries, which are major sources of income – literally in the billions of dollars – for physicians, hospitals, drug companies and others who sell or supply various medical items.

The claim that chelation is not well-researched, or that it is more dangerous than most heart surgery, is false.  The ignorance and deception by the medical journals and authorities on this subject are a sad reflection upon a medical profession that supposedly exists to help people, rather than to harm them or take their money.  The statistics on bypass surgery, for example, show clearly that there are many side effects that would be prevented if nutritional balancing, chelation or other methods such as sauna therapy were tried first.  The cost of chelation and natural methods is at most one third of surgery, and perhaps less than that.  If chelation or other natural methods failed, then surgery might be considered, but that is not the way heart disease is treated today.

Chelation for other diseases such as dementia, diabetes, impaired circulation, and others.  Fewer studies support the benefits of chelation therapy for other conditions, but it can be helpful to remove symptoms in some cases because toxic metals cause so many ailments in modern day society.

Having said this, chelation therapy is not a part of nutritional balancing science, and never will be, for some important reasons that are explained below.  While it is often safer than open heart surgery, chelation is not safe at all compared to nutritional balancing, and not as effective.  In fact, nutritional balancing, in our experience, can accomplish all that chelation does, and can do it far better in every way.

 

PROBLEMS WITH ALL CHELATION THERAPY 

These include the following:

1. Stopping mental and spiritual development.  One of the problems with bypass surgery is that the anesthesia drugs from a long and complex surgery often cause permanent mental impairment.  However, the effects of chelation therapy are even worse, in my experience.  The reason is that by removing tiny amounts of certain forms of minerals such as zinc and selenium, chelation therapy easily stops the development of some of the finer brain centers. Unfortunately, these effects can never be reversed, in my experience to date.

When this type of mental development is stopped or damaged, people report, for example, that they feel less connected to God, the Higher Self, or the holy spirit.  This is devastating for them. 

2. Unbalancing the body.  Chelation rips toxic metals out of the body without regard for the overall balance of the body chemistry.  Replacing minerals with IV pushes and piles of vitamin pills does the same thing, or worse.

If one unbalances the body, the vitality always suffers, even if symptomatic improvement occurs.  This is a major problem with chelation, using either natural and synthetic chelating agents. 

3. Random and erratic removal of vital minerals.  All chelating agents, both natural and synthetic, can remove some essential minerals along with a few toxic metals.  This is a serious problem today for two main reasons.  First, many people are extremely deficient in many essential minerals such as zinc and others.  If one removes even a little of the essential minerals, the person can become much more ill.

Physicians that offer chelation say they replenish the vital minerals with either oral supplements or minerals added to an intravenous chelation bottle.  However, in our experience, replenishing minerals in the human body is a delicate, exacting process and it cannot be done by just ‘dumping’ them into the bloodstream or with random mineral supplements.  Foods are best, in all cases, and this takes time and patience to achieve.

The other problem with removing some essential minerals is that nutritional balancing is all about balancing the minerals in a delicate way.  Giving a strong chemical that removes some of the vital minerals upsets the body chemistry, often in ways that are difficult to repair.  For this reason, removing vital minerals from the body in a random way is usually the worst problem with all chelation – synthetic or natural – that we see.

4. Toxicity of ALL chelating agents including natural ones such as zeolite, distilled and reverse osmosis or RO water, and high-dose vitamin C.  All chelating agents are toxic or potentially toxic.  The synthetic drugs are known to be toxic for the kidneys.  They may also damage the adrenal glands and perhaps other structures.  This is well known in the medical literature about chelation.  This is what led Dr. Eck to shun the use of this therapy.

The toxicity may not be apparent, although some chelation protocols demand that the doctor check the patient’s liver and kidney functioning periodically for this reason.  Unfortunately, normal liver and kidney blood tests are not sensitive enough to detect subtle damage due to chelating agents.  Hair mineral analysis is far more sensitive, and according to Dr. Eck’s research, always shows damage by a reduced sodium/potassium ratio. 

5. Lack of removal of at least a dozen toxic metals.  Chelating agents are helpful for mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, copper and perhaps a few other toxic metals.  However, it will not remove about a dozen others very well for various reasons that are not well understood.  By contrast, nutritional balancing science will remove all of the toxic metals, along with hundreds of toxic chemicals as well.

6. Removal is not deep enough.  Most, if not all of the chelating agents only work in the blood and in the tissues and organs located right near larger blood vessels.  Repeated use of the chelating agents can go somewhat deeper, but then the hazards of chelation such as removing more essential minerals also increases.

In contrast, nutritional balancing science begins at the cellular level and works at this level.  The metals can slowly be removed at deeper levels, as a result.  Several patients of mine had previously undergone 40 or more chelation treatments.  This is usually considered enough to rid the body of lead, mercury or other metals.  However, when these patients went on a nutritional balancing program, they began to eliminate significant amounts of the toxic metals that supposedly had already been removed.  The only explanation I can think of is that deeper deposits were now being removed that were not reached by the chelating agents.

7. Does not address deeper causes. Chelating toxic metals is helpful.  However, it does not address the deeper causes of illness that caused some of the metal accumulation in the first place.

Nutritional balancing approaches the problem of toxic metals from a different perspective.  First one balances the body and renourishes the body.  One also removes the need for adaptations to stress.  Toxic metals often function as adaptations to the stress of mineral deficiencies and other things.

When one balances and renourishes the body, the body does not accumulate nearly as many toxic metals.  Also, the body begins to remove the metals by itself.  Our bodies have millions of years of experience removing toxic metals, and the body can do this easily when it is balanced and nourished properly.

When metal removal is done this way, the toxic metals also will not tend to reaccumulate nearly as much, so less therapy is actually required.

Also, the process is much safer.  The toxic metals can actually perform a useful function to balance certain mineral ratios.  Just pulling them out can be like pulling one’s finger out of a hole in a dike that was holding back the water.  This is why patients sometimes have very bad reactions to chelation therapy.  Such reactions do not tend to occur as much with nutritional balancing science because the emphasis is on balance and nourishment first. 

8. Chelation therapy is an allopathic or drug approach to healing, even if it is offered by naturopaths and holistic physicians. By this I mean that it does not address underlying imbalances, it is somewhat toxic, it never balances the body, and it usually reduces the overall vitality of the body.  I know it does this because it reduces the sodium/potassium ratio which is called the life/death ratio in the body and has to do with the electrical balance of the body.  This is a very critical mineral ratio in the hair tissue mineral analysis, providing the hair is not washed at the lab.

Granted, it may extend life because it can remove calcium deposits from the arteries of the heart, brain, liver and elsewhere.  However, this is not the same as improving overall vitality.

9. Removing toxic metals in an unnatural order. In nutritional balancing, all of the toxic metals are removed in the body’s own order.  This is a complex and delicate process.  The practitioner simply keeps balancing and supporting the overall stress response by balancing the key mineral ratios and oxidation rate, and the body does the rest.

Chelation therapy is more of a ‘sledgehammer’ approach that literally rips the toxic metals out of the enzyme binding sites in a totally unnatural order.  This can cause problems, and, in fact, it slows deeper healing of the body or may cause it to stop altogether.

In addition, because the order is unnatural, some reaccumulation of the toxic metals often occurs, necessitating more chelation therapy in the future.  It is also possible that toxic metals that the body either cannot remove well enough or that reaccumulate for other reason will end up in more vital organs.  This does not occur with a properly designed nutritional balancing program.

10. Cost and necessity.  Intravenous chelation can be somewhat costly, although it is far cheaper than bypass surgery, for example.  Neither one, however, are needed, in our experience, except perhaps in a few cases discussed below.

 

WHEN IS CHELATION THERAPY RECOMMENDED?

I have never recommended chelating agents of any kind, so far.  However, it is possible that it might be the best option in a few situations:

1. Possibly in advanced multiple sclerosis.  In this case, vitality might eventually become so low that a person would not respond to nutritional balancing.  Mercury is always involved in multiple sclerosis, and perhaps chelation could help.

2. Other advanced diseases that are not responding to nutritional balancing might respond to intravenous chelation if toxic metals are a significant part of their cause.  However, I do not recommend chelation for cancer, for example. Perhaps it would help other conditions, although I do not know which those would be at this time.

 

HOW I RECOMMEND REMOVING TOXIC METALS

Toxic metal exposure is universal today.  Everyone has toxic metals.  To read why I say this, read Everyone Is Toxic.  All children are born with some toxic metals that pass through the placenta from their mothers.  This is why removing toxic metals with a nutritional balancing program BEFORE one becomes pregnant is very critical if one wishes to have healthy children.  It does not matter how beautiful a young woman looks, or even if her blood or hair tests indicate that she does not have toxic metals.  They are just hidden in these cases.

After birth, vaccine exposure is an important source of mercury and aluminum, along with food, drinking water, pharmaceutical drugs of many kinds, over-the-counter drugs, cosmetics, and other environmental sources.  These include, but are not limited to air pollution, dental amalgams and other dental materials, and contact with toxic metals at home and at work.

In nutritional balancing work, we assume that everyone has toxic metals because it is true.  I have yet to work with anyone who is not quite toxic.  Toxic metals are not the most important assessment.  It is far more important to figure out a person’s energy level, exact oxidation rate, ability to eliminate toxic metals, ability to digest and assimilate nutrients and a few other parameters of health.

Once this is done, Dr. Eck’s system involves designing a healing program that includes at least 20 methods to gently and safely remove ALL the toxic metals and ALL toxic chemicals in the body at the same time.  They include improving the vitality level, balancing the autonomic nervous system, improving the eliminative organs, the use of antagonists and synergists and much more.  For the specifics of these methods, read Toxic Metals And How To Remove Them.

 

WHERE DO SAUNAS AND COFFEE ENEMAS FIT IN FOR TOXIC METAL REMOVAL? 

In my experience, saunas are the finest single additional modality with a nutritional balancing program for toxic metal elimination.  They combine a number of effects that together produce wonderful results.  They are also safe and very cost-effective.  One can build or buy a light sauna for several hundred dollars or less.  Click here for information about saunas.

In essence, sauna therapy helps rejuvenate the skin, the largest eliminative organ in the body.  It helps decongest the internal organs by shunting blood to the body surface.  It helps to spare and protect the kidneys, as most all toxins eliminated by the kidneys can be eliminated in the sweat.

Heating the body assists it to kill pathogenic microorganisms, and helps destroy weaker, toxic metal-laden cells.  Saunas also drastically increase circulation, assisting to dislodge stored toxins and assisting nutrients to reach all the cells to improve energy output.

The sauna is also a powerful inhibitor of the sympathetic nervous system.  According to Guyton’s Textbook of Medical Physiology, when heat is supplied from outside, normal heat production, a sympathetic activity, shuts down.  Also, shunting blood to the body surface to remove heat requires and causes inhibition of the sympathetic system.

Infrared energy supplied by far infrared and infrared light saunas adds other benefits such as deep tissue heating, decoupling of toxins from water molecules, production of heat shock proteins that help regenerate cellular structures, and more.  Saunas also have a long history of safety that extends over literally thousands of years..

For all these reasons, saunas are the finest single modality for toxic metal removal.  As added benefits, they are also the best methods I have found to remove toxic chemicals, another serious health hazard.  They are also powerful infection-fighters, and able to dig out old chronic infections that deplete one’s energy and secrete biological toxins that are hidden causes of systemic disease.

Coffee enemas.  These are also superb for removing most toxins from the liver and large intestine.  They should be included in any detoxification protocol for this reason.  For more information about this unusual but very helpful therapy that can be done in the privacy of your home, read Coffee Enemas.

 

A TESTIMONIAL

One of our clients, Rosemary G., asked that her experience with chelation be included in this article.  Several years ago, at age 64, Rosemary was diagnosed with mercury toxicity.  Her symptoms included extreme fatigue, a kind of free-floating fear, depression, anxiety, skin problems, and other emotional disturbances.

She underwent more than 20 chelation treatments to remove the mercury, using DMPS and DMSA.  She reported that the treatments did not help her symptoms, but in fact made her more ill.

Her first hair tissue mineral analysis revealed a 0.4 mg% mercury level.  This is over 10 times normal.  She had been told that her mercury level was fine.  After only three months on a nutritional balancing program, Rosemary began to feel normal for the first time in many years.  A retest hair mineral analysis showed an almost 100% increase in her hair mercury level to 0.74 mg%.  This indicates an active elimination in progress.  Rosemary is continuing on her nutritional balancing program and feeling still better, as there is more mercury yet to be eliminated.