Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements | Health Articles

Picture this, a small gathering of people in a ranch house in Florida. Some ordinary wheat flour such as can be found in most homes placed with some water in a zip-lock plastic bag. A magnet is passed over the bag and an extraordinary thing happened. Iron particles start popping out and attaching themselves to the side of the bag. Soon they form clusters of what looked like iron filings. The next experiment involves placing three flakes of a well-known brand of cereal into a bowl of water. The magnet is again passed over the bowl and this time the flakes literally line up and follow the magnet round the bowl. This was the first time that I realised that seemingly ordinary food, which we assume is 'good' for us, is packed with additives, which may be 'bad ' for us if ingested to excess over a long period of time. The example of the breakfast cereal points up the fact that these foods are routinely 'fortified' with extra vitamins and minerals including iron whether the person eating the food needs extra iron or not. There is then, a body of opinion that would implicate such additives as undesirable additions to the diet, a build up of iron in the system for example.The president of a well-known nutrition and vitamin supplements company had invited me to a training session on, amongst other things, the subject of 'Oral Chelation Therapy', which was a particular interest of his. Chelation is a process that enables natural substances, to bind to minerals and which help them either work normally in the body or helps them to be eliminated by the body, thus chelators can be used to rid the body of undesired minerals. The experiments with the magnet illustrated the point that if we had, for example, excess iron entering our bodies on a daily basis there was probably a need for a method by which these excesses could be eliminated. He had long been researching the links between the food we ingest daily, lifestyle and environmental factors and chronic degenerative diseases such as arthritis, cancer, and heart disease.'As the results pour in of research showing the connection of degenerative disease with nutrition, environmental and lifestyle factors, it becomes obvious that the degenerative diseases (diseases of the 20th century) have much more complex roots than the 'bug' model would allow'.Having established that there is a fair chance that we consume more iron than is healthy and an equally good chance that we absorb many other undesirable elements through modern living can any action be taken to ameliorate the situation? The answer probably lies with some kind of Chelation Therapy, particularly form of mild Chelation Therapy, which can be taken on a daily basis as a preventative measure.What is 'Intravenous Chelation Therapy' and 'Oral Chelation Therapy'? The word Chelation means, a process by which a natural (chelating) substance can bind to minerals and help them be eliminated by the body. To examine this topic it is necessary to go back in time to the late 1950's. Several doctors found that EDTA (Ethylene Diamine Tetracetic acid) had a beneficial effect on patients suffering from circulatory problems caused by Artherosclerosis. Also noticed was a lowering of blood cholesterol levels. The reason this therapy as well as heart by-pass surgery evolved were the serious heart problems many people were experiencing due to the clogging or furring of their arteries by 'bad' cholesterol. The arteries became so narrowed as to make the blood flow through the arteries very difficult thus placing enormous strains on their cardio-vascular systems.Heart bypass surgery was the favoured treatment for these severe cases, however the alternative; 'intravenous chelation therapy' was less invasive and needed less recovery time for the patient as well as being an effective treatment. 'Intravenous chelation therapy' consists of an intravenous injection of EDTA, which is a powerful chelator, which binds and promotes the excretion of iron, lead, copper, zinc, cadmium, calcium and other elements. This was given as a slow intravenous drip over a period of three to four hours, thus delivering safe but effective amounts of EDTA in a short time. It is used medicinally for dealing with lead poisoning but it's therapeutic actions go much further, by removing many of the metals implicated in free radical pathology. Interest in the use of EDTA in heart and circulatory disease increased and now physicians are able to perform the therapy under a safe and consistent protocol thus enabling the production of clinical studies and further documentation of the benefits of EDTA in treating cardio-vascular and cerebrovascular disease.EDTA can be beneficial in a range of other conditions, Ischemic Limbs, (limbs with severely restricted blood supply) have been saved from amputation and Cerebrovascular symptoms of Dementia and Ischemia have been reversed and angina can be relieved without surgery. The benefits do not stop at heart and blood vessels and EDTA therapy has been reported to help in many conditions related to free radical pathology for example, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and many other conditions. This is no surprise as EDTA Chelation therapy can remove the metals that cause free radical pathology together with abnormal calcium deposits from the blood vessel walls. Removal of the calcium is thought to
make it possible for the body to easily break down and clear the rest of the fatty material.In practice the EDTA binds most strongly to the worst of the potential free radical- inducer elements and it will bind to this and carry it out of the system in preference to other elements in the body. Thus it would be possible to eliminate undesirable elements such as excess iron, mercury (amalgam fillings in teeth) and lead from the system. Oral Chelation therapy is an alternative to intravenous Chelation. Using a similar principle this is a small percentage of EDTA taken orally and absorbed into the blood. One or two oral doses of EDTA per day taken over a period of many months may have a long-term preventative and therapeutic benefit. While its action is mild, oral Chelation can be advantageous and a useful preventative therapy for people who might be prone to degenerative disease or suffering from iron or heavy metal overload.Several natural nutritional substances can act as chelating agents. Some of which can be found in our food, such as amino acids found in protein, dietary fibre, vitamin C and even the humble aspirin, however if you are looking for stronger, faster results, supplements designed for the purpose are available and extraordinarily effective.