Heavy Metal Screening

Toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium are plentiful in our everyday lives. These are considered contaminants both of our environment and our bodies when present in any more than trace amounts. It is useful to determine the body burden of these toxic metals in order to determine how aggressively we need to be in effecting their removal. 

Hair Mineral Analysis is a very cost-effective and painless way of screening for chronic heavy metal accumulation. A small amount of hair is collected from the base of the scalp (the last inch closest to the scalp) at the nape of the neck where removal is not visible. Hair that has just emerged from the follicle provides a good representation of heavy metal exposure in the very recent past. There is a reasonably good correlation between hair mineral content and total body levels. Although hair mineral analysis is not completely accurate, it can provide direction as to where we might want to look further for possible problems. If hair analysis does show significant abnormalities, one may want to implement a program of either oral or intravenous chelation.

• Hair Mineral Analysis

Chelation Therapy as Anti-Aging Medicine

An argument could easily be made that a course of intravenous chelation therapy might provide benefit to almost everyone. A few intravenous chelation treatments for healthy, asymptomatic individuals would be highly beneficial. Because of the perceived inconvenience and expense associated with this therapy, however, many people believe that intravenous chelation therapy should be reserved for the treatment of disease. Newly developed oral chelating agents, however, are now widely available, and represent a revolutionary breakthrough for healthy people as part of their preventive strategies. For healthy individuals, the addition of oral chelation should be considered as part of every anti-aging regimen.

Only about 5 percent of oral EDTA is absorbed from the GI tract. Typically, daily doses of oral EDTA are about 500 milligrams. This means that about 25 milligrams of EDTA is available in the bloodstream to clear heavy metal toxins. Conversely, the average dose of EDTA given in an intravenous infusion is about 2000 milligrams. This means that you would need to take 500 milligrams of oral EDTA each day for 80 days to get the equivalent effect of one intravenous treatment. For healthy individuals, this really isn’t much of a problem. For people suffering from vascular disease, however, 30 or more intravenous chelation treatments are typically needed to produce maximal medical improvement. To achieve this same benefit with oral chelation would take 30 x 80 = 2400 days, or almost seven years. In most cases, this is an unacceptably long time.

Therefore, as a general rule of thumb, we recommend that patients who already have vascular disease, or even significant risk factors for vascular disease, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. undergo appropriate medical evaluation followed by a course of intravenous chelation therapy as indicated. 

Healthy, asymptomatic individuals with no significant risk factors for atherosclerotic vascular disease should consider having a screening evaluation done to see if they show any hidden signs of exposure to heavy metal toxins. This is most easily accomplished by doing a hair mineral analysis. If high levels of heavy metals are detected, then a few intravenous chelation treatments would be highly advantageous. Following this initial therapy, a maintenance program of oral chelation would probably be sufficient. For healthy people with no risk factors and who don’t have any significant build up of heavy metal toxins in their bodies, oral chelation is all that is needed.

Heavy metals are universally present in the air we breathe, and in our water and food supply. Fortunately, the incidence of severe acute lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium poisoning is rare. Chronic, low-level exposure to lead in the soil and in lead-based paint, to mercury in dental amalgams and in seafood, to arsenic in the soil and to cadmium in second-hand cigarette smoke is unavoidable. As noted above, heavy metal toxins have the ability to bind to our critical enzyme systems and render them useless. In addition, these toxic heavy metals serve as potent free radical generators. Doing some form of chelation therapy to reduce our total body burden of heavy metal toxins offers an added dimension to any anti-aging program.

• Oral Chelation Products

Summary of Chelation Recommendations