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Chelation: Harnessing and Enhancing Heavy Metal Detoxification—A Review
re: heavy metals
My late December tests shows ~16X the typical blood lead level, making me wonder if what I had ascribed to auto-immune thyroid disease (nerve pain and related) might in fact be lead toxicity (Pb and/or Hg), or at least a contributing factor.
I am uneasy about chelation therapy, but since I do not meet the cutoff for poisoning, it’s not even medically indicated.
Chelation: Harnessing and Enhancing Heavy Metal Detoxification—A Review
2013
Toxic metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury are ubiquitous, have no beneficial role in human homeostasis, and contribute to noncommunicable chronic diseases.
While novel drug targets for chronic disease are eagerly sought, potentially helpful agents that aid in detoxification of toxic elements, chelators, have largely been restricted to overt acute poisoning.
Chelation, that is multiple coordination bonds between organic molecules and metals, is very common in the body and at the heart of enzymes with a metal cofactor such as copper or zinc. Peptides glutathione and metallothionein chelate both essential and toxic elements as they are sequestered, transported, and excreted.
Enhancing natural chelation detoxification pathways, as well as use of pharmaceutical chelators against heavy metals are reviewed. Historical adverse outcomes with chelators, lessons learned in the art of using them, and successes using chelation to ameliorate renal, cardiovascular, and neurological conditions highlight the need for renewed attention to simple, safe, inexpensive interventions that offer potential to stem the tide of debilitating, expensive chronic disease.
...As research progresses, harms more subtle than acute poisoning are seen at lower and lower body burdens of heavy metals. For example, early lead exposure is now found to cause IQ decrements at a blood level below 2 µg/dL [15]. The blood lead reference value at which the US Centers for Disease Control action recommends investigation and remediation of a child's environmental exposures is 5 µg/dL, while chelation is recommended at nine times that level above 45 µg/dL [16].
...
Chelation is the basis of much of the physiology of multivalent cations and of the toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics of heavy metals. Recognizing toxicant contributors to chronic disease and conducting research to evaluate chelation strategies and protocols to assess and address toxic metal bioaccumulation offer potential for inexpensive, safe therapies addressing important root causes of today's most costly, prevalent chronic diseases. Future chelation research should include assessment of both essential and nonessential elements.
WIND: that was a decade ago. Not much has advanced in treatment since then; IMO, the medical community has nil interest in addressing root causes of bad health outcomes—much more profitable to sell expensive drugs—follow the money.
