werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (07/14/85)
The FDA has moved to ban the sale of capsules sold in "Chelation therapy" for heart disease on the grounds that the treatment in worthless. Chelation therapy is supposed to prevent and even reverse the builup of fatty deposits that can block arteries and cause heart attacks. The therapy utilizes special encapsulated substances [Chelating agents] that are supposed to combine with the deposits and dissolve them. Companies and clinics offering the therapy says it works in the same way as treatment for some kinds of metal poisonings. But the FDA says that the therapy does not work on fatty deposits. [ To interject, chelation is taught in courses in Inorganic Chemistry. It, by definition, is the surrounding of a charged metal ion, by 'ligands,' a term for the molecules that surround it. Usually 4 or 6 ligands surround a simple metal ion to form a complex metal ion. The behavior, is limited to charged metal ions in solution. Fat deposits are neither charged nor metallic.] The agency says it can't begin to count the health food stores, mail order houses, and door-to-door salesman who are touting chelation therapy. The FDA has warned they face legal action unless they stop selling their products within 10 days. The 5 products are Cata-chalex, Atherol, Life and Flow Oral Chelation Formula, and two separate products called Orachel. For an example of a non-conventional treatment for heart disease that DOES work, see the next article on Nathan Pritikin. -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner "The world is just a straight man for you sometimes"