Bypassing the heart bypass
Vancouver man credits unproven chelation therapy with aiding his heart condition
When Donald Allchurch discovered he had blockages in the arteries leading to his heart, he asked his doctor about alternatives to a bypass operation. The options were not promising. “He said, ‘ Well, you would eventually increase Lipitor and drugs like that, and die,’ ” Allchurch recalled.
The then- 67- year- old Vancouverite had been in Florida when he felt “a flash” across his chest. “I jumped in a car and drove back to Vancouver because I didn’t have medical coverage,” said Allchurch, who is now 80.
While undergoing the tests that discovered the blocked arteries, he did some research, and came across chelation therapy.
The therapy consists of delivering ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid ( EDTA), a synthetic agent, into the bloodstream via an IV tube.
Chelation therapy was first used to flush poison gas from soldiers’ bloodstreams during the First World War. It has also been used to combat lead, mercury and other types of blood poisoning. The process can be lengthy and costly, and has not been proven to prevent or treat heart disease.
When Allchurch brought up the idea after reading some books — including one called Bypassing Bypass — his cardiologist at the time, whom he no longer sees, was skeptical. “He said, ‘ That causes kidney failure,’ and I thought, ‘ Oh yeah, that’s a real joke.’ Because there was a case where someone did die of kidney failure, but that was because he took too much chelation therapy over too short a time.” Allchurch said the one case was in 1947, but that his doctor described kidney failure as a “common” sideeffect of chelation. “At that point I lost all respect for him.”
However, Allchurch’s doctor wasn’t, and isn’t, the only skeptical member of the medical establishment.
“Chelation hasn’t been approved, and it hasn’t been proven,” said Dr. Sammy Chan, a heart specialist at St. Paul’s and Vancouver General hospitals. “If you want to spend a lot of money, that’s what you do. There is no proof in benefits as far as chelation therapy is concerned,” said Chan, who hasn’t treated Allchurch, and was speaking in general of chelation therapy.
Chan doesn’t believe the procedure itself is harmful, “providing you don’t have kidney failure or heart failure.” But, he said, “If you believe something is going to work and it doesn’t, if it prevents you from using the proven therapy, then it becomes much more harmful.”
Allchurch’s treatments, administered by Vancouver- based naturopath Phoebe Chow, took place over the course of six weeks, twice a week, along with ozone treatments. In the latter, a certain amount of the subject’s blood is oxidized with ozone, and re- injected into the subject. After the six weeks, treatments were reduced to twice a month, tapering off to once every six months over a period of five or six years, Allchurch said.
He believes chelation helped clear plaque from his arteries.
“The pain has shifted, to my lungs,” said Allchurch, who has since been diagnosed with emphysema as well as a faulty heart valve.
Allchurch’s family doctor, Edward Lum, couldn’t substantiate Allchurch’s claim about the effect of chelation.
“I think that would be more of a subjective call. In terms of medical evidence, I don’t think we’ve done any studies to confirm that.”
Naturopath Chow said chelation “was never meant to be a treatment for arteriosclerosis.
But it does have other benefits, like opening up the blood vessels through removing heavy metals.”
She said she thinks chelation helped Allchurch with “his overall cardiovascular functions,” but questions whether it actually opened up the blockages.
“Certainly the initial symptoms, the shortness of breath, the laboured breathing, those things have subsided,” Chow said. “He has much better circulation and his blood pressure was more under control. In terms of clearing the actual blockages, I’d have to look at the followup tests he did with the cardiologist. This was a number of years ago.”
Chow said her clinic treats “a fair number” of clients with chelation therapy. “We usually combine it with ozone and a huge emphasis on lifestyle management — diet, exercise, sleep patterns, stress management, detoxification.”
Allchurch said the treatments themselves were a grind. “You have to sit there with the patience of a saint, for three- and- a- half- hours — just sit in a chair with an IV. It’s a slow process.”
At $ 190 per session, the treatment isn’t inexpensive, either. “It all had to come out of my pocket,” the retired certified management accountant said.
Allchurch adheres to the naturopath’s nutrition program, which he began when he started seeing Chow 13 years ago, and still buys his mineral and food supplements from her clinic.
“Another point,” Allchurch said. “It ( chelation) de- ages you. I could pass for my middle 60s, and I’m 80.”