In 1974 as a senior at Kansas State College, finishing up my degree in Biology/Chemistry I chose for my senior research project "Cadmium poisoning in Blue Green Algae". In this study I learned, first hand, the value EDTA can have on living systems. Plant mitochondria and animal mitochondria operate in exactly the same way, producing energy for living systems. It happens that in the most fundamental "engine" of our bodies, the Krebs Cycle, living systems, both plant and animal, are vulnerable to heavy metal poisoning.
Enzymes are the tools living systems use to extract energy from the nutrients we take in. I do not know the exact number but somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 percent (give or take 10) of these enzymes are "sulf-hydryl" enzymes. That is, they are ordinary enzymes that have a sulfur and hydrogen attached.
This is the problem. Heavy metals are strongly attracted to these sulf-hydryl sites and after attaching they render the enzyme unusable by our systems. What are heavy metals? Lead, we all know lead can kill us, mercury and arsenic, the same. But the list also includes aluminum, cadmium and other metals that we do not normally consider toxic.
So - what's the big deal? First, heavy metals in our systems are like "Hotel California" they check in ok but don't check out. They stay in our cells for a very very long time. Thus we are accumulating them throughout the course of our lives. Second the more heavy metals we have in our system the less efficient our energy manufacturing facilities are. It is exactly analogous to pulling two spark plug wires off the engine of your car. It will not have the energy it needs to perform.
It is my OPINION that many of the gradually debilitating diseases we seem to have so much in this country could be avoided if our bodies were performing at maximum efficiency.
Chelation therapy - what this book is about - "gets the lead out" and the arsenic and the cadmium and the aluminum and restores your body's energy production system back to full steam. This is a good thing!
Not surprisingly, when your body's energy production system is in top shape a lot of very interesting things happen. The blood supply to your brain increases, Your cardiovascular system begins to perform better and on and on and on.
In my research when I had apparently killed a colony of blue green algae completely, nothing left in the E-flask but an ugly brown clump. I could sprinkle a little EDTA in the flask, give it a good shake, and two days later there would be a green vibrant mass of healthy algae!
What do the MDs say? (this is America and I am, so far, still allowed to express my opinions) They do not like it because EDTA is not a patentable compound therefore there is not a lot of money to be made by the drug companies. AND a quadruple bypass makes a lot more money for a physician that $3,000 for a series of ten IV treatments of EDTA. What else do they say? They say that it strips out all of the calcium from your body and you will break all your bones, Also, in my opinion, horse hocky. I have been doing chelation for the last 15 years and I know dozens of folks in the same boat and so far, not one broken bone, or calcium deficiency among us. It is wise to take a mineral supplement when doing chelation so that the body can be assured of maintaining the proper levels of good metals.
Note to L. Berg, another review writer. Do yourself a favor and compare the number of deaths/strokes resulting from bypass surgery to the statistics on chelation. Truth is a good thing!