Chelation therapy

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Chelation therapy is a medical procedure that involves the administration of chelating agents to remove heavy metals from the body. Chelation therapy has a long history of use in clinical toxicology and remains in use for some very specific medical treatments, although it is administered under very careful medical supervision due to various inherent risks, including the mobilization of mercury and other metals through the brain and other parts of the body by the use of weak chelating agents that unbind with metals before elimination, exacerbating existing damage. To avoid mobilization, some practitioners of chelation use strong chelators, such as selenium, taken at low doses over a long period of time. Chelation therapy also has a history of fraudulent use in alternative medicine, to treat claimed effects of heavy-metal exposure on problems as disparate as heart disease, cancer, and autism. Chelation therapy must be administered with care as it has a number of possible side effects, including...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Fvasconcellos 16:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC), Public domain