Heavy Metal Body Detoxification
Body detoxification has been associated with the removal of harmful toxins from the body in order to ensure that health is maintained at optimum levels. But this is not only the line that the process crosses. It can be utilized in order to salvage a person's life in emergency life-threatening situations.
Chelation therapy is the usage of chelating agents to flush out heavy metals from the body's system. Heavy metal poisoning is commonly caused by the likes of mercury, arsenic, and lead. In the US, standards of care state that the medium called dimercaptosuccinic or DMSA should be used to address such occurrences of intoxication. Nevertheless there are other chelating agents that can be tapped on. These are alpha lipoic acid or ALA and 2, 3-dimercapto-1-propanesulfonic acid or DMPS.
The use of chelating agents was first practiced when poison gas was released during WWI. The organic dithiol compound named dimercaprol was the antidote set to combat the arsenic-based poison gas called Lewisite. In terms of British setting dimercaprol was tagged as BAL or Anti-Lewisite. The sulphur atoms in BAL's mercaptan groups
had the key ability of creating a strong bond with arsenic. This led to the formation of a water-soluble compound that went to the bloodstream and was excreted via the liver and the kidneys.
At the conclusion of WWII numerous navy personnel was plagued by lead poisoning because of their job of repainting the hulls of ships. Since BAL had severe side effects EDTA or ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid replaced it as the primary chelating medium. It is characterized by a synthetic amino acid having no mercaptans thus the side effects were much manageable. Upon the entry of the 60's, BAL was modified to create DMSA which is also a dithiol but with even fewer side effects. It then replaced EDTA and became the standard treatment for mercury, lead, and arsenic poisoning.
Studies done in the former Soviet Union led to the birth of DMPS which is a dithiol that acts as a chelating agent for mercury poisoning. The Soviets then added ALA which when ingested is processed by the body into dihydrolipoic acid giving it the ability to resolve both mercury and arsenic intoxication. The US FDA accepts ALA as a common nutritional supplement but DMPS is on an experimental status.
A real-life evidence of the body detoxification component of chelation therapy can be traced way back in 1976. It featured the case of Harold McCluskey who is a nuclear worker that was exposed to life-threatening levels of americium. Diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid or DTPA was used on him for many years in order to expel 41 MBq of americium from his system. When he died 11 years later the cause had nothing to do with the americium poisoning.