Government probes chelation-heart disease study

The largest alternative medicine study the government has ever launched has stopped enrolling people while officials investigate whether participants were fully informed of the risks and are being adequately protected, The Associated Press has learned.

The research was designed to test very high doses of vitamin and mineral supplements and chelation, which has not been proved effective for heart disease. Chelation (pronounced kee-LAY-shun) involves intravenous doses of a drug, in this case disodium EDTA, that proponents claim will bind to calcium built up in artery walls and help flush it from the body.

Conventional treatments for heart disease include medicines, surgery and artery-clearing angioplasty.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_on_he_me/med_heart_study_probe