How to dissolve Atherosclerotic plaques?

[Jogeshwar]

Does endogenous bile salt dissolve  Atherosclerotic plaques?
How?
Any other modes of treatment to dissolve  Atherosclerotic plaques?

[erijon]

What do other authorities say about this treatment?

Food and Drug Administration: In the absence of evidence of safety and effectiveness, the use of this treatment for atherosclerosis is investigational. To date, no physician or sponsor has filed a plan or protocol to study its (EDTA’s) use in such treatment.

No party has ever provided us with an organized submission attempting to show that it is an effective therapy in atherosclerosis; instead, we have been handed unorganized data without any attempt to describe a formal study.

Under the circumstances, we have had no choice but to attempt to prevent improper promotion of the drug and to point out its unproven status.

American College of Physicians: Chelation therapy with EDTA has been used in the treatment and prevention of atherosclerosis. Because of the risk of severe renal (kidney) toxicity and lack of objective evidence suggesting therapeutic benefit from EDTA therapy … such therapy should be regarded as investigational and (should be) conducted under carefully controlled conditions in an academic institution by experienced investigators.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health: There is no reason to expect benefit from chelation in the management of arteriosclerosis. More importantly, there has been no scientific evidence of such benefit — and there is scientific evidence of no benefit.

American Medical Association: The AMA believes that chelation therapy for atherosclerosis is an experimental process without proven efficacy. They have also reaffirmed their 1984 House of Delegates Resolution stating:

"…there is no scientific documentation that the use of chelation therapy is effective in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer;

"…if chelation therapy is to be considered a useful medical treatment for anything other than heavy metal poisoning, hypercalcemia, or digitalis toxicity, it is the responsibility of its proponents to (a) conduct properly controlled scientific studies, (b) adhere to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for the investigation of drugs, and (c) disseminate results of scientific studies in the usually accepted channels."

American College of Cardiology: There is insufficient scientific evidence to justify the application of chelation therapy for atherosclerosis on a clinical basis. At the present time, therefore, chelation therapy should be applied only under an investigational protocol.

Isn’t it true that practicing physicians and medical organizations oppose chelation therapy because widespread use of this procedure would mean a loss of income to cardiovascular specialists, particularly surgeons?

No. Organized medicine opposes chelation therapy because it’s an unproven procedure and it involves extreme risks to patients who receive it.

The truth is that physicians who treat cardiovascular diseases could significantly increase their income if chelation therapy was a scientifically proven treatment procedure. Many people have atherosclerosis, but only a relatively small percentage develop problems severe enough to require surgery. If chelation were scientifically proven, EDTA could be administered to everyone who had atherosclerosis. Surgery can be done on only one patient at a time. With chelation, the number of patients who can be treated is limited only by the amount of room in the practitioner’s office.


Says it all.......

Jon

[Rosemary349]

Just a thought.....

The only positive and decisive work on this subject that i've found, which appears safe and may allow the body to reverse the build up of plaque is the dietary approach put forward by Dr Caldwell Esselstyn.

www.heartattackproof.com

[BrokenPen]

Just a personal opinion. I don’t trust chelation, and I think that EECP is acting more like a placebo in patients with unexplained angina, for the simple reason that unexplained angina has no apparent cause, and logically nothing can be solved if the cause is unknown.

[ed34]

What is the overall credibility of chelation therapy?

I have been kicking myself since responding to this on another post. I have no idea why, but I confused chelation with eecp. Chelation in my opinion is just a nonsense therapy which clinics are making a lot of money from. A bit like waving a magic crystal over your body to cure cancer.
However, EECP, does look very promising. Many patients who experience angina for no explanation (even with no seen blockages) seem to benefit a lot from the treatment. It does seem to require top ups though.

[ed34]

Even bio degradeable stents pose a problem, well, one that I can see anyway. A lot of the fat is actually under the natural Lumen of the artery. How can you possibly remove this?  I was given an option by  a cardiac surgeon to treat my LAD other than a redo-bypass/stenting. He proposed to perform a complete 'open end type arterectomy' on the vessel. This involves making a small incision at the base of the artery and pulling out the entire Lumen layer. It can be very tricky and was a VERY risky option. The only bonus would have been to remove ALL the fats and disease, including that under the lumen hidden away. From what I can gather, and even then there are many different opinions, the fats under the Lumen will eventually be removed by the body. However this takes lifestyle changes and medication to ensure you keep your blood chemistry well balanced. So, maybe in retrospect, if an artery has the obvious plaque removed, is stented with a bio degradeable stent, the body will do the rest. I have a feeling it will be one of those things where only time will tell when it hits the public.

[asgardshill]

"A bit of a basic description :)  but not really practical. The problem is, the lining is made from living cells and you can't just split a cell in half to align it to the cell, or missing cell, next door."

Meh.  Good thing I'm an amateur plumber and not a cardiologist.  I guess the Tim The Tool Man Taylor wing of the Mayo Clinic I'd planned to leave some of my millions of virtual dollars to build is out of the question now ... ;)

Your observation that current stenting technology can place additional strain on an artery seems to be a sound one.  All that plaque and corruption and rough material has to go somewhere, and in the case of stenting, it simply gets crushed outward into the walls of the artery the stent is presumably designed to protect. That couldn't be good in the long term because any stent by design narrows and compromises the artery in which it is placed.

I will say I've never been comfortable with the whole idea of non-biodegradable stents in the first place.  In their current form, much like your chronically unemployed brother-in-law, stents remain there forever, drinking your last beer and leaving disgusting smells in your living room couch as they eat Chee-tos and watch Youtube videos all day long. The idea of a biodegradable stent that does its job then goes away is much more attractive to me from an engineering and a medical standpoint.