Chelation Therapy -- Not the same as chelated minerals.

Many people have misunderstood the term chelation as it applies to mineral nutrition. There is an alternative therapy process on the market known as ‘Chelation Therapy’ which sometimes gets confused with the nutritional terminology of ‘chelated minerals’. I would like to clarify some of the confusion surrounding this misunderstanding by explaining specifically what each are.

Let’s start with the scientific term chelation or to chelate. On a molecular level scientist have a specific name for different types of bonds between atoms and molecules. Chelation refers to a molecule that attaches to a single atom or mineral at two places. This particular two point bond is unique and thus carries some unique qualities about it. The molecule that attaches to the mineral at two points is called a chelating agent. There are many different chelating agents available to bond with minerals. Some chelating agents will bond very easily with minerals when eaten. Some chelating agents require a very precise laboratory condition to chelate to minerals. As well, some of these chelating agents exhibit very strong bonds to their host mineral while still other chelating agents will easily give up their mineral in the body’s specific biomechanical functions.

Chelation therapy is generally an alternative therapy option when a condition of mineral toxicity is indicated. Minerals such as mercury, lead and arsenic are just a few of the known toxins to the body. This therapy procedure administers a chelating agent into the body to perform the chelating process in the body to remove these toxic minerals. It is important to note that this process is not selective in the mineral the agent will chelate with. The administered chelating agent will bond with all the good nutritional minerals in the body as well as the toxic ones. The agent will bond with the minerals in such a strong way as to pull these from the body and be excreted. This process must be very carefully monitored as an imbalance may occur with the good nutritional minerals and cause physical body trauma.

Chelated nutritional minerals such that Albion manufactures in our state-of-the-art facilities replicates a natural process that takes place in our bodies during digestion. Over 50 years ago our founder Dr. Harvey Ashmead discovered the previously unknown process our digestive system uses to absorb nutritional minerals into the bloodstream. The bodies stomach and digestive track is like a chemistry lab in that it uses temperature, acid and food substance to isolate and reorganize the core molecules into a form the intestinal lining can absorb into the  bloodstream. The inorganic mineral once chelated in the digestive process is now an organic molecule structure.

Dr. Ashmead discovered that in order for nutritional minerals to be absorbed by the body these minerals had to first be made into an organic molecule by the chemistry lab of the body. The organic mineral form he discovered was a chelated mineral form. There are two ways your body gets chelated mineral forms; one way is in nature, plants and animals have chelated mineral forms in their matter which we eat and the body readily absorbs; the second way is the body has the ability to chelate minerals in the digestive laboratory. The material we eat or ingest will have chelated and not chelated mineral forms in it. Here is the problem, our bodies are not very efficient at chelating raw (inorganic) minerals so many of these minerals that are ingested pass right out of the body. Generally people’s diets do not include all the mineral RDA’s on a daily basis or even weekly or monthly basis thus creating a deficient situation and a need for supplementation.

Unless  the mineral supplements you take are pre-chelated with a very specific amino acid to make them an organic molecule your body will not absorb them with the efficiency of Albion chelated minerals (also known as increased bioavailability). Mineral supplements such as calcium carbonate (coral calcium, sea shell calcium, egg shell calcium) calcium phosphate or calcium citrate are inorganic mineral forms. The same is true of inorganic iron and zinc forms like iron fumarate and iron sulfate, zinc oxide, zinc gluconate and zinc acetate. To further complicate matters as we age our body become less able to digest and extract vital mineral assets which is why pre-chelated mineral supplements are the best option to guarantee optimal bioavailability.