Chelating agent in Cilantro

I have been trying to convince my co-worker that Cilantro has a chelating agent in it. There are plenty of articles on the possible chelating effects of Cilantro and studies that have been done on mice.

The only problem, I can't seem to find anywhere what that chelating agent is and if it can cross the blood-brain barrier.

Does anyone know the answer to this?

Originally posted by mlprior
I have been trying to convince my co-worker that Cilantro has a chelating agent in it. There are plenty of articles on the possible chelating effects of Cilantro and studies that have been done on mice.

The only problem, I can't seem to find anywhere what that chelating agent is and if it can cross the blood-brain barrier.

Does anyone know the answer to this?

I'm clueless. I'd never even heard of a "chelating agent" before. Try these forums and this database if you don't get a good answer here.

http://www.chemicool.com/forum/
http://www.biology-online.org/biology-forum/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed

This site gives a name - Dr. Yoshiaki Omura.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art7738.asp

However, these mercury deposits, which commonly occur in such cases, were successfully eliminated by the oral intake of 100 mg tablet of Chinese parsley (Cilantro) 4 times a day (for average weight adults) with a number of drug-uptake enhancement methods developed by the 1st author, including different stimulation methods on the accurate organ representation areas of the hands (which have been mapped using the Bi-Digital O-Ring Test), without injections of chelating agents.

http://tinyurl.com/65x6ch

It sounds impressive, but I'm suspicious. This is an acupuncture journal and I believe refers to stimulating organs via the hand which seems to be getting into the realm of voodoo science.

Here are 7 pages of "Omura Y." publications. I'm not seeing much that looks like it will shed light on the topic on a cursory scan.

http://tinyurl.com/5l85qd

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
[i]However, these mercury deposits, which commonly occur in such cases, were successfully eliminated by the oral intake of 100 mg tablet of Chinese parsley (Cilantro) 4 times a day (for average weight adults) with a number of drug-uptake enhancement methods developed by the 1st author, including different stimulation methods on the accurate organ repr ...[text shortened]... to stimulating organs via the hand which seems to be getting into the realm of voodoo science.

I'm skeptical also.

I'm sure it has some chelating action in the liver or other organs but I doubt it can cross into the brain.

Another down side, it is possible that it may also remove important elements such as iron and calcium from your body.

Originally posted by mlprior
I'm skeptical also.

I'm sure it has some chelating action in the liver or other organs but I doubt it can cross into the brain.

Another down side, it is possible that it may also remove important elements such as iron and calcium from your body.

The research I've found suggests it removes lead via a chelating agent.

True, it could do that. Well...that's not hard to search either. Cilantro and Anemia...no results.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
The research I've found suggests it removes lead via a chelating agent.

True, it could do that. Well...that's not hard to search either. Cilantro and Anemia...no results.

That would suck, how do make a decent taco without Cilantro?

A chelating agent is a chemical compound that has a chain which acts as a "bay area" and traps a certain species. After this it forms a ring of about 5-6 sides, depending on the chelating species and the chelated one.

Most chelating species (if not all) have a conjugated electron pair once they're paired up with the chelated species, which gives a different color.

That is the mechanism used to remove some toxic compounds. For the compound to be removed, it has to have some specific characteristics, which I don't know much about except that it should form conjugated electron pairs between them and the chelating species.