Chelation Therapy: Hope, Hype, and the Latest Heart Science

, iChelation therapy for heart disease has been controversial for decades. It has been praised by some as a lifesaver and dismissed by many cardiologists as quackery. Mainstream medicine has mostly insisted it was useless or even risky. Physicians who provided chelation therapy infusions maintained that it was beneficial while thousands of patients swore it cleared their arteries, eased their angina, or saved them from bypass surgery. Then came the first big TACT (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy) clinical trial, which blindsided the experts by showing unexpected cardiovascular benefits (JAMA, March 27, 2013). Suddenly, Chelation Therapy wasn’t so “alternative” and easy to disregard.

But medical controversies rarely end neatly. A second major study, TACT2, has now arrived with a very different verdict, throwing confusion back into the mix (JAMA Internal Medicine, May 1, 2025). Patients are still reporting dramatic improvements, doctors are still divided, and the evidence now reads like a tug-of-war between hope and skepticism. If you’re trying to make sense of the contradictions, you’re in good company—and the latest science may help clarify what’s hype, what’s hope, and what we still don’t know.

What Is Chelation Therapy?

Chelation (pronounced key-LAY-shen) is a way of removing toxic heavy metals from the body. EDTA stands for a tongue-twister compound: Ethylene Diamine Tetraacetic Acid. When injected intravenously, this compound has the ability to circulate throughout the bloodstream and bind to or “chelate” metal ions from tissues, facilitating their removal from the body.

A Brief History:

EDTA was originally developed in Germany as a water-softening agent in the late 1930s and early 1940s. During World War II, chemists were looking for antidotes to arsenic poisoning because this mineral was found in a chemical weapon called lewisite (the “Dew of Death”). EDTA was not very effective in this regard and another chelating agent called BAL (British anti-Lewisite) was developed to treat arsenic poisoning.

EDTA was first used medically in 1947 when a doctor at Georgetown University Medical Center used it to reduce toxic levels of nickel that a cancer patient had accumulated because of chemotherapy. During the 1950s, doctors used EDTA to detoxify workers exposed to excessive levels of lead while working in battery factories or repainting old ships. EDTA has FDA’s blessing for this application. It is an “approved” treatment that physicians around the world employ when needed.

Chelation for Heavy Metal Poisoning:

People who have been exposed to toxic amounts of lead or mercury often benefit if they receive infusions of EDTA. This compound binds tightly to the minerals, so that when it leaves the body, it takes them with it. The use of EDTA is not controversial for such purposes.

Some of the patients treated for metal or mineral toxicity (aluminum, arsenic, calcium, copper, iron, lead, mercury) noticed a wide array of improvements. Some reported less chest pain (angina), while others believed that their ability to concentrate improved, along with fewer aches and pains.

Cardiovascular Complaints and EDTA:

In 1956 an article was published in the American Journal of Medical Sciences (Dec. 1956) titled: “Treatment of Angina Pectoris with Disodium Ethylene Diamine Tetraacetic Acid”.  The authors noted that calcium and cholesterol form plaque inside coronary arteries. Narrowing of those vessels could lead to reduced blood flow that triggers angina pectoris (chest pain).

The authors treated 20 patients with this condition and reported that:

“…19 obtained unusual symptomatic relief. The abnormal electrocardiograms of 6 patients reverted to normal patterns under EDTA therapy. In 7 there were fixed changes of old myocardial infarctions [heart attacks].”

As was common in those days, the physicians described a number of case reports in which EDTA chelation therapy led to dramatic symptom improvement. Other reports in the medical literature followed–from the mid 1950s through the 1970s–and also described reduced cardiovascular complaints.

Modern medicine mostly rejects such reports. Today, “Evidence-Based Medicine” requires randomized controlled trials in which both patients and physicians are “blinded” as to who gets active treatment and who gets placebos. That way suggestibility is supposed to be reduced, if not eliminated.

Chelation Therapy for Heart Disease: How Did This Start?

By the mid-1970s, we started hearing from some integrative physicians that EDTA chelation therapy was helpful for people with heart disease and poor circulation. And patients scheduled for bypass surgery were telling us that after a series of intravenous injections, their chest pain disappeared, their ability to exercise improved, and they postponed or completely reconsidered their plans for bypass surgery.

The Theory:

EDTA was supposed to bind to calcium from the plaque that lines coronary arteries. The theory was that it would help reduce the burden of atherosclerosis. Infusions of EDTA and vitamins also removed magnesium, lead, aluminum, cadmium, zinc, and iron from the bloodstream and from tissue.

By reducing calcium in plaque, the theory went, blood flow to the heart would improve and complications from atherosclerosis would be diminished. An antioxidant action was also believed to reduce inflammation both in arteries and in other soft tissue. By 2007, it was estimated that over 100,000 people were seeking out chelation doctors each year for this prolonged IV treatment.

Real People, Real Experiences:

We were skeptics, though. There weren’t any randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials to provide evidence. We agreed with mainstream cardiologists that case reports were not convincing.

Despite our skepticism, we began receiving communications from readers of our nationally syndicated newspaper column. Some of these people had tried chelation therapy for cardiovascular conditions and were convinced that they experienced benefit.

Here’s what one reader told us about his angina pectoris and EDTA chelation therapy:

“I was diagnosed with two severe blockages in my coronary arteries following an initial angina attack. Three cardiac surgeons wanted to operate, and they all told me I would die without surgery. They also said that EDTA chelation was a scam, that it did not work and that any doctor doing chelation was a charlatan and ripping me off.

“I tried it anyway and started to improve within three months. Prior to this treatment I could not lift 5 pounds without chest pain. (I own a bakery and routinely used to unload up to 2,000 pounds from delivery trucks). Within six months I slowly increased my ability to lift up to 50 pounds. Within the year I was back to unloading pallets of flour. I never had another angina attack since starting chelation. I had about 50 sessions in that first year. That was quite a while ago. I still have not needed heart surgery and I did not die!”

A nurse sent in this question:

“I have run into two people who declined bypass surgery and opted for chelation (EDTA) IV therapy. Both of these individuals were doing great five years after they started treatment. What is your opinion regarding this option?”

William offered this story:

“I had severe angina in 1999 and was scheduled to go for an angiogram procedure. I didn’t fancy this, as it was considered dangerous. I then heard of chelation therapy and even though it was expensive I decided to give it a try—two or three treatments a week for a month and then I tapered off to once a week and then to once a month.

“After about 20 treatments my angina was completely gone and I went back to an active life that included walking three rounds of golf a week. I have stayed active all these years and my angina never came back.”

Where Is the Evidence EDTA Chelation Actually Works?

Despite many such glowing reports of success, we remained agnostic for years. In our minds there just wasn’t enough data to draw clear conclusions about the benefits or risks of EDTA chelation therapy for heart disease. Most physicians discounted positive patient experiences as meaningless without solid scientific data.

We were also put off by the high cost of EDTA chelation. The material itself is inexpensive. We couldn’t understand why doctors were charging so much to drip an intravenous solution of EDTA into someone’s vein, especially if there were no solid scientific support for such therapy.

Then the government decided to sponsor a large, well-controlled study. For the first time, real data arrived to the consternation of many cardiologists.

When the first Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) landed in JAMA, the results shocked the cardiology community (JAMA, March 27, 2013).

TACT enrolled 1,708 patients who had already suffered a heart attack. They received 40 infusions of either EDTA or placebo, along with either multivitamins or placebo pills. The combination of active EDTA plus vitamins produced a modest but statistically significant benefit in preventing subsequent cardiovascular events. This is not what the experts expected. Most assumed that a long-lasting placebo-controlled trial would prove that chelation therapy was worthless or even dangerous.

As one analysis put it:

“These results provide evidence to guide further research but are not sufficient to support the routine use of chelation therapy for treatment of patients who have had an MI.”

Additional Analysis of TACT:

Further analysis of the TACT trial concluded that post-heart attack patients with type 2 diabetes:

“demonstrated a marked reduction in cardiovascular events with EDTA chelation” (Circulation Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, Jan. 2014).

Again, this is not what the cardiology community was anticipating.

Additional review of the data from the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy was even more positive. The researchers found a high-dose vitamin/mineral regimen plus chelation significantly reduced the chance of heart attacks, strokes or cardiovascular hospitalizations in these patients compared with placebo (American Heart Journal, July, 2014).

The conclusions of this analysis in a highly respected and conservative heart journal were:

“In stable post-MI [heart attack] patients on evidence-based medical therapy, the combination of oral high-dose vitamins and chelation therapy compared with double placebo reduced clinically important cardiovascular events to an extent that was both statistically significant and of potential clinical relevance.”

A comment published in the American Heart Journal (July, 2014) encouraged cardiologists to keep an open mind about chelation therapy:

“When evidence conflicts with expectations, the findings are typically discounted…we should not let our biases blind us to the possibility that unexpected results might provide an important clue for a new approach.

“It is critical to use the scientific method to test our beliefs against the evidence. Simply dismissing results that we did not expect would ignore opportunities to expand knowledge and the armamentarium of effective therapies.”

For once, the data—not the dogma—seemed to have the upper hand.

Chelation Therapy Meets: TACT2

Fast forward to 2025.

TACT2—the long-awaited follow-up to the original TACT trial—recruited 1,000 heart attack survivors with diabetes, the group that had seemed to benefit most in the original TACT trial (JAMA Internal Medicine, May 1, 2025).

Participants were again randomized in a 2×2 design:

• EDTA + vitamins
• EDTA + placebo vitamins
• Placebo EDTA + vitamins
• Double placebo

After years of infusions, monitoring, and data collection, the verdict came in:

“The results of this randomized clinical trial demonstrated that, for participants with chronic coronary disease, diabetes, and a previous MI [heart attack], high-dose OMVM [oral multivitamins and minerals] alone or in conjunction with EDTA-based chelation did not reduce cardiovascular events.”

No benefit. No breakthrough. And importantly, no replication of TACT’s eye-catching results.

But the study also did not show harm. The authors wrote:

“There was no evidence suggesting harm from the EDTA-based infusion…”

So where does that leave us?

What About EDTA Alone?

I am not a statistician, but I would have to agree with the authors that it appears the high-powered vitamin and mineral formulation did not protect against cardiovascular events with or without EDTA chelation. What was not included in this analysis that I could discover was a discussion of the effect of EDTA alone. The TACT2 publication did not clearly separate outcomes for EDTA alone, without the vitamin cocktail.

Yet the raw numbers hint at something interesting:

• 187 participants completed 40 active EDTA infusions (placebo vitamins). 34 died. We calculate that as 18%.
• 176 participants completed 40 placebo infusions (placebo vitamins). 43 died. That’s 24%.

Was that difference statistically significant? We don’t know—because the investigators did not report it.

It is frustrating when a long, expensive, federally funded trial leaves an important question unanswered. Chelation Therapy deserves clarity, not ambiguity.

Chelation Therapy: Safer Than Critics Predicted

Mainstream cardiology has long warned about:

• kidney damage
• low calcium
• low blood pressure
• unknown long-term risks

But the TACT trial showed no more adverse events in the EDTA group than in the placebo group (13% in both). TACT2 reported the same: no signal of harm.

Cardiologists Remain Skeptical:

The results of the TACT research surprised mainstream medicine. That possibility that EDTA chelation might be better than statin-type medicines in preventing a second heart attack shocked many cardiologists. Doctors use something called the Number Needed to Treat or NNT to evaluate drug effectiveness. In other words, how many people need to take a medicine to prevent one bad outcome such as a heart attack? The lower the NNT the more effective the drug.

In the TACT study, you would have needed to treat 12 people with EDTA chelation to prevent one heart attack after five years.

The authors state:

“This compares with the 5-year NNT of 16 for statin therapy for secondary prevention.”

Put another way, EDTA chelation outperformed statins because fewer people needed to receive treatment to achieve a desirable outcome. Remember, these were all high-risk patients who had already had one heart attack!

If a new medication were developed by a pharmaceutical company that could reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke, especially in high-risk populations (like those with diabetes), the cardiology community would be jumping for joy. We would likely see commercials on television to “ask your doctor if EDTA chelation therapy is right for you.”

Then along came TACT2. Mainstream medicine breathed a giant sigh of relief. EDTA chelation was ineffective.

So…Is Chelation Therapy Good for the Heart?

Here is the honest answer: we still don’t know.

• The original TACT trial showed cardiovascular benefit.
• The TACT2 trial showed no benefit.
• Both trials showed no evidence of harm.
• Patient experiences—while anecdotal—are often striking.
• A key question (EDTA alone, without vitamins) remains unanswered.

And because EDTA is an old, inexpensive compound with no financial incentive behind it, a large, long-lasting, impeccably designed trial—the kind that could settle the issue once and for all—will almost certainly never be done.

That leaves patients and clinicians in the same place they started: navigating conflicting science, strong opinions, and deeply personal decisions.

The Bottom Line on Chelation Therapy

Atherosclerosis remains a mystery. We still do not truly understand why plaque forms, why it ruptures, or why some people deteriorate while others stabilize. Against that backdrop, it’s entirely conceivable that EDTA Chelation Therapy might help some individuals—even if we can’t yet explain how.

But until an impartial, objective, long-term randomized controlled trial is funded—and we doubt it ever will be—the controversy will continue. Chelation Therapy will remain suspended between hope and hype, with patients forced to make choices based on imperfect evidence.

Reader Reports:

Here are some unscientific stories from visitors to this site:

Dan shares this experience:

“In 1986 I had non-invasive diagnostic procedures that established significant artery blockage in both my legs. My kidneys were functioning at less than 50% to remove creatinine.

“I had 24 treatments of EDTA with lab urine tests every five treatments. After 24 treatments my indicators had improved enough to stop the treatments. I sat in a room with 20 other patients for the 4-hour IV drip. Next to me was a doctor (M.D.) and 2 or 3 others who had been sent home to die.

“The EDTA began to do amazing things for the other patients. In my mind, EDTA may have saved my life even as it did for several others in the treatment room with whom I associated on a weekly basis. I am now 78 years old and I have no return of the symptoms I previously experienced. I am pretty much a vegetarian now, including the avoidance of dairy products, and I work a good bit at gardening and outside yard work. I should walk more, and drink more water.”

L.E. and her family:

“My husband and I plus my mother–she at age 80–started treatments.

“She was so confused in her mind she could not make reasonable sense talking. She took 10 treatments of chelation. She got full recovery of her thinking and could talk and answer anyone perfectly. She lived to be 93 and did not take more treatments, but kept her clearness of mind very well to her death.”

“My husband took 25 treatments. His mind also got better. His blood pressure got much lower for the rest of his life. He did take some treatments when he was in his early 70s, and it helped blood pressure and thinking.”

“I was not as bad as my mother or husband. It helped my thinking. I had some heart problems which it also helped. I am now 89 and doing very well – clear mind and my heart is not having failure or the routine old age effects. I know chelation did help me in many ways. I am not taking it and haven’t for the past 15 years.”

William offered this story:

“I had severe angina in 1999 and was scheduled to go for an angiogram procedure. I didn’t fancy this, as it was considered dangerous. I then heard of Chelation Therapy and even though it was expensive I decided to give it a try–two or three treatments a week for a month and then I tapered off to once a week and then to once a month.

“After about 20 treatments my angina was completely gone and I went back to an active life that included walking three rounds of golf a week. I have stayed active all these years and my angina never came back.”

We are the first to admit that these are anecdotes. Most physicians would discount such stories as meaningless, but coupled with data from the original TACT trial, one might assume that some people may get benefit from EDTA chelation therapy. Then again, the TACT2 trial does not show any cardiovascular benefit when EDTA is combined with high-dose vitamin and mineral supplements in patients with diabetes who had survived a heart attack.

For now, anyone considering chelation therapy should discuss it thoroughly with their healthcare provider, understand the costs involved, and recognize that the jury is still out on its effectiveness for cardiovascular disease.

Final Words:

We welcome your stories, your questions, and your experiences. The EDTA conversation is far from over. If you think this article is worthwhile, please share it with friends and family. We try very hard to present evidence in a balanced way. When there is a contradiction, such as that with EDTA chelation therapy, we try to tell it as we see it. We hope you appreciate our efforts.