Chelation Therapy: Breakthrough or Bust for Heart Attack Prevention?

Please prepare yourself for medical whiplash. Brace for a trip down a rabbit’s hole into a Wonderland of contradictions. Mainstream medicine believed for many years that chelation therapy was worthless for cardiovascular health. Then a randomized controlled study called TACT (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy) suggested that this approach actually showed some modest benefit for people who had experienced a prior heart attack (JAMA, March 27, 2013). There were 1708 patients in this clinical trial.

The results of the EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid) chelation therapy trial shocked the cardiology community. 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.

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.”

New Data Contradict the Contradictions:

Get ready to walk through the looking glass. The Cheshire Cat is about to start grinning because of new contradictions to chelation therapy:

The latest twist in the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy was just published in JAMA Internal Medicine (March 3, 2025). The new study was called TACT2. It recruited 1000 volunteers with diabetes and a history of a prior heart attack. The recruitment of subjects was completed by December 2020.

500 participants got 6 caplets daily containing 28 different multivitamins and minerals (OMVMs). The other 500 participants got placebo caplets. Now it gets a tad confusing. Each group was further divided to receive either 40 weekly EDTA chelation therapy infusions or matching placebo intravenous infusions.

This kind of clinical trial is called a 2 x 2 factorial design “…so the effects of EDTA and OMVM [multivitamins and minerals] could be examined both separately and in combination.”

The Results of the TACT2 Chelation Therapy Study:

“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 [muiltivitamins and minerals] alone or in conjunction with EDTA-based chelation did not reduce cardiovascular events.”

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.

One group of 187 volunteers completed the study after receiving 40 infusions of active EDTA. They received placebo vitamin and mineral caplets. In that group 34 died. A smaller group of 176 volunteers received 40 placebo infusions. They also got placebo vitamin and mineral caplets. In this smaller group 43 died.

I am left with the question, was there a statistically significant difference between the EDTA groups that did not get extra vitamins and minerals? As far as I can tell, the researchers did not answer that question.

Perhaps an objective statistician who can crunch numbers better than I can will answer the question of whether pure EDTA chelation therapy without extra vitamins and minerals was superior to placebo infusions. The unanswered question then is: does chelation therapy without extra high-dose vitamins and minerals offer any detectable cardiovascular benefits?

What Is EDTA Chelation Therapy Anyway? A Short History:

Chelation (pronounced key-lay-shen) is a way of removing toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic, iron, uranium or cadmium.

I first learned about EDTA chelation therapy for treating lead toxicity in graduate school over 50 years ago. To repeat, 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.

EDTA was originally developed as a water softening agent in the 1930s. 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 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 even has FDA approval for this application.

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.

Chelation Therapy and Heart Disease?

By the mid 1970s we were hearing from some integrative physicians that EDTA chelation therapy was helpful for people with heart disease and poor circulation. 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.

EDTA was supposed to bind to calcium from the plaque that lines coronary arteries. Infusions of EDTA and vitamins also removed magnesium, lead, aluminum, cadmium, zinc and iron from the blood stream 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.

The People’s Pharmacy and Chelation Therapy:

Despite many glowing reports of success, we remained agnostic. In our minds there just wasn’t enough data to draw clear conclusions about the benefits or risks of EDTA chelation therapy. 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 was no solid scientific support for such therapy.

Mainstream medicine seemed dead set against this approach. Many cardiologists and other physicians believed it was at best a placebo and at worst snake oil. After all, injecting a bag of liquid into veins is psychologically impressive. And patients paid a lot of money out of their own pockets for the many repeated IV infusions. Organizations like the AMA (American Medical Association), the AHA (American Heart Association) and the ACC (American College of Cardiology) came out strongly against using EDTA chelation for cardiovascular disease. It was perceived as ineffective and possibly dangerous, even though there were no data on either count.

Because so many patients were undergoing this treatment anyway, the government decided to sponsor a long-term study called TACT (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy). It was overseen by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Patients were recruited into the study if they had experienced a heart attack at least 6 weeks prior to the study. They were randomized to get either 40 infusions of EDTA plus vitamins and minerals or placebo infusions.

To refresh your grasp of what the initial TACT study uncovered, scroll back to the top of this article and reread the first several paragraphs.

Cardiologists Still Skeptical:

The results of the TACT research surprised mainstream medicine. That EDTA chelation was 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.”

But EDTA is not a new drug. It has been used in medicine since the 1950s to treat both mercury and lead poisoning. That’s why the cost of the “drug” is actually very low. It is no longer under patent.

How Safe Is EDTA Chelation Therapy?

Mainstream medicine has been quite concerned about safety of EDTA chelation. Cardiologists have warned about kidney damage, low blood pressure and low calcium levels.

Interestingly, in the TACT study, the number of serious adverse events were identical in the EDTA chelation and high dose vitamin group to the placebo infusion and placebo vitamin group (13% in both). If this were a drug trial, the investigators would conclude that the medicine didn’t cause any more side effects than placebo and was therefore safe.

The new TACT2 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine (March 3, 2025) concluded:

“There was no evidence suggesting harm from the EDTA-based infusion or oral vitamin therapy in any of the categories of adverse events.”

Reader Responses:

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 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.

Please share your own experience below and share this article with anyone you think might appreciate it.