Chelation Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

The primary Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved indication for chelation therapy with ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) is the treatment of lead intoxication. However, for more than three decades, EDTA chelation therapy has been widely used by alternative medicine practitioners as a controversial treatment for atherosclerotic disease and other degenerative conditions. In 1993, it was estimated that 500,000 people per year in the United States are treated with off-label use of chelation therapy (1). A recent Canadian study revealed that 8% of patients who had undergone cardiac catheterization and responded to a survey used chelation therapy (2). This conservative estimate translates to approx 100,000 patients, at a cost of $400 million annually. Clearly, the magnitude of the use of EDTA chelation therapy as an alternative therapy has become a public health issue. Despite decades of use, EDTA chelation therapy studies on athersclerosis have been extremely few, small in size, and poorly designed, offering few conclusions concerning its effectiveness. If chelation therapy is proved safe and effective in treating ischemic heart disease or peripheral vascular disease, it would represent a new therapeutic modality and would gain widespread application. However, if chelation therapy is ineffective for coronary artery disease (CAD), these data will provide important information to the public and allow for informed decision making.