Update on Chelation Therapy

One of the questions asked during Tuesday’s Conference Call was about chelation therapy for helping with memory. I didn’t find any research to support that outcome, but a couple of studies have been published on chelation therapy with cardiovascular disease (CVD). One paper was from the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy or TACT study.

Chelation therapy is used to eliminate heavy metals with the goal of reducing the metals that can be toxic to the body. While it’s been used for decades, the research hasn’t demonstrated a clear benefit.

For the TACT trial, researchers recruited over 1,700 subjects. In this paper, they used a sub-group of subjects from the original study who had diagnosed diabetes and had a heart attack more than six months before the study began. Half the diabetic subjects received chelation with EDTA (ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid) as well as some vitamins and minerals. The other half were infused with just saline solution. All subjects were given low doses of vitamins and minerals.

Subjects were infused once per week for 30 weeks and then biweekly and bimonthly until 40 sessions were completed. Each chelation session lasted three hours. With the investment of time, did the chelation therapy result in fewer cardiovascular events over the next five years? We’ll see on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?