EDTA Chelation has been successfully used for more than 60 years. Please take your time and review the information, articles and studies related to EDTA Chelation.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the synthetic amino acid, EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid), as a pharmaceutical agent for the treatment of lead and other heavy metal poisoning or exposure. In older literature, the FDA also approved intravenous EDTA treatment as possibly effective in occlusive vascular disorders; arrhythmias and atrioventricular induction defects and in the treatment of pathologic conditions to which calcium tissue deposits or hypercalcemia may contribute other than those listed above. These possibly effective indications were removed from FDA-approved literature in the late 1970's for reasons known only to the FDA. Fortunately, physicians are not limited solely to FDA-approved indications and may prescribe approved drugs for whatever conditions they find them to be effective. Consequently, since EDTA is approved for the treatment of heavy metal poisoning (especially lead), many physicians continue to use pharmaceutical EDTA with great benefit in many diseases and conditions other than their officially approved uses.

In addition to the controversial but widespread recognition of EDTA's intravenous benefits, is its less well-known clinical uses when administered orally. Early clinical studies with EDTA reported loss of fat in rats, reduction of cholesterol in rabbits, and reduced blood pressure in humans. Consequently, a study of the effects of oral EDTA on patients with atherosclerosis and/or hypertension was conducted on 10 patients. Four of these patients had hypertension, four had angina pectoris, one had peripheral vascular disease (intermittent claudication), and one was recovering from a heart attack. All were treated with 1gm of oral EDTA daily for 3 months. Seven of the ten patients experienced significant reductions in their cholesterol levels, and blood pressure was reduced in all ten. The most marked change occurred in the patient with intermittent claudication, whose cholesterol dropped from 278mg per 100ml to 128. This patient also reported improved exercise tolerance, and the researchers found improved pulsations in the extremities. The four patients with angina pectoris also all reported improvement.

In a series of 20 patients who suffered from hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, angina or peripheral vascular disease, one gram of EDTA was administered orally every day for 3 months. During that short time, elevated cholesterol levels in nine of the patients dropped to within the normal range. No adverse results were experienced by any of the patients. Angina attacks were reduced in frequency and severity in five individuals. One person who previously had suffered a heart attack and experienced several angina attacks daily thereafter, obtained complete relief.

In another study, two patients with extremely elevated cholesterol were treated with oral EDTA. One patient took EDTA in progressively increasing doses ranging from 500mg to 4 grams daily for one year, and the other took 1 gram daily for three years. Although the first patient suffered a heart attack after three years of therapy, she recovered uneventfully, and had reduced angina pains and improved sense of well-being with continued use of EDTA. The second patient - in addition to hypercholesterolemia - had a condition known as xanthomatosis (yellowish papules in the skin, related to elevated blood lipids). She not only experienced dramatic reductions in her cholesterol levels with oral EDTA treatment, but her skin lesions completely resolved. Other laboratory studies (including kidney and liver function) remained normal throughout the study for both patients. This is further confirmation of the safety of oral EDTA, considering that doses as high as 4 grams daily were consumed.

Further support of the anti-atherosclerotic effects of oral EDTA are provided by Italian researchers who found that 2 grams of oral EDTA daily were effective in reducing blood cholesterol. Scientists at Wayne State University quantified reversal in atherosclerotic plaque in rabbits that were treated with daily subcutaneous EDTA injections.

Fifteen patients with well-documented impairment of cerebral blood flow were studied utilizing the isotope technetium 99m. A highly significant improvement (P=.0005) in cerebral blood flow occurred following approximately twenty intravenous infusions of di-sodium EDTA. All fifteen patients improved clinically, including one with little or no improvement in measured cerebral blood flow. EDTA chelates and removes aluminum as well as calcium. Aluminum has been incriminated in senile and pre-senile dementia. This study is especially noteworthy in view of the fact that medical science has no other effective treatment for many of these conditions. Radioactive nuclide studies were performed at the Nuclear Medicine Department of the Lon Beach Memorial Hospital, California.
 

Four patients are presented, each of whom represents end stage occlusive peripheral arterial disease with gangrene of the involved extremity. These patients had exhausted all traditional forms of therapy and they had all been referred for surgical amputation. Instead of surgery, intravenous EDTA chelation therapy was instituted with complete success in each case. These gangrenous extremities all healed and were saved from amputation. Long-term follow-up, extending for more than a year, indicates that all four patients are continuing to do well, with their previously gangrenous extremities intact and pain free. Adjunctive therapies included vitamin and mineral supplementation and, in two cases, hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Ninety Percent Reduction in Cancer Mortality After Chelation Therapy with EDTA Walter Blumer, M.D. and Elmer M. Cranton, M.D. Dr.W.Blumer practices general medicine and chelation therapy in Netstal, Switzerland.

Mortality from cancer was reduced 90% during an 18-year follow-up of 59 patients treated with EDTA chelation therapy. Only one of 59 treated patients (1.7%) died of cancer while 30 of 172 nontreated control subjects (17.6%) died of cancer (P = 0.002). Death from atherosclerosis was also reduced. Treated patients had no evidence of cancer at the time of entry into this study. Observations relate only to long term prevention of death from malignant disease, if chelation therapy is begun before clinical evidence of cancer occurs. Controls and treated patients lived in the same neighborhood, adjacent to a heavily traveled highway in a small Swiss city. Both groups were exposed to the same amount of lead from automobile exhaust, industrial pollution and other carcinogens. Exposure to carcinogens was no greater for the studied population than exists in most other metropolitan areas throughout the world. Statistical analysis showed EDTA chelation therapy to be the only significant difference between controls and treated patients to explain the marked reduction in cancer mortality. Faculty of the University of Zurich Medical School reviewed this data

NOTE: The above study shows benefit only as a preventative, before any evidence of cancer was detected. Chelation was administered in relatively young patients who had no evidence of cancer at the time of treatment. They were subsequently followed for another 18 years. The results therefore cannot be applied to patients with an established diagnosis of cancer.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is currently conducting the largest trial to date; a 5 year, $30 million, 2,300+ patients study on EDTA Chelation for Coronary Artery Disease.
Click here to view the NIH Study here

References:

H. Richard Casdorph, M.D., Ph.D., is Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California Medical School, Irvine, California. He practices in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease at Long Beach, California. He received his training in cardiovascular diseases at the Mayo Clinic and received his Ph.D. degree in Medicine from the University of Minnesota. He has also taught at UCLA Medical School and has been Chief of Medicine at Long Beach Community Hospital.

Calcium disodium edetate and disodium edetate. Federal Register, Volume 35, No. 8, Tuesday, January 13, 1970, 585-587

Perry, H. Mitchell, Schroeder, Henry A. Depression of cholesterol levels in human plasma following ethylenediamine tetracetate and hydralazine. J Chronic Diseases, 1955, 2: 5, 520-532

Schroeder, Henry A. A practical method for the reduction of plasma cholesterol in man. J Chronic Diseases, 1956, 4: 461-468

Perry, Jr., and Camel, G., Some effects of CaNa2EDTA on plasma cholesterol and urinary zinc in man, in: Metal Binding in Medicine, by Marvin J. Seven and L. Audrey Johnson (eds), 1960, J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 209-215

Mariani, B., Bisetti, A., and Romeo, V. Blood-cholesterol-lowering action of the sodium salt of calciumethylenediaminotetraacetic acid. Gazz Intern Med e Chir, 1957. 62: 1812-1823

Wartman, A., Lampe, T.L., McCann, D.S., and Boyle, A.J. Plaque reversal with MgEDTA in experimental atherosclerosis: Elastin and collagen metabolism. J Atherosclerosis Res, 1967, 7: 331-341

Foreman, H., Trujillo, T. The metabolism of C14 labeled ethylenediaminetetra-acetic acid in human beings. J Lab Clin Med, 1954, 43: 566-571

Born, G.R., and Geurkink, T.L. Improved peripheral vascular function with low dose intravenous ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA). Townsend Letter for Doctors. July, 1994, # 132, 722-726

Gordon, G. Oral Chelation with EDTA. J Holistic Medicine, 1986, 8: 1 & 2, 79-80