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American College of Cardiology: Chelation Therapy for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)
Related: atherosclerosis, electrolytes, ethics in medicine, gears of the machine, health, magnesium, nutrition
re: COVID
Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.
Nothing else even comes close to treating coronary artery disease, so it is claimed.
American College of Cardiology: Chelation Therapy for CAD
2021-02-26
Ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (disodium EDTA or edetate disodium), patented in 1938 by Munz, is a chelating agent capable of binding cationic metallic and nonmetallic ions and mobilizing them from physiological tissue in a process termed chelation.1 EDTA can complex with metals such as lead and cadmium, with the EDTA-metal chelate being excreted in the urine. Edetate disodium (the sodium salt of EDTA), which binds to calcium among other cations, was first used to treat hypercalcemia and digitalis intoxication. Later, in the mid-20th century, motivated by the calcification present in advanced coronary disease, practitioners began using edetate disodium to treat symptoms of cardiovascular disease with initially positive, albeit uncontrolled, results.2 These early reports were followed by over 50 years of uncontrolled case reports and case series3 and 3 small clinical trials.4-6 The trials enrolled fewer than 300 patients in aggregate and had surrogate endpoints and short follow-up. Although interpreted as negative, they could not exclude a small-to-moderate benefit of edetate disodium chelation therapy. Despite, or because of, an absence of clear evidence, most traditional physicians shunned the practice.
...The results of TACT, which were widely expected to drive the final nail into the coffin for chelation therapy, surprised the blinded investigators and shocked the traditional medical community. Chelation therapy reduced the risk of cardiovascular events by 18% (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.69-0.99; p = 0.035; Figure 1), with a 5-year number needed to treat (NNT) of 18 patients to prevent an event.9 Continued separation between the two curves at the completion of the study suggested a sustained effect of toxic metal removal by chelation. The addition of oral multivitamin and multimineral to chelation, compared with double placebo, demonstrated even more positive results with a 5-year NNT of 12 (p = 0.016).10
...Recognizing the weight of the TACT results, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology upgraded edetate disodium chelation from a 3C to a 2B indication in their 2014 revision of the guidelines for the treatment of chronic ischemic heart disease.24 Patient-centered clinicians should recognize a new arrow to keep in their quivers for the high-risk diabetic patient. Nevertheless, additional studies are needed to confirm the utility of chelation therapy in post-MI diabetic populations. Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy 2 received funding from the National Institutes of Health for a planning year. This will be a replicative study of edetate disodium chelation in post-MI diabetic patients. Interested investigators should contact Dr. Lamas at Gervasio.Lamas@msmc.com, @glamasmd, linkedin.com/in/gervasio-lamas-b1b31986, and https://tact2.org.
WIND: the TACT2 study should be done in 2022.
This study dovetails with my speculative hope that magnesium supplementation might be able to slowly reduce calcification, since calcium deposits in the body tend to accelerate as magnesium levels drop. But can increasing magnesium levels slowly reduce calcification? It might take me years to find out.
See also Chelation for Coronary Heart Disease: What You Need To Know as well as a really negative viewpoint in
