If you missed Part 1 of the History of Chelation Therapy, you can read it here!

In the 1950’s the US Navy began to use chelation in the treatment of lead poisoning in workers repainting ships. It was also used to treate battery plant workers. Patients who received chelation therapy not only were relieved of the heavy metal toxicity, but also reported improvements in their heart and circulatory conditions, even improvements in memory. Doctors at Wayne State University took note of these positive effects and treated a group of seriously ill patients with EDTA. Even those believed to be incurable were benefited by EDTA.

Further research and use of EDTA continued and many articles were published in medical journals, detailing the successful treatment of arteriosclerosis. To ensure further study and promote the use of chelation therapy, the American Academy of Medical Preventics (today the American College for Advancement in Medicine). Although the FDA has never approved chelation specifically for the treatment of heart disease, a court ruling in the late 1970s upheld physicians rights to prescribe ‘off label’ uses of drugs if they felt that doing so would be effective.
The American Board of Chelation Therapy was set up in 1983 to design testing and treatment parameters for chelation administration. It ensured that physicians using the therapy were properly qualified to administer EDTA to patients. The American College for Advancement in Medicine and the International Association for Integrative Medicine continue to oversee the certification and education of doctors using chelation therapy.

The patent for EDTA expired in 1969, causing major drug companies to lose interest in funding research iniatives into chelation therapy. However, many small studies have been conducted that support the use of EDTA in the treatment of heart disease and other, related conditions. Research was also conducted by Dr. Harry Foreman to determine how much EDTA the body can absorb through oral administration, paving the way for less cumbersome chelation treatments than the time-consuming and costly intravenous method previously employed. And recently, the National Institutes of Health, the world’s leading medical research facility, announced a $30 million chelation study lasting up to five years to do the first truly large-scale study of the benefits of chelation therapy.

The history of chelation is very interesting, and hopefully you learned something new about this therapy. If you’re ready to get started with oral EDTA today, visit Cardio Renew!