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A little background on Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA)
In this day of environmental toxicity and the resultant increase in auto-immune diseases and disorders, any micro-nutrient that facilitates detoxification at the level of the body’s major detoxification organ, the liver, is immeasurably valuable. The World Health Organization tells us that in the industrialized world for example; cancer is caused 20% by genetics and 80% by DIET and ENVIRONMENT. Additionally, this tends to reflect overall chronic disease cause in the industrialized portion of the world. Therefore, heart and vascular diseases, respiratory diseases, neuromuscular diseases, and diseases of the immune system are mostly modifiable if we are willing to modify our internal environment by detoxification and diet, by eating organic and supplementing with vitamins and other antioxidant nutrients. Anything that improves the detoxification at the liver level (the primary detoxification organ) is important. ALA plays that role.

We are immersed in a toxic environment. Because petrochemical toxins are fat-soluble, they permeate all biological membranes, including human skin and the skins of fruits and vegetables. Toxic chemicals saturate our food, the newspapers and books we read, the cars that we drive, and even the computer chips in our office equipment. Set up a new computer or television set and you can smell the toxic solvents evaporating off of the equipment for weeks after you open the box. Poisons are sprayed everywhere - school, work, and home. Carpeting and wallboard off-gas toxic chemicals to the point of producing new medically recognized diseases, i.e. sick building syndrome and sick trailer syndrome.

Unlike vitamins and essential minerals, the body makes ALA. Unfortunately, as we get older we make progressively less. Less ALA combined with life long accumulated levels of environmental toxins causes health problems. The key word here is accumulated. When our storage capacity for toxic chemicals reaches saturation we begin to get sick, and any organ system can demonstrate the symptoms. Ironically, when we need ALA the most we make the least, and that’s the best possible argument for supplementation.

ALA is a natural anti-oxidant, produced by plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria.
Remember that anti-oxidants are the chemicals that protect us from the poisons and toxins in our environment and reduce our risk to chronic disease processes. In fact, ALA is so important to our well being that every cell in our body manufactures it. We make a lot of it when we are children, but as with so many life processes, the rate of manufacture drops appreciably as we age. By the age of forty, our ability to manufacture ALA has been so severely reduced that we must rely on food sources for adequacy, which is insufficient in this age of chemical pollution.
ALA facilitates energy production by getting fuel across the mitochondrial membrane.
Mitochondria are the factories within our cells that actually produce our energy. This is a complicated chemical cascade; the details of that are best left to the chemists. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that in the aging cellular environment of ever decreasing ALA, energy production must decline. This explains a good part of why our energy slips away while we age, and provides a solution to some of the fatigue related to aging. The loss of energy, fatigue, as we age and decline in health is the number two complaint of patients in doctor’s offices. Because of the size of the problem, every little piece of the solution is important.
ALA is a free radical scavenger in a class by itself.
Because of its molecular structure, ALA can act as both a water soluble and fat-soluble anti-oxidant. That’s important because most anti-oxidants are either water-soluble or fat-soluble. Vitamin E, for example, is fat-soluble. Therefore it functions as a powerful anti-oxidant protecting the fatty portions of the cell, more especially the cellular membrane which has a fatty middle layer, from free radical damage. Vitamin C is a powerful water-soluble anti-oxidant, which protects the inner workings of the cell from free radical damage. These anti-oxidants protect our cells from the chemical free radicals produced by our cells as well as from the toxic free radicals that have become so prevalent in our industrialized society. In fact, we live in the most toxic period our planet has ever known. Our bodies have to detoxify chemicals that didn’t exist on the planet 50 years ago. This toxic chemical soup creates an overwhelming toxic chemical body burden that cor relates well with the increase in chronic degenerative disease in our older and younger populations.
ALA protects us from our environment.
As a super free radical scavenger, ALA protects us from: the chemically adulterated foods that occupy the shelves of our supermarkets; tainted tap water; polluted air; and lawn chemicals. Additionally, it plays an important role in reactivating both vitamins E and C when they are used up in chemical reactions scavenging free radicals. The ALA, when present in optimum amounts, allows the body to use these two important vitamins over and over. So not only does it act as a super anti-oxidant itself, it reactivates other critical anti-oxidants.
ALA is readily absorbed.
ALA is considered by some an ideal anti-oxidant because it is very easily absorbed by the digestive tract, and becomes readily available when supplemented. This is not always the case with nutritional supplements. Calcium and glutathione are good examples of supplements that are particularly difficult to digest and absorb. It’s a plus when your body uses the supplements you take easily and efficiently.
ALA recycles glutathione.
Glutathione is thought to be the most important anti-oxidant in the body. Unfortunately, it too declines as we age, and glutathione is absorbed poorly as a supplement. In fact, absorption of glutathione is so poor that many authorities think it is useless to consider supplementation. The good news is that ALA takes reduced or used up glutathione and reactivates it. Studies show that supplementing ALA significantly increases cellular levels of glutathione. Some studies suggest that those cellular levels are increased by as much as three fold.
ALA acts as a chelator.
Chele in Greek means claw. In chemistry, a chelating agent acts like a claw. It attaches to something, inactivates it, and caries it away. ALA chelates toxic heavy metals like mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and lead. We have all read about lead poisoning in the inner cities from the leaded gasolines we used years ago. We’ve also heard about the dangers of lead in the old oil based paints. Even when the toxic body burden from these poisons is great, ALA will clear them from the body. Perhaps most importantly, ALA chelates the mercury that ablates (sloughs off) from the silver/mercury fillings in teeth. Mercury is a serious health threat, and ALA neutralizes it and carries it away so it can be excreted safely. Unfortunately, sometimes silver/mercury fillings ablate so badly the only safe solution is removal.

Because of its ability to reactivate glutathione, the most important antioxidant in cancer cases, it plays a key role in both cancer treatment and prevention.

The liver is the body’s major factory organ. It prepares the food we eat for use in the body. If we need a certain protein for repair, the liver breaks down existing proteins and rebuilds the one we need. It stores carbohydrate as long chains of sugar molecules until needed. It reduces fats to basic units for storage or immediate energy utilization. It cleanses the blood and detoxifies numerous toxic chemicals and millions of bacteria every day. It stores blood and releases it when necessary to maintain blood pressure. It synthesizes important chemicals like clotting factor, vitamin K. It is also the storage site for fat-soluble vitamins, some for long periods of time. It helps break down old red blood cells, and activates new ones by incorporating hemoglobin. Its secretion, bile, is necessary for our body to digest fats in the intestines. Of all these functions, probably the most important, in our toxic environment, is detoxification. The liver takes toxic chemicals and through enzymatic intervention turns them into less toxic chemicals that can be excreted without harming the body.

The damage done to the liver by toxic substances (poison mushrooms, acetaminophen, alcohol) occurs because of free radical damage. As a superb free radical scavenger, ALA is the best protector we have found for the liver to date. In many cases for example, of acute mushroom poisoning, patients who have been told they were terminal have survived and gone on to live healthy lives because of intervention with adequate amounts of supplemental ALA.

In adult onset diabetics, abnormal glucose metabolism results in a considerable increase in free radicals, which may cause neurological, vascular, kidney, and visual problems. The insulin resistance that is associated with type II diabetes is at the root of most of these conditions, as well as being a major contributor to most inflammatory diseases that plague modern society. Remember that the early warning sign of insulin resistance (impending diabetes) is abdominal obesity in men (the potbelly), and belly and hip fat in women. When caught in time, ALA has been demonstrated to correct all of these side effects. Even after symptoms are well established, ALA supplementation has produced significant improvement.

Although most of us are preoccupied with worry about cancer, heart disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the western world. This disease is often tied to insulin resistance and the vascular changes that accompany it. Additionally, there are many theories explaining the cause of CVD, but they all involve various scenarios that increase free radical damage to the blood vessels. This free radical component of CVD is why so much research has confirmed the risk reduction value of antioxidant supplements in cases of CVD and in people who are at risk.

Although I have been using ALA with my patients for some time, my own experience with it is recent. Sooner or later, I try everything that Preventics sells, and when I added ALA to my supplements I was surprised. I noticed an increase of energy within a week, and more restful sleep. I had noticed that over the years my sleep had become lighter. Since taking ALA I am sleeping more soundly and awakening in a more energized state. So I can give this supplement my personal testimonial. Anything that works as well as ALA and is virtually side effect free is certainly worth trying.

Dosage
I recommend taking 1 Preventics Alpha Lipoic Acid (100mg) a day for 2 weeks; then increase to 2 ALA for 2 weeks; and then increase to 3 ALA for 2 or 3 months. If you notice fatigue, cut your dose back. It means you are detoxifying too quickly. It also means you have a significant toxic body burden and will be taking ALA for a long time. If you have this reaction, call me on the Health Help Hotline (800-888-4866) during our Ask Doctor David hours and I will help you adjust your dosage.

If you have followed the protocol and feel fine after being on 3 ALA for 2 or 3 months, you can slowly cut back to 1 a day, which is your maintenance dose. Preventics Alpha Lipoic Acid sells for $13.00 for a bottle of 90. Retail on this product is over $25.00 a bottle.

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