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ALA concern

Messages
84
Location
Canada
I just wanted to double check with the community here about the effects of ALA (alpha lipoic acid). The Andrew Cutler crowd says that if you take this at all without following their protocol and you have heavy metals, the ALA will mess you up.

Someone ran my detox genetics recently and recommended I take ALA daily. I've been doing 150mg once a day. According to the Cutler people, this is a cardinal sin because you should be taking smaller doses every 4-8 hours (including during sleep cycles).

I'm just trying to shore up my detoxing pathways because apparently they are abysmal. I have SOD2, GSTP, MTRR, CBS and COMT mutations. I need to support glutathione and SOD production, as well as cleanup any excess methyl groups.

My plan right now is: grape seed extract, turmeric, ALA, milk thistle, carnitine fumarate, hydroxyB12, quercertin, rutin, and CoQ10.

I need to introduce these gradually since most of them I've never taken before, and I need to double check them.

Off topic question... but can anyone recommend a non-methyl form of folate / folic acid that would not add methyl groups to my system?

TIA!!
 

helen1

Senior Member
Messages
1,033
Location
Canada
I just wanted to double check with the community here about the effects of ALA (alpha lipoic acid). The Andrew Cutler crowd says that if you take this at all without following their protocol and you have heavy metals, the ALA will mess you up.

Someone ran my detox genetics recently and recommended I take ALA daily. I've been doing 150mg once a day. According to the Cutler people, this is a cardinal sin because you should be taking smaller doses every 4-8 hours (including during sleep cycles).

I'm just trying to shore up my detoxing pathways because apparently they are abysmal. I have SOD2, GSTP, MTRR, CBS and COMT mutations. I need to support glutathione and SOD production, as well as cleanup any excess methyl groups.

My plan right now is: grape seed extract, turmeric, ALA, milk thistle, carnitine fumarate, hydroxyB12, quercertin, rutin, and CoQ10.

I need to introduce these gradually since most of them I've never taken before, and I need to double check them.

Off topic question... but can anyone recommend a non-methyl form of folate / folic acid that would not add methyl groups to my system?

TIA!!
Folinic acid is a non methylated folate.
 
Messages
84
Location
Canada
The Andrew Cutler people are psychopathic when you raise any questions about their protocol, but I am trying to figure out if ALA can chelate iron, as I am anemic.

All the studies relate to hemochromatosis and say that ALA can chelate out iron as well as reduce total iron binding capacity, so I'm a bit concerned about that. I can't afford to chelate out my iron.
 

stridor

Senior Member
Messages
873
Location
Powassan, Ontario
As someone who spent 4 years following the Cutler Protocol and still touch base with the group, from time to time, I have one point to make. We are all different when it comes to the likelihood of developing the symptoms of heavy metal toxicity. But it can be distilled into the simple equation of "metal in vs metal out".

If you are confident that you have been able to eliminate mercury and other metal throughout your lifetime, then you can with the same confidence take the ALA as you are planning. If you are less sure then being tested would be prudent.

You are luckily informed on the topic. In 2008, I was not and took ALA with a very bad outcome - loss of energy, increased fog, depression and agitation. I trialled it again the following month and the results were worse. On top of that, I never found my way back to "baseline" for years.

If you decide to go ahead, and you find any decrease in mental or emotional health, consider it a strong indicator that you should be ordering a hair test and getting it interpreted. Wishing you well.
 
Messages
84
Location
Canada
I already ordered a hair test last year. It did not meet the Cutler rules according to Andy's own writings, yet some of the Cutler crowd insisted I had mineral derangement consistent with mercury. They think everything = mercury toxicity. I don't trust them to be objective. It's no different than some of the Lyme groups who think Lyme is the cause of all that ails society. They aren't medical professionals or scientists, and Andy is dead now... so there's no way to really have an honest discussion about it. As soon as you bring up more modern conflicting data they ban you. If I can't talk about the ins and outs of a protocol so that I can assess safety risk, then I'm not going to do it. I don't care what "Andy said". If it's in any way scientifically contradictory then I won't do it, and I especially won't do it if people censor me for raising these contradictions. In 20 years they will still be citing the same book that Andrew Cutler wrote and will still be banning people who present new studies, so I feel no real reason to turn to them to help me with my health problems.

That's why I'm asking here about ALA. I have not found any data on ALA affecting anemic people, but again it's hard to say. ALA acts on mercury and zinc, both of which have molar masses which are more and less than iron, so there's no scientific reason why ALA would not chelate iron. But it might be different if iron is bound or unbound. It takes 7-10 days for an iron IV to be absorbed by the body's transferrin system. Until then it's unbound iron and may be at risk for chelation.

Again, I can't find a lot of clear data on this... maybe because modern medicine doesn't really work with ALA, so they wouldn't be studying it.

If turmeric can chelate iron then I would imagine ALA could too. Turmeric is food whereas ALA is an actual drug. In the absence of data, I'm looking for people who have worked with ALA to see if they noticed any changes to their iron levels.
 

jason30

Senior Member
Messages
513
Location
Europe
I already ordered a hair test last year. It did not meet the Cutler rules according to Andy's own writings, yet some of the Cutler crowd insisted I had mineral derangement consistent with mercury. They think everything = mercury toxicity. I don't trust them to be objective. It's no different than some of the Lyme groups who think Lyme is the cause of all that ails society. They aren't medical professionals or scientists, and Andy is dead now... so there's no way to really have an honest discussion about it. As soon as you bring up more modern conflicting data they ban you. If I can't talk about the ins and outs of a protocol so that I can assess safety risk, then I'm not going to do it. I don't care what "Andy said". If it's in any way scientifically contradictory then I won't do it, and I especially won't do it if people censor me for raising these contradictions. In 20 years they will still be citing the same book that Andrew Cutler wrote and will still be banning people who present new studies, so I feel no real reason to turn to them to help me with my health problems.

I understand your point of view, and this is really a personal decision.
But you have to realise that this protocol has already proven its value, this protocol have helped so many people with heavy metals in their body, and helped so many children with autism and more. Andy Cutler was a very smart man who knew where he's talking about, he researched it very well and came with a protocol who helped many many many people.

So I can imagine when someone comes into the community and starts bringing modern conflicting data, that you will get some hard reactions. Who are you to bring conflicting modern data into a protocol that has already proven it's value?
You can always talk about all the ins and outs of the protocol, but if you doubt the protocol or don't believe / questioning it and you think you know better, then just don't follow that protocol and go to another protocol. But if you keep doing this by every existing protocol, then I don't know if you ever will find one which suits you.
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
I'm looking for people who have worked with ALA to see if they noticed any changes to their iron levels.

Though I don't think that would be too useful, because we all are different, here is my data:
(Ala and Curcumin intake per day in mg, Ferritin in ng/ml, 30-400 normal range; total iron binding capacity in µg/dl, 265-450 range)

Code:
year  ALA  Curc. Ferr. TIBC
2009   70         76 
2010  110         56 
2011  250   500   89 
2012  440   800   80 
2013  360   780   71 
2014  330   760   92 
2015  210   630   79   223
2016  330   930   87   256
2017  370  1040   74   245
2018  521  1140   79   215

Never experienced any side-effects from ALA. Though my mouth has been full of mercury fillings at a very young age. Due to having got Tetracycline injection at birth all my teeth just crumbled as a young adult, and with that all fillings came out (tetracycline now is considered contraindicated for up to 2 years of age for that reason).
 
Last edited:
Messages
84
Location
Canada
I understand your point of view, and this is really a personal decision.
But you have to realise that this protocol has already proven its value, this protocol have helped so many people with heavy metals in their body, and helped so many children with autism and more. Andy Cutler was a very smart man who knew where he's talking about, he researched it very well and came with a protocol who helped many many many people.

So I can imagine when someone comes into the community and starts bringing modern conflicting data, that you will get some hard reactions. Who are you to bring conflicting modern data into a protocol that has already proven it's value?
You can always talk about all the ins and outs of the protocol, but if you doubt the protocol or don't believe / questioning it and you think you know better, then just don't follow that protocol and go to another protocol. But if you keep doing this by every existing protocol, then I don't know if you ever will find one which suits you.

I'm not here to debate the Cutler protocol or justify my opinions about it. Create a new thread. Thanks.
 
Messages
84
Location
Canada
Though I don't think that would be too useful, because we all are different, here is my data:
(Ala and Curcumin intake per day in mg, Ferritin in ng/ml, 30-400 normal range; total iron binding capacity in µg/dl, 265-450 range)

Code:
year  ALA  Curc. Ferr. TIBC
2009   70         76
2010  110         56
2011  250   500   89
2012  440   800   80
2013  360   780   71
2014  330   760   92
2015  210   630   79   223
2016  330   930   87   256
2017  370  1040   74   245
2018  521  1140   79   215

Never experienced any side-effects from ALA. Though my mouth has been full of mercury fillings at a very young age. Due to having got Tetracycline injection at birth all my teeth just crumbled as a young adult, and with that all fillings came out (tetracycline now is considered contraindicated for up to 2 years of age for that reason).

Wow, thank you for posting this really precise personal data. I'm impressed!

There does not seem to be a correlation between ferritin and the supplements in your case. This is concurrent with a lot of the anecdotes I've been hearing.
 

Critterina

Senior Member
Messages
1,238
Location
Arizona, USA
Again, I can't find a lot of clear data on this... maybe because modern medicine doesn't really work with ALA, so they wouldn't be studying it.
You might try clinicaltrials.gov where I saw 133 hits on my search for 'alpha lipoic acid'. Most won't have results, but at least you'll know what they are studying.
 

Learner1

Senior Member
Messages
6,305
Location
Pacific Northwest
Ala gives me liver pain. Has anyone else experienced this?
ALA mobilizes toxins sequestered in mitochondria - the black stuff in these photos are arsenic in mitochondria.
arsenic in mitochondria.png

If you don't have nutrients necessary got you liver to metabolize and process these toxins, you might experience acute toxicity.

The answer is to beef up the nutrients needed in liver detox phases I-III.
liver detox pathways.jpg
 
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Sophiedw

Senior Member
Messages
383
How soon after taking it do you get a bad reaction?

It’s quite immediate. I’d say yesterday was within 5-10 minutes. I do seem to absorb/react to things very quickly. And thanks @Learner1 for the graphic! Very informative as always. I seem to have recovered from all those horrible seizures and sleep phenomenon I was getting the last 6+ weeks… looks like a cysteine deficiency. Brought on strangely by taking too much serine (precursor to cysteine) also made worse by taking taurine (of which cysteine is a precursor).

Baffles me how these webs of interconnected nutrients behave, twice now I’ve had similar situations where a single nutrient is missing and taking precursor or product of said amino compounded symptoms, so lead me on wild goose chases for months on end. Did have a NutraEval a few weeks ago waiting on results. I imagine it’ll say my cysteine was just fine 🤨🤨🤪. Anyway enough about this weirdness. Thank you for the info in ALA.
 

Learner1

Senior Member
Messages
6,305
Location
Pacific Northwest
@Learner1 what's your take on using R-LA instead of ALA?
I've used 4 different ALA supplements over time. PolyMVA was used when I was trying to detox, It's a special formulation that grabs onto toxins and mitochondria and pulls them out. I would recommend it only when supporting all the other facets of detoxing, so you can deal with what's being mobilized.

The others I've used as a general antioxidant, which can recycle both water soluble and fat soluble antioxidants. I find it can dramatically increase my energy.

Here is a link to Thorne's r-lipoic acid product where it explains the difference between r-lipoic acid and regular alpha lipoic acid.

https://www.thorne.com/products/dp/r-lipoic-acid

It's a great product, but the problem I have with it is the dose is too low. Even if it's double the effect of regular alpha lipoic acid, at 100 mg when I found up to 2.4 grams a day of ALA helps me, I'm not going to take 12 or 24 pills to get there. I have used both the Doctor's Best ALA 600 and Xymogen ALAmax CR. I was originally on the Xymogen product, which contains biotin as well. There's some literature saying that biotin and ALA compete with each other and not to take them together, So the Doctor's Best is just ALA at 600mg, which I've taken up to 4 pills per day of and have done well with it over time.

Hope this helps.
 

bertiedog

Senior Member
Messages
1,738
Location
South East England, UK
I had another thought regarding negative reactions to ALA. It is a highly sulphur producing supplement and I believe many of us have problems with sulphur supplementation.

Having taken ALA as per Cutler to get rid of mercury poisoning I always ended up with severe migraines on it which of course made me a lot worse.

Recently I did a Biomesight stool test and transferred the results to the Microbiome Prescription site run by Ken at the CFS Remissions site. The recommendations for me were to cut right back on sulphur compounds which I found very interesting regarding my experience with ALA. So presumably there is a gut microbiome link to issues with ALA and similar compounds.

Pam
 

Learner1

Senior Member
Messages
6,305
Location
Pacific Northwest
I had another thought regarding negative reactions to ALA. It is a highly sulphur producing supplement and I believe many of us have problems with sulphur supplementation.

Having taken ALA as per Cutler to get rid of mercury poisoning I always ended up with severe migraines on it which of course made me a lot worse.

Recently I did a Biomesight stool test and transferred the results to the Microbiome Prescription site run by Ken at the CFS Remissions site. The recommendations for me were to cut right back on sulphur compounds which I found very interesting regarding my experience with ALA. So presumably there is a gut microbiome link to issues with ALA and similar compounds.

Pam
Molybdenum can be helpful as can B6. And oxalates might be an issue.

"molybdenum is known to function as a cofactor for four enzymes (3):

Sulfite oxidase catalyzes the transformation of sulfite to sulfate, a reaction that is necessary for the metabolism of sulfur-containing amino acids (methionine and cysteine). Recent evidence also indicates a role for sulfite oxidase in the reduction of nitrite to nitric oxide (4).").
https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum

https://www.beyondmthfr.com/side-high-oxalates-problems-sulfate-b6-gut-methylation


https://www.deannaminich.com/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-sulfur-intolerance/