this is my long-winded take on the three hour dosing schedule that Andy Cutler recommends

after extensive research into ALA and mercury chelation, I've come to conclude that ALA most definitely is a mercury chelator and helps to heal the body of the effects of mercury

However!

I'm seriously questioning the concept that unless one sticks to the every three hour chelation dosing schedule, that you are at risk of making yourself (in the words of Andy) "permanently and irreversibly worse"

every single study that I've looked at that uses ALA to treat mercury toxic rats and/or mice concludes that the ALA significantly reduce the effects of mercury on the rats. Not one single study showed that the rats became "permanently worse" because the ALA was not given on a three hour dosing cycle

in fact several of those studies had the rats receiving just one large intravenous dosage of ALA per day. This is anathema according to Andy, and theoretically should have resulted in Mercury redistribution and saw the rats get permanently worse. But they didn't. In fact they got better by quite a bit

please note these are the EXACT SAME studies that Andy used to originate his chelation theory in the first place.

Furthermore, the half-life of ALA in the body is about 30 minutes. So let's say you take 100 mg of ALA. After 30 minutes only 50 mg is left in your body, after one hour 25 mg, after two hours only 6 mg is left, after three hours just 1.5 mg is still active in your body.

Now, according to Andy the reason you need to take it every three hours is to prevent mercury redistribution. But at the end of three hours about 98% of the ALA is already gone. By following his logic that means 98% of the mercury redistributes after three hours.

is he claiming that that 2% of ALA that remains after three hours somehow prevents all of that mercury that has been chelated from redistributing? I find that to be preposterous

If ALA is a strong chelator of mercury, and if it forms an irreversible bond with the mercury ion (as Andy claims and as the Science seems to suggest), then once it gloms on to the mercury atom it should hold onto that atom until it is escorted out of the body, regardless of if more ALA is introduced into your body or not

don't get me wrong, low dose frequent chelation is almost certainly the most effective and most efficient means of chelation therapy. on this point I do agree with Andy

However, I can find no evidence whatsoever that if you don't stick to a three hour dosing schedule you'll make yourself "permanently and irreversibly worse". I just don't see it. It's not logical, nor does the scientific evidence support this conclusion