Re: the Russian study

Hi Tizona,

I'm not sure if that study is the main one that Cutler bases his theories on -- it's interesting to note that that study showed that ALA was effective or protective against mercury VAPORS...didn't mention anything about inorganic mercury that Cutler concentrates on.

I don't know if you've seen this study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12495372


If you click on "Link Out: More Resources", you see the link to the PDF file for the full study, but I'm not sure if it's possible or allowable to post a PDF here, so just wanted to point that out.

In the full study, they look at both glutathione and alpha lipoic acid -- the pluses and minuses of both, and, well, I was kind of shocked. I don't know what Andy Cutler would say about this, but it seems like ALA has some significant downsides:

"There was disconcerting evidence from this study, however, that ALA may also alter the tissue distribution of mercury and other heavy metals.

Although levels of inorganic mercury and methylmercury in the kidney dropped significantly, levels of inorganic mercury also increased significantly in the brain, lung, heart, and liver tissue.

Methylmercury levels had also increased in the brain, intestine and muscle of the rats given ALA.

The same phenomenon occurred in rats exposed to cadmium and given the same doses of ALA. Levels of cadmium in the liver dropped (where cadmium is most frequently stored) but increased in the kidney and muscle.

The same was true in rats given copper and ALA; all tissues examined had increased levels of copper, except for the liver (where copper usually accumulates) where levels had dropped.67

In all cases the pattern was the same; the tissues that concentrated the metal (blood, spleen, and kidneys in the case of methylmercury) had reduced concentrations, while other tissues appeared to have a greater concentration."

Sounds to me like ALA isn't very safe.

!!! ???
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