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Alpha Lipoic Acid: Nutritional Drugs that Work
Finding new medicines is crucial for pharmaceutical companies because over time, they gradually lose patent protection on drugs. So imagine the disappointment when Pfizer had to pull the plug on its potential wonder drug, torcetrapib. Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, announced last week that it had abandoned all clinical trials, turning the company’s nearly $1 billion investment into a total loss. The drug, which has been in development since the early 1990s, was supposed to raise so-called good cholesterol, and cardiologists had hoped it would reduce buildup of the plaque in blood vessels that can cause heart attacks. But as is often the case with an ever-expanding list of pharmaceuticals, this one kills too many people, meaning it just does not work. In clinical trials with torcetrapib there were 60 per cent more deaths in those who took the drug compared with those who took a placebo.
This drug, if it worked, would probably have
been the largest-selling pharmaceutical in history.
Dr. Steven E. Nissen
Magnesium chloride, on the other hand, does a good job of regulating cholesterol, and when combined with Alpha Lipoic acid (ALA) yields a superb formula for combating heart disease. ALA and magnesium, as we shall see, are crucial substances for the treatment of diabetes that we all need to become much more familiar with. Together they are the ideal protocol for treating diabetic neuropathy, retinopathy, and other diabetic complications. Dr. Andrew Cutler Hall pairs ALA with DMSA for chelation of heavy metals but we will find that pairing it with magnesium (and some other natural agents) is superior.
Also known as thioctic acid, ALA is a naturally occurring compound that is synthesized in small amounts by plants and animals, including humans. Alpha Lipoic Acid is a sulfurous fatty acid and was first discovered in the 1950s, and recognized it as an antioxidant in 1988. ALA would have been classified as a vitamin except for the fact that it can be synthesized within the human body. In foods it occurs as lipolylysine and not actual lipoic acid itself. This is then converted to dihydrolipoic acid during digestion. Early in life our bodies produce amounts sufficient to do its work, but as we age the amounts synthesized decreases. It is not easily obtained from foods in the amounts our bodies need. You'll never get any realistic amount out of food as broccoli (one of the best sources), for example, contains a mere 100 micrograms per 100 gram serving. This means you would have to eat over two pounds of broccoli to get one single milligram of lipolylysine to convert into alpha lipoic acid. But the ALA in foods and supplement form is easily absorbed and transported across cell membranes.
ALA is a rate-limiting coenzyme for ATP production
via the Krebs cycle; sensitizes cells to insulin.
ALA works on the cellular level to help produce energy. It acts as a coenzyme-a helper of enzymes-in the cell’s major energy cycle, the Krebs cycle.[vii] As a coenzyme, ALA takes part in a multi-enzyme process preparing the fuel for the mitochondrion, the powerhouse of the cell. Without alpha lipoic acid, cells cannot utilize sugar to produce energy and they shut down. This makes alpha-lipoic acid a metabolic antioxidant, able to draw on the cell's own metabolism to magnify its protective effects and that of other antioxidants.
According to Dr. Burt Berkson, the doctor appointed by the FDA as the principle investigator for intravenous use of ALA, and author of The Alpha Lipoic Acid Breakthrough:
“Several factors make ALA the ultimate antioxidant.[viii] One very basic reason is that ALA is both a hydrophilic and lipophilic molecule. Because it is hydrophilic, it is soluble in blood and other watery body fluids. Because it is lipophilic, it is also soluble in fats. In contrast, vitamin C is only hydrophilic and vitamin E is only lipophilic. These qualities make ALA an ideal antioxidant that works double duty. It prevents free radical damage in every setting regardless of whether it is the brain fluids, the blood, stored fat, the heart, the pancreas, the kidneys, bone, cartilage, the liver, and for that matter every cell in every organ. ALA can perform the same functions in the watery fluids of the cell and in the blood and other aqueous fluids that come in contact with the body’s tissues, just like vitamin C. Because of these remarkable characteristics, ALA can also easily pass through the blood-brain barrier and increase brain energy availability.”
The full length chapter with references is in Natural Allopathic Medicine. 
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