Alternative Health Blog

The dietary supplement aisles at your local health store is like a “street of dreams” from a classic novel or movie. Some stops on the aisle are bona fide for helping your feel better. Others are more mirage than substance. Put alpha lipoic acid in the bona fide basket.

The naturally occurring nutrient found in low levels in green leafy vegetables, meat and potatoes—how’s that for reaching across food habits?—is getting plenty of positive attention from researchers. Just this year, alpha lipoic acid (also called ALA or lipoic acid) has been associated with improved heart health, Alzheimer’s protection, anti-inflammatory actions and promoting weight gain. 

Impressive, and reason enough to learn more about the supplement form. 

While lipoic acid is available in foods, it is at low levels. Some of the best sources are animal kidneys, heart and liver, not exactly choices you want to make staples of your daily diet. The amount of ALA used in the research studies is far more than we can consumer in a day. 

The heart health study, published by partnering scientists at Oregon State University’s  Linus Pauling Institute and the University of Washington, followed mice who took the human equivalent of ALA supplements measuring about 2,000 milligrams per day. The lab findings showed lipoic acid can inhibit lesions in the arteries, lower triglycerides, reduce inflammation in the blood vessels and hold off weight gain. While the researchers acknowledged a followup human study is needed, they wrote the results “strongly suggest that lipoic acid supplementation may be useful as an inexpensive but effective intervention strategy” for both preventing and treating heart disease.

The mice used in the study are commonly used to study cardiovascular disease, so there is further reason to trust the results. Even so, Balz Frei, director of the Linus Pauling Institute (a valuable online resource for vitamin and dietary supplement), promises the gold standard of clinical trials, the double-blind, randomized experiment using human volunteers, will be completed at Oregon State in the next five years.

Frankly, the Linus Pauling/University of Washington study is enough to persuade alpha lipoic supplementation here at the Alternative Health Blog. But then across the virtual transom dropped a July 2008 study from Australian researchers at the University of Sydney (another formidable center for dietary supplement research) suggesting that lipoic acid protects against Alzheimer’s. At work is a similar anti-inflammatory effect, in this case on brain cells, plus a sort of cleaning effect in the body to eliminate heavy metals that might otherwise lead to dementia symptoms. 

The Australian researchers acknowledged that lipoic acid research related to Alzheimer’s is limited but promising. Supplement levels of 600 milligrams appear to have the potential therapeutic effect.

The typical price for alpha lipoic acid capsules is roughly $18 to $20 for 120 capsules of 500 milligrams each. That computes to less than 75 cents per day for a 2,000-milligram supplementation. That’s not only inexpensive but an inviting stop on the Supplements Street of Dreams.

Bob Condor blogs every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday for Alternative Health Journal.