More on Alpha Lipoic Acid - for those interested

[Travis Stenersn]

Ok so I did a bit of searching for properties of alpha lipoic acid(IUPAC name 1,2-dithiolane-3-pentanoic acid), here's what turned up:

I got it's vapour pressure(3.75E-5 mmHg) and Henry's law constant(1.64E-8), from those it's clearly not going to evaporate when just left out.

However, from the EPI Suite(which estimates chemical properties) developed by the EPA, I found the half life in air.
It's somewhere between 0.5 and one hour in air(assuming avg. hydroxy conc. of 1.5E6 OH/cm3). Half life in water was about 2000 days. Whether or not this means dissolving it in solution is a good idea, I don't know. I wouldn't do it.

Also found that there is a dose/response relationship for up to as high as 1200 mg. The more you take, the higher the plasma concentration and effect you get. There were no studies done beyond that. There were no side effects noted for any doses. I went further and checked the sources in hopes of finding a half life of the stuff once it has been absorbed.
Peak plasma concentrations occured about a half hour to an hour after ingestion. Higher concentrations were seen from oral solution administration than from oral solids or from intravenous(which were similar). After the peak concentration was reached, there was a very swift drop in plasma concentrations, half life being estimated at a half hour.

Oral LD50 for rats was over a gram/kg bodyweight, oral for mice was .5 g/kg. That means nothing really, no one is planning on ODing on ALA, are they?

What's all this mean? Don't leave it exposed to air for very long at all. If you have a powder, cap it fast, or at least make sure its in a tightly sealed container. Plasma concentrations are higher if taken in solution - but you will experience burning because it IS an acid. I would just take the caps, half life was longer for solids than for solution anyways. Take it in divided doses because of the low metabolic half life. Usual extrapolation from rats to humans is about 10 times, so don't take 8 grams of the stuff in a dose(if you weigh 80 kilograms =).

The following is for anyone who wants to retrace the steps I've taken:
You may read the review of literature here:
http://www.nhir.com/tests/diabetes.pdf

PhysProp Database available here:
http://esc.syrres.com/interkow/PhysProp.htm

EPI Suite for estimating physicochemical properties available here:
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/exposure/docs/episuite.htm

ALA synonyms includes thiotic acid, and the IUPAC name mentioned above(the others are too long to type). It's CAS registry number 62-46-4.

If I was inaccurate in anything said above, someone please correct me.

[Beast]

Looks good to me. Man I wish I had more time to work on my articles (on ALA), but with 5 days until my contest, I have to do alot of stuff. I have my first ALA article done which tells about its antioxidant power. The second article will be more based towards bodybuilding uses.

[Travis Stenersn]

Awesome Beast!
Good luck in your contest!

[Travis Stenersn]

Bumping this to the front page for the Lipoic Acid users!