ALCA + ALA Combo

Hello everyone,

I want to start soon on ALCA (Acetyl L-Carnitine Arginate) and Alpha Lipoic Acid.

I found this product from Jarrow:

http://www.iherb.com/Jarrow-Formulas-ALCA-500-ALA-100-100-Capsules/16811?at=0

Seems that this is a very good formulation... It doesn't contain too much ALA (or possibly too little) which I find better.

I'm currently underweight, so I was fearing that too much lowering of my sugar levels could worsen my condition. I'm trying to manage my sugar levels with diet and get some support from this ALCA+ALA combo and some herbs like green tea (I'm currently testing Jarrow COX2 tame, will tell you how I do after some time since it's a very interesing combination of herbs, including green tea, curcumin, resveratrol and more).

My questions to IH and anyone regarding this product Jarrow ALCA 500, ALA 100 are:

1. Do you take these on an empty stomach... what's best? I suppose ALCA is better absorbed on an empty stomach, but may also work the other way. Also I suppose it's better with food because of the sugar level issues.

2. What do you think of this formula? Is it ok? or should it be try it and let's see? I see this only contains 100 mg of ALA, but I could take it with each meal so the overall daily dose will be higher. Also notice that it's ALA, not R-ALA. Would it be better to use ALCA vs ALC for our purposes?


Thanks.

--LF

LittleFighter - Would advise against taking it.

Having tried Acetyl-L-Carnitine Arginate, it's not worth the extra cost. Also the arginate component
increases the risk of neurogenic based inflammation.

The 100 milligrams of Lipoic acid is just standard ALA (alpha lipoic acid). You get a much better anti-inflammatory
and other protection when you use stabilized R-lipoic acid, which even at a 100 milligrams is much more powerful than 400 or 500 milligrams of ALA.

Acetylated carnitine is water soluble so taking it on an empty stomach is not necessary. Taking the combo before or during the meal is ideal. The main goal with all the antioxidant supplements and even fish oils is to reduce or eliminate all the destructive, infammatory effects of glucose and insulin. Of course the serum levels of these antioxidants go further to fight inflammation systemically also.

Thanks for your reply CS, I will follow your advice.

Just want to discuss a few more things.

I attribute being underweight to "Leaky Gut" Syndrome.

For that, I'm currently taking L-Glutamine paired with PAK (pyridoxal-alpha-ketoglutarate) to maximize utilization. So far this is working as my symptoms are reduced. You can see the patent regarding Glutamine and PAK here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6545044.html

I use a product called PERKE Endura PAK, which contains these ingredients. The big problem here is that it's extremly expensive, for something that usually is very cheap (glutamine). I'm not sure if it's due to the PAK. I sent a mail to the creators of this product to know if P-5-P (Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate, way cheaper and available everywhere) would have the same effect as PAK (or at least comparable) to recycle gluatmine. I didn't get a response... I don't know but it could be that they don't want to reveal that due to commercial interests. Do you think P-5-P could be a substitute?

The most common symptom I get when something is not right or I react bad to something is that I get tired, mental fog, my vision becomes blurried and my eyes become like heavy and somewhat painful (this is what bothers me the most and always happens).

For leaky gut I also started taking Colostrum, from symbiotics. I take the regular formula and other one also from them which is specially high in IG. I have read reasearch that indicates it's good in regenerating the lining of the intestines.

I believe this is helping me, but I need to give it more time.

What do you think of colostrum for leaky gut? Also do you think it immune boosting properties could affect inflammation in a negative way?


As an extra comment, I follow the advice from as much as I can from http://dogtorj.com . Are you familiarized with research and theories from this guy? Basically he talks about new and destructive food like grains (and the big four: corn, wheat, dairy and soy) , insulin and lectins and how they affect health in a endless ways, and these are essentially the biggest problems in human nutrition today.


Thank you.

Oops... the product's name is PERQUE ENDURA PAK GUARD not PERKE ENDURA PAK. Sorry.

how about this alcar+ala+biotin combo?

http://www.bestvite.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=604

jksl wrote:how about this alcar+ala+biotin combo?

http://www.bestvite.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=604

Looks good, the thing is, the R-ALA is not stabilized...

I second LittleFighter - I use bestvite only for straight ALC.....Please do not purchase R-Lipoic from bestvite, you'll be throwing your money away!

LittleFighter - I think you're probably right about Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate. Might as well try it instead. Besides, Leaky gut syndrome patients often get straight glutamine without the patented B6 and they do quite well, especially when they are taking other supplements--including colostrum.

Consider a product called Seacure (a highly digestible protein), Butyric acid Carnivora (I have some of the latter on hand if interested for wholesale).