ALA vs R-ALA

[Babyfaced Assassin]

What would be better say if you're eating a 50g carb meal

500mg ALA
or
100mg R-ALA

and why?

thanks

 

[young guns]

Well a few months ago I would have confidently said r-ala is better due to it's effect of lowering plasma insulin, as I have been told by several on this board. Although I don't know if 100mg would be more beneficial at glucose disposal than 500mg racemic ala. If you would have said 300mg, I would have again confidently said the 100mg of r-ala is better. So what's different now? I don't know if you read/post at bb.com, but if you do you would have seen a long long post comparing the two. Alot of interesting points were brought up.

Here some examples (paraphrased - not exact quotes):

- since ALA does not lower plasma insulin but does speed up glucose disposal, hypoglycemia is more likely with it than with R-ALA due to quicker clearing of blood glucose coupled with high insulin levels (seems like a point for r-ala)

- r-ala does not have the beneficial effects that insulin does on protein synthesis, and one of r-ala's effects is to lower insulin

there was also mention of ala behaving as a pro-oxidant (increasing oxidation), although I cannot remember which enatiomer (S or R) this pertained to, but I do know that the blood the dosage to acheive the blood concetrations in the study would have be more than any person would take.

So to kind of answer your question, I don't really know which is better, and I guess it really depends on what you use it for. For anyone who is insulin resistant, I think R-ALA would be better because it not only increases insulin sensitivity to aid in glucose disposal, but also lowers insulin. Aside from that, I'm not so sure I can say which is better.

 

[sabertooth]

500mg ALA

OR

100mg R-ALA

Taken the above into consideration, mg per mg regular ALA should be the better choice for you. Especially, when you consider how much of the racemic isomer can be found in every mg of ALA.

 

[witchdawg7]

I am currently doing a CKD diet. Kinda confused about R-ALA and ALA consumption.
Is it to be taken only when taking in carbs or should I take it with every meal even on days when my carb intake is under 20g's?

 

[The_Eviscerator]

I have used both and for the money, 500mg of ALA would work better than 100mg of R-ala.

I use the NOW ALA 250. It is fairly cheap and highly effective. I am sure some AF snake oil salesman (j/k ) Will call me out on this, but I seem to respond better to ALA.

 

[ZKaudio]

I stopped taking ala when my girl said it made my jizz taste funny! lol