Alpha Lipoic Acid For CIPN

[motskoman]

Does anyone have info about alpha lipoic acid (ALA) for chemotherapy induced peripheral neouopathy? Anyone have success with it? Thanks.

[nilram]

I'm surprised no one's answered you! I did some research on this for a former boss was has some minor neuropathy from chemo. What I found was Alpha Lipoic Acid is certainly used, but more in conjunction with acetyl-l-carnitine and CoQ-10. All of these are supposed to help the mitochondria in your cells, which get damaged by the chemo. Good luck.

[mrsD]

Many people here use alpha lipoic acid. I don't know why there are no answers?

There are years of studies on PubMed about it.

This is an example of a newer one:

Rev Diabet Stud. 2009 Winter;6(4):230-6. Epub 2009 Dec 30.
Alpha-lipoic Acid and diabetic neuropathy.

Vallianou N, Evangelopoulos A, Koutalas P.

Department of Internal Medicine, Polykliniki General Hospital, 3 Pireos Str., 10552 Athens, Greece.
Abstract

Diabetic neuropathy presents a major public health problem. It is defined by the symptoms and signs of peripheral nerve dysfunction in diabetic patients, in whom other causes of neuropathy have been excluded. Pathogenetic mechanisms that have been implicated in diabetic neuropathy are: a) increased flux through the polyol pathway, leading to accumulation of sorbitol, a reduction in myo-inositol, and an associated reduced Na+-K+-ATPase activity, and b) endoneurial microvascular damage and hypoxia due to nitric oxide inactivation by increased oxygen free radical activity. Alpha-lipoic acid seems to delay or reverse peripheral diabetic neuropathy through its multiple antioxidant properties. Treatment with alpha-lipoic acid increases reduced glutathione, an important endogenous antioxidant. In clinical trials, 600 mg alpha-lipoic acid has been shown to improve neuropathic deficits. This review focuses on the relationship of alpha-lipoic acid and auto-oxidative glycosylation. It discusses the impact of alpha-lipoic acid on hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress, and examines the role of alpha-lipoic acid in preventing glycation process and nerve hypoxia.

PMID: 20043035 [PubMed - in process]PMCID: PMC2836194 [Available on 2011/2/10]

from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20043035

One has to use at least 600mg a day. There is a newer version called r-lipoic acid. There are fewer papers on this newer version, but it works the same way as the old alpha, only at lower doses. Alpha is racemic mixture, containing r- form, and an inactive other form.

Typically the dose of r-lipoic is 100mg a day. It may lower blood glucose, so if you take medications for that, you need supervision.

[glenntaj]

--though in the last several years I had switched to R-lipoic so I could take less. I went from 600mg alpha-lipoic to 50mg R-lipoic each day, as I found the large amount of alpha made my stomach more acidy than I was comfortable with. The R-lipoic is still acidy, but taking it with food mitigates that.

I take so many things that it's hard to parse out the effects of the lipoic individually, but I do remember getting fewer burning sensations on it than not. I also believe it has helped with blood sugar stabilization--I am not diabetic, but I am insulin-resistant with some degree of reactive hypoglycemia if I don't balance carb intake with protein and fat, and I seem to have more of an even blood sugar response on lipoic.