Best R-ALA

The AF store recommends that you take biotin along with r-ALA, and Glucorell includes biotin in the capsule. I haven’t read anything independent about biotin and r-ALA. Is the biotin recommendation for real or just a way to sell more product?

Has anyone used Pump N Poses r-ALA? If they have, how did they like it?

Paul,

I think the general consensus (from this thread and among my friends and co-workers) on AST’s R-ALA is that it’s either unimpressive or downright disappointing. It would be awesome if it worked well because of the price but that has yet to be demonstrated. I find that even normal 300mg regular ALA works better!

I still have yet to try Glucorell R but I think it’s way too expensive; no one offers it for a decent price. However, ALA does have a tendency to inhibit Biotin absorption (and even still does not warrant the high price). It may be smarter, though, to take them separate from each other.

That’s why I think Syntrax has the best offer in terms of price and efficacy.

As for whether the efficiency diminishes over time, I really couldn’t give you a good answer. For me, it doesn’t seem to but I haven’t really measured my blood sugar levels either.

Hopefully, this can be of some help. I’d definitely like to hear other people’s experiences on this topic.

Has anyone tried a glucose test with R-ala to see if it actually does anything?

Or are we just spending for fun…

3 questions:

How do you know the ALA is working?
Cy Wilson wrote that it should be takne on an empty stomach while on the Syntrax site it says with food, which is correct?
Does it make sense to use ALA during bulking and during very, very low carb diet?

Thanks, Rene’

bump

How do you feel the effects of R-ALA? I second the “test” question. How effective is R-ALA in general and how the hell do you feel the effects of it?

I really think it’s time for T-Mag to step up to the plate and provide some answers. Probably not a bad idea to send some mail into “Feedback” and ask them to cover the issue ASAP.

Oddly enough most of the material that is used by the various companies all comes from the same place.

Does anybody have any experience with medical tests that could tell us how to create our own r-ALA experiment? I’m thinking a group of us could do an experiment and report on it. Here’s what I’m thinking…

Hypothesis: r-ALA improves blood sugar uptake after meals

For one week, the subject takes no r-ALA at all. For one meal each day the subject would take their blood glucose immediately before a meal and then every half hour for the next three hours. After a week, we would have an average baseline for the subject.

The following week, the subject would do the same, but would take r-ALA immediately before the meal. After a week, we would have a new line using the r-ALA.

Analysis would compare the baseline to the new line to see if there is a difference in the rate that blood glucose returns to normal.

Does this make sense? Is the hypothesis the right one to test? Anybody want to try?

The best way to test the effectiveness of r-ALA (or ALA) is to buy a Glucometer and strips. Without taking any r-ALA, eat 100g of a moderate to high glycemic carb source (white rice or oatmeal, maybe?), test your blood at 15 or 30 minute intervals, recording your blood sugar levels. Ideally blood sugar levels return to baseline at about 90 minutes or so. Next repeat the test using r-ALA at 30-50mg for the 100g of carbs you’re taking in. Testing will allow you to optimize the amount of r-ALA you need for a given amount of carbs.

Good point, 1Fast400. Thanks for stopping by, and welcome to the board!!!

Being on the “inside” of the industry, so to speak, do you have any other thoughts on how we as consumers can ensure the quality of the r-ALA we purchase?

This may sound dumb but whatever. Here’s what I do: the best way to “feel” R-ALA is to take it on an empty stomach and if in 20-30 minutes you feel the sudden crash in blood sugar levels you can almost safely say that you have a pretty effective product.

I have not tried using this in conjunction with a Glucometer. I’m only telling you all this from personal observation.

By the way, good to finally see you here 1Fast400.

Marc McDougal has done some glucometer work with ALA. Do a search.

As many of you know, I was implicated in a lawsuit regarding R-ALA. The quick story is this. A lab did the testing on mine along with a few others. They told me mine had come in 4mg underdosed, which pissed me off. However, I also got the results from others, who had been off by 50%. One of those companies threatened a lawsuit. When they realized they had no case, they didn’t sue. I had nothing to do with the testing so they were barking up the wrong tree. People like to argue about the testing methods, but they have a cited reference for how they did it. I’m not allowed to release the result of the other product, but it was actually off by 70% and is a MAJOR brand that has been mentioned previously in this thread. I don’t think R-ala to be the cure all. It is like a lot of supplements, when part of a whole program, it can be usefull.

Damn it! Now I know what you meant on the bodybuilding board!

Thanks 1Fast. Keep up the good work.

i use 1fast’s and feel it works well

If somebody were to take racemic ALA and put 400mg in a capsule, could that company legitimately say it has 200mg of r-ALA and ignore the s-ALA? What are the labelling laws on this?

i’ve been using 1fast400’s r-ala and i efel solid and hard compared to using other Ala’s so i think it works

Is r-ala best used when cutting or bulking?