Lipoic Acid supplementation can be confusing. Lots of (heated and controversial) posts on ImmInst on this.
Problem: Racemic ALA peaks out in plasma in 45 minutes, you are back at baseline in 1.5 hours. This is a fact. Furthermore, if you are using an unstabilized r-lipoic, you are ingesting a product which will polymerize in your stomach (if it hasn't already done so during encapsulation). The polymerization problem is a fact. Stabilized RLA has the same pharmacokinetic profile as ALA- peak 45 minutes / gone in 1.5 hours.
How could your body not benefit the most from sustained release, steady state plasma levels of lipoic?
If you want to sink your teeth into some referenced, detailed facts you could do a lot worse than the 7 pages of
R-Lipoic Acid information on my site. Be aware GeroNova Research is the only USA
manufacturer of R-lipoic. Everybody else (including AOR who I respect) are only bottlers. It would stand to reason a manufacturer would have a much greater understanding of a material than a bottler.
Mods- Not meant to disrespect the board as spam post, thought is was reasonable to post a link to quality referenced info. Feel free to edit as appropriate if I am out of bounds here.
Cheers,
Pete