In my own long history in both professional and personal medical research, and being on health forums, "scientific studies" don't always carry much weight for me ... I have personally seen how studies can and do get "skewed" to suit the research....so that is where I, a child of the Fifties and teen of the Sixties, do frequently question rather than just accepting!

My own preference has always been Integrative and holistic healthcare rather than "conventional", and anyone who knows my history knows how often I question things, nomatter who is claiming it as "fact".

"Anecdotal evidence" for alternative treatments saved my son's life, when some conventional medical professionals were adamant it would harm him......... so I do question when anyone just dismisses it as fear mongering or quackery.........message boards and the patients and caregivers that post to them are frequently way ahead of the curve, simply because of the wealth of personal experience that can sometimes light the way to breakthroughs that the conventional medical field may not even have considered as viable before.
NeuroTalk is a clear example of that!

And there are also many brave physicians who do think outside the textbook, and risk ridicule from their peers because they have seen enough personal case histories to believe something, even though there may not yet be "scientific studies" to prove what they already know.

So, back to my only reason for having posted here. I had toxic mercury levels and my only known mercury exposure was from multiple, and in some cases cracked or chipped, dental amalgams. i saw highly experienced Integrative and holistic professionals who gave me advice that made sense to me...and that was simply to be cautious about ALA in someone who already had high mercury levels due to its ability to cross the BBB with chelated mercury.

This has nothing to do with PN or the dose of ALA found helpful here (which I know nothing about) ......or anything else other than the OP posting about ALA and mercury, to which I responded from my personal experience of safely being treated for dangerously high mercury levels without bad side effects.
And I absolutely stand by that...........

Now I will excuse myself from this discussion