--that has come out of Europe, particularly Germany, about alpha-lipoic acid (which is a prescription substance in most countries there), has been about its use in controlling blood sugar in diabetics, with easing of peripheral neruopathy symptoms a secondary benefit.

These articles usually mention a dosage in the neighborhood of 1200-1800mg/day, a little high to take in pill form--in many of these studies that administration was intravenous.

There is not as much literature out there on R-lipoic--much of that reporting is anecdotal and comes from North America. And one has to be careful just who is reporting it--often it comes from manufacturers with a stake in selling it. Still, it does seem to have decent effectiveness, and usually, a ratio somewhere in the range of 10:1 to 6:1 is cited; one can take between 1/6 and 1/10 the amount of R-lipoic as alpha-lipoic for a similar effect.

I suspect we'll see more actual studies on R-lipoic in the future as it becomes more pervasively offered.