With AC protocol you stop current exposure to Hg, especially from Amalgam fillings.

Then you wait a few months to allow the blood stream and extracellular space clear out. Typically people take DMSA or DMPS during this period.

Now when you introduce ALA it is less likely that it will find Hg in the bloodstream to carry into the brain.

People who don't have much of an Hg problem won't likely have problems or at least not in the short term.

Some people who posted adverse reactions indicated they got some initial gains such as improvement in peripheral neuropathy or some euphoria.

There should be a warning so people can be aware of the possibility of side effects that they probably are not associating with the ALA. They are left wondering why they feel more brain fogged and less stress tolerant.

Mainstream medicine seems to love such interventions. They help one problem and cause another. It is great for their revenue stream.

"...I hear you have to cut the pills up into 5 pieces and take them every 2 hours or so.

== No, every three hours during the day and 4 hours overnight. Some people prefer to use 2 hr dosing because they can tolerate higher doses without additional side effects. This moves the detox process along a little faster. I am one such person. The more frequent dosing keeps blood levels even more stable.

== A few companies sell small dose caps,
everythingspectrum.com and the folks who post the hair tests from the detox groups.
http://livingnetwork.co.za/chelationnetwork/hairtest/hairtest22/

"My question is how is the protocol safer than the suggested use on the bottle, ...

== The reason for the frequent dosing is due to the half-life of ALA. Cutler says that when taken orally half of the LA will remain in the blood stream roughly 3 hours later.

== Half-life is a well known concept in pharmacology. It allows the substance's effects to remain relatively consistent.

== In the case of detox, a chelator is mobilizing--kicking up--heavy metals (HMs). It is also binding metals and so helping to protect the body from oxidative damage until the toxin has gotten to the liver and out into stool.

== If you take ALA too infrequently, there is no longer much or any around to protect you from the HMs it kicked up.

== Then some of the mobilized HMs from parts of the body that are not so vulnerable to them--your elbow--might end up in the brain, thyroid, liver, adrenals that are quite vulnerable and that tend to hold on rather tightly to HMs.

== Consider the example of the treated mice in the Gregus study. The mice treated with ALA after being injected with inorganic mercury (Hg) excreted more Hg than the untreated mice; however the treated mice ended up with *more* Hg in the brain and organs! I bet they would not have been healthier even though they had less Hg in them than untreated mice. Cutler comments here.
http://onibasu.com/archives/am/74605.html

== So you'll want to be careful about how you kick up HMs.

== Cutler prefers that people take DMSA or especially DMPS along with ALA. The former two mostly work in the blood stream. So when ALA moves HMs out of the organs, one of the other chelators is waiting in the blood stream to help carry it more safely to the liver or kidneys.

== Along with chelators, take plenty of other antixodants that tend to not mobilize much HMs--vitamin C & E, etc.

== Be careful about intake of other substances that tend to mobilize more HMs but don't hold on as tightly as the three chelators above--cilantro, NAC (cysteine), IV glutathione injections, etc.

== Notice that lipoic acid (LA) has two thiol ( SH) groups positioned to better hold onto HMs.
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/othernuts/la/lastructure.html

== Cysteine has only one SH group.
http://www.worldofmolecules.com/life/cysteine.htm

== IV is particulary troublesome since it blasts the HMs causing a mobilization storm over a short time. Then people suffer later as the HMs find new and potentially more vulneralble binding sites. For example.
//www.curezone.org/forums/am.asp?i=2255067

== Chelation can be wonderfully helpful when done safely in people who need it.
http://cutlersuccessstories.weebly.com/adult-testimonials.html

== AC protocol can be wonderful for autistic kids too.
http://home.earthlink.net/~moriam/LOVE_LETTERS.html
http://www.healing-arts.org/children/holmes.htm#results
That was in about 6 months on a variation of AC protocol. Adults and older kids will take longer to respond to treatment.

Autism Research Institute treatment parent ratings 2009
http://www.autism.com/index.php/treatment_ratings_asd
"Detox. (chelation)" 74% report "got better", 3% report "got worse", 23% report "no effect"
The 74% rating is the best of the many dozens of listed interventions.

== Cutler strongly encourages people to also take vitamin C, E, magnesium and zinc.

== Don't forget to begin by stopping your exposure to HMs, for example, the mercury coming off of your silver-mercury dental fillings. Chelators will pull Hg from them too. This is from Boyd Haley, former Chair of Chem Dept at the U of KY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnfBhdT7uU0

== Much more could be said. Be safe, get well.