#1 Natural Supplement for Peripheral Neuropathy [Nerve Pain Relief]

This is Dr. Tom Biernacki Today I'm going over the number one all natural supplement proven in studies to help with diabetic neuropathy and peripheral neuropathy. And we're starting now. Peripheral neuropathy symptoms include numbness in the hands, feet, tingling, burning pins and needles throbbing and weakness starting in the toes and progressing upward. As things get worse, this is extremely common. It's said that over 10% of adults will get this at some point in their life, especially now with the rates of diabetes increasing. But there's also other causes like alcohol, like diet, like aging, like being exposed to toxins throughout our life, chemicals, heavy metal, toxicity medications. There's just so many different causes of peripheral neuropathy. Current treatment options focus on symptom alleviation and reducing exposure to risk factors and of course, diabetes always remains the number one most significant challenge. Lifestyle changes like managing blood sugar, regular exercise, healthy diet can improve neuropathy. But these results can be difficult and are not guaranteed. I do have a video that goes over it in-depth, probably for 30 minutes or more. Too much. There's a lot of different solutions. In fact, I even have a book coming out about this thing. But one thing that very well studied, very well-proven and all natural is alpha lipoic acid. This is a natural antioxidant that is found in food in small amounts, and this can provide quick relief and slow neuropathy progression by reducing inflammation and supporting healthy nerves. Alpha lipoic acid is an amazing antioxidant. So there's a lot of great high level double blind studies showing that alpha lipoic acid can both mimic insulin, make you uptake blood sugar Act as an antioxidant. And the beauty of being an antioxidant means that oxygen around your body can create damage by basically stealing, donating electrons. It can destroy certain proteins, enzymes destroy cells. So it's kind of like a big sponge for electrons. It floats around your cells saying, Hey, is there any electrons destroying any proteins or enzymes here? And it soaks it up. And the beauty, the one difference, the one unique thing about alpha lipoic acid is it's both water and fat soluble. That means it's made naturally in your body. You can travel between fats, between water. So it can go everywhere and help everywhere. kind of like a police car. It can travel anywhere. It can go under disguise in fat cells into water. Those bad guys that are electrons, it just goes and rounds them up, kind of gets rid of them. So that's kind of the beauty of alpha lipoic acid. That's it can help make your nerve cells healthier. So if you have peripheral neuropathy, especially, that's the patients I see this help with. The benefits of alpha lipoic acid are number one, its antioxidant properties. It's known for its ability to neutralize free radicals, potentially reducing oxidative stress and related damages in the body. Number two, neuropathy. It's often used to treat nerve pain in people with diabetes or peripheral neuropathy. Number three, a double whammy for diabetes, blood sugar control. Some studies suggest alpha lipoic acid may improve insulin sensitivity and help lower blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. Weight loss. Who doesn't need that? I know I do. After Christmas time, there is some evidence that alpha lipoic acid can aid in weight loss, though the effects are usually pretty modest. A skin aging topical awful bulk acid has been shown to help with skin aging brain health. Its antioxidant properties can also help with conditions like Alzheimer's disease. But this is very early in the research side. Effects of alpha lipoic acid, while generally considered safe alpha lipoic acid can include some side effects like nausea, rash, itching, headaches and the sensation of pins and needles. So you're trying to treat neuropathy, but it can also cause it. But the good news is most studies found it to be safe and it does stop if you just dial back the dosage. A study I was looking at recently showed significant benefits for diabetic neuropathy patients who took 600 milligrams of alpha lipoic acid daily for 40 days, improving pain, disability scores and quality of life. I have actually had a lot of patients who have taken this. Not everybody, but in some people this has made a tremendous difference. Over a month or two, novel studies have proposed that the use of antioxidants, including alpha lipoic acid, may represent a beneficial intervention in treating neuropathic pain in diabetic patients, and the studies are getting better over time. Another study looked at the effect of alpha lipoic acid in the treatment of diabetic neuropathy to determine its effectiveness in reducing the symptoms of diabetic neuropathy. This was a meta analysis and it looked at eight studies combining 1500 diabetic patients. In this systematic review. The findings were inconsistent across some of the trials, but at least three trials, which is 37.5% of all the patients looked at, had significant improved mints, whereas the five trials, which was 62.5% of the patients, did not observe significant effects. And that's kind of what I found with my patients. This is a relatively reasonably priced supplement. The people that it does help, they say that it helps them a lot, but not everybody. So some patients take it. They don't have dramatic results. The good news is all eight of the studies in this systematic review found alpha lipoic acid to be safe and tolerable intervention with no reported side effects. This is definitely a safe and tolerable option for most people. The secret is for any treatment you have to get baseline levels and check if it's improving over time. Otherwise, all of these treatments are probably a waste of your time. For example, after a few months of alpha lipoic acid, we might want to redo these tests. You could do nerve conduction tests. You can do those baseline tests I showed earlier, and you have to make sure, is it getting better? Why is it not getting better? Is there a compression somewhere around your ankle, behind your knee in your butt? Potentially. That's important to get the proper diagnosis. That's what's necessary. And that's why most people don't get better unless they're following with the specialist and actually checking if these treatments are working. So your two point discrimination should improve with proper treatment. So here are my seven favorite foods that have alpha lipoic acid because hey, it's already in your body. So broccoli, spinach, Brussels sprouts, red organ meats, tomatoes. Now, the thing I like to do is if you have a tough time not eating. What I would do is I like to buy a lot of broccoli and a lot of Spanish. It's not the cheapest in today's economy, but the reality is it's a lot cheaper than most other supplements. And what I would do is price stuff yourself. If you're going to eat that chips anyway at the end of the night, take a fistful of broccoli and force it into your mouth or take a fistful of spinach. It's easy to do. It's like, Hey, you've got to earn that snack if you're going to eat something bad. Eat a fistful of spinach. That's kind of been my trick. When I need to lose weight for wrestling, you know, I would force myself to eat that stuff. And then all of a sudden, maybe you're not as hungry for that snack later, you know? So I would always make that promise to myself is before you eat that garbage snack, you eat a fistful of spinach. But here's the problem with trying to get full of bulk acid from your diet. For every dosage you can see, 1.5 microgram that's not milligram. A microgram is 1/1000 of a milligram. If you're getting one microgram per gram of food. What that means is 100 grams is really 100 micrograms. So 1000 grams, that's like ten cups is not even a milligram. So think about that. That's point one of a milligram. You would have to eat like 2000 cups of raw vegetables every single day to get the standard dosage that they tested with in that trial. So normally I'm all about food, but in this case, you know, in the trial, if you have diabetic nerve disease, a supplement may be The dosage, the typical dosage of alpha lipoic acid differs based on the condition, as a general daily antioxidant, 50 to 300 milligrams per day were recommended. But for diabetic neuropathy, the studies that looked at the beneficial results ranged from 600 milligrams per day to 1800 milligrams per day. But it is important to consult a doctor before using these for sure, especially if you're having issues. Now here's the big secret. There's the archetype for the type of alpha lipoic acid. This is essentially how it's produced naturally in nature and in food we get the R type. This is the more biologically active type. Now I go into this detail in some of my other videos and some of the studies, but the type is not as active. But most types chemically made include both the R-Type and the S-Type. It's not as pure and it's not as active as a purely AR type, but the cost is significantly better If all things are equal, the r-type is better. But because there's a mixture of an r-type and an s-type in most, it doesn't mean you're not getting benefits. Just consider that the studies that use 600 milligrams. Do you want to consider that if you're getting a mixture, you're really only getting 300 milligrams of the r-type. So something to consider if you're not getting the results. I personally love alpha lipoic acid. I think it's safe, It's natural, It's actually found in a lot of foods, but it's found in foods in very small amounts. The supplements are like 1000 times the dosage and that's really how much you need to get the results seen in the studies. I go over this in another video, but getting it through food in Spanish, it's almost impossible to get adequate amounts. Consider the supplements. If you're having a ton of neuropathic pain.