My test was nothing more than curiosity and yes, it may not be corrct. Personal experience indicates to me that I am correct after first doing Andy's ALA and then DMPS chelation protocols. If you really wanted to get into the mechanisms of excretion we're talking about something very complicated. I've been apart of discussion groups that have droned on about this for months on end.

You would have to take into account the excretion by ALA of Glutathione into the bile, and subsequently reducing the bodies ability to excrete heavy metals(Despite increasing glutathione output, LA (150 mumol/kg, iv) did not increase, but rather decreased, the biliary excretion of methylmercury, cadmium, zinc, and copper, which are transported into bile in a glutathione-dependent manner, as indicated by a marked reduction in their biliary excretion after diethyl maleate-induced glutathione depletion). I remember huge arguments about this between Andy and a couple of other people about what was present in the body, inorganic or organic Hg and if it ever changed it's state from one to the other.

And then there is the reabsorbtion of Hg on it's journey through the intestines after it leaves the bile duct. Most of the experiments deal with testing the bile directly to see what is excreted.
Then there is ALA's capacity to enter the brain and dump Hg in favor of Aluminum already present. Guess it depends on how much Al you have up there already. I know that for years I wondered why my blood tests for metals came back with Al of the charts.

The paper finishes (Summary) that:- The observations also raise the POSSIBILITY that endogenous dihydrolipoic acid, by forming a stable complex with mercuric ion, may play the role of a carrier molecule in the hepatobiliary transport of inorganic mercury.

Here is the paper that Andy was referring to:-

Effect of lipoic acid on biliary excretion of glutathione and metals.

Several metals are excreted in bile as glutathione complexes, and their biliary excretion is facilitated by increased hepatobiliary transport of glutathione. The present study analyzed the effect of lipoic acid (LA; thioctic acid; 37.5-300 mumol/kg, iv), an endogenous disulfide which can be reduced in vivo to a dithiol, on the hepatobiliary disposition of glutathione-related thiols and the biliary excretion of metals (10 mumol/kg, iv) in rats. Administration of LA enhanced the biliary excretion of reduced glutathione in a dose-dependent fashion. Despite increasing glutathione output, LA (150 mumol/kg, iv) did not increase, but rather decreased, the biliary excretion of methylmercury, cadmium, zinc, and copper, which are transported into bile in a glutathione-dependent manner, as indicated by a marked reduction in their biliary excretion after diethyl maleate-induced glutathione depletion. In contrast, biliary excretion of inorganic mercury, which is minimally affected by glutathione depletion, was dramatically enhanced (12- to 37-fold) by LA administration. Following injection of LA, the concentrations of endogenous disulfides in arterial blood plasma (e.g., cystine, glutathione disulfide, cysteine-glutathione, protein-cysteine, and protein-glutathione mixed disulfides) were considerably diminished, while the levels of endogenous thiols (e.g., glutathione and cysteine) were increased. This finding indicates that LA, probably after enzymatic conversion to dihydrolipoic acid, can reduce endogenous disulfides to thiols. It appears that LA induces the transport of glutathione into bile by the temporary formation of dihydrolipoic acid-glutathione mixed disulfide, which after being translocated into bile is cleaved to LA and reduced glutathione. Because the glutathione molecule thus transported into bile cannot complex metals at the thiol group, this might be the mechanism for the observed failure of the LA-induced increase in biliary excretion of glutathione to enhance the hepatobiliary transport of metals that are transported into bile as glutathione complexes (i.e., methylmercury, cadmium, zinc, and copper). The observations also raise the possibility that endogenous dihydrolipoic acid, by forming a stable complex with mercuric ion, may play the role of a carrier molecule in the hepatobiliary transport of inorganic mercury.

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Ultimately, this will only be solved when I come back here in 10, 15, 20... years and find you all still discussing ALA and whether it comes out more so in the biliary or urinary systems.

Even if the Hg comes out 5 times slower and not 10 as I found, then you're talking about 12.5 years. I wasn't willing to wait that long. And remember, the only chelation protocol I ever had problems with was Andy's.

If you like to read papers (Personally I hate to read exactly what they do to rats and Guinipigs). Then just a cursory search brings up all kinds of papers on this subject seems this one talks about excretion to the biliary system:-

Effect of various antidotes on the biliary and intestinal excretion of arsenic in situ and into the feces in vivo in guinea-pigs after injection of As2O3.

The effect of various antidotes on the excretion of arsenic into the feces in vivo and on the biliary and enteric excretion in situ was investigated on segments of jejunum and colon in anesthetized guinea-pigs using the pendular perfusion technique, according to Henning and Forth (1982). In the in situ experiments guinea-pigs received As2O3 (0.02 mmol As(III)/kg) and 30 min later, British-Anti-Lewisite (BAL), dimercaptopropanesulfonic acid (DMPS), dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) or 2,3-bis-(acetylthio)propanesulfonamide (BAPSA) (0.1 or 0.7 mmol/kg each) into the jugular vein. In the in vivo experiments guinea-pigs received As2O3 s.c. (same dose as above) and 30 min later the same antidotes (0.1 mmol/kg i.p.). The feces were collected for 24 h and the arsenic content measured. During the 60-min perfusion period the amount of arsenic excreted into the jejunum or colon was only 3% or 0.4% of the dose administered, respectively. Of the arsenic dose, 8% was found in the bile. None of the antidotes had an effect on the arsenic excretion into the jejunum or colon. No change in biliary excretion was found in animals treated with BAL, 0.1 or 0.7 mmol/kg, respectively. DMSA, BAPSA or DMPS, 0.1 mmol/kg, increased the biliary excretion of arsenic to 14, 33, or 43% of the dose administered and after 0.7 mmol/kg to 29, 37, or 42%, respectively. Furthermore, a significant increase (P > 0.05) was found for the bile/blood concentration ratio in the following order: control < BAL < DMSA < BAPSA approximately DMPS.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Regards.
PS. I just found out about the personal message system here.