The shorter interval has to do with the half-life of the chelater. I have no first-hand experience, but I've also read on Yahoo and this is one of Andy's responses explaining the shorter interval protocol: "First, chelating agents serve two functions. They mobilize toxic
> metals. They also bind toxic metals. They do NOT "hold on tight"
and
> do NOT bind irreversibly. They pick up and drop the metals often.
> Thus, you need to maintain a rough balance between mobilization and
> binding so that the chelators grab most of the free toxic metals
> rather than letting them grab back on to the body. In order to do
> this, you need to keep the blood level of chelating agents
reasonably
> constant. This is done by giving them roughly a half life apart,
so
> that blood levels don't fluctuate by more than a factor of 2. The
> half life of DMSA (directly measured in human children) is 2.5 to
3.5
> hours. The kinetics of ALA are much more complicated but are
> adequately described as a half life of 1.5 to 2.5 hours. The peaks
> get smeared out over a 2 hour period due to it taking about 2 hours
> for the stuff to slowly be absorbed when it is given by mouth.
> EXACTLY how long you can wait between doses varies from individual
to
> individual and I have determined my numbers based on the experience
of
> a lot of people who have done it this way. They are theoretically
> sound and empirically verified. While I can't really tell you
exactly
> why ALA is best every 3 hours or whether DMSA could be stretched to
5
> and still be OK, I can tell you with great certainty that 8 hours
is
> way beyond the bounds of reason.
>
> Now please note that everyone is different. Everyone is a unique
> individual. This is just as true biochemically as socially. Thus
> while there is perfect certainty that the above applies to any
large
> group of people, and is best for most people in that group, any
given
> individual may need to do it differently and in any large group
there
> will be a few who do better on something other than the "one size
fits
> all" average protocol. This leads to the following conditions
which I
> believe any responsible person would adhere to:
>
> 1. Try the "best" approach on everyone, no matter what. Just try
it.
>
> 2. If some particular person repeatedly does poorly on the "best"
> approach and well on something else, respect their individual needs
> and do what works for them.