GABA Against Stress/Anxiety
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A Neurotransmitter Less Talked-About
GABA is taken by many people as a supplement, mostly as a mood modifier, though its health claims go beyond the recreational—and also, we’re of the opinion that mental health is also just health, and if it works, it works. We’ll explore some of the claims and science behind them today…
What is GABA?
GABA stands for gamma-aminobutyric acid, and it’s a neurotransmitter. It’s a lot less talked-about than for example dopamine or serotonin, but it’s very important nonetheless.
We make it ourselves inside our body, and we can also get it from our food, or supplement it, and some drugs will also have an effect on its presence and/or activity in our body.
What foods is it found in?
- Animals, obviously (just like in human brains*)
- Fermented foods (many kinds)
- Yeast
- Tea
- Tomatoes
- Mulberries
For more details, see:
γ-Aminobutyric acid found in fermented foods and beverages: current trends
*However, we do not recommend eating human brains, due to the risk of CJD and prion diseases in general.
What claims are made about it and are they true?
For brevity, we’ll give a little spoiler up-front: all the popular claims for it appear to be valid, though there’s definitely room for a lot more human trials (we skipped over a lot of rodent studies today!).
So we’ll just drop some of its main benefits, and human studies to back those.
Reduction of stress and anxiety
GABA decreases task-related stress and anxiety within 30 minutes of being taken, both in subjective measures (i.e., self-reports) and in objective clinical physiological measures:
Cognitive enhancement
It’s not a does-everything nootropic like some, but it does have clear benefits to episodic memory:
❝GABA intake might help to distribute limited attentional resources more efficiently, and can specifically improve the identification and ordering of visual events that occur in close temporal succession❞
One of the things that makes this one important is that it also deals with the often-asked question of “does GABA pass the blood-brain barrier”:
❝The present findings do give further credence to the idea that oral ingestion does allow GABA to reach the brain and exert direct effects on cognition, which in the present case were specific to temporal attention.❞
Read more:
Supplementation of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) affects temporal, but not spatial visual attention
Potential for more
We take care to give good quality sources, so the following study comes with a big caveat that it has since been retracted. Why was it retracted, you wonder?
It’s about the sample; they cite “30 healthy adults”, but neglected tp mention that this figure was initially 46. What happened to the other 16 participants is unclear, but given that this was challenged and the challenge not answered, it was sufficient for the journal (Nature) to pull the study, in case of deliberate sample bias.
However! Running the numbers in their results section, a probability of 0.03 is very compelling unless the disappearance of 16 subjects was outright fraudulent (which we regrettably cannot know either way).
Here’s the study (so take it with a pinch of salt, considering the above), and taken at face value, it shows how GABA supplementation improves accurate reactions to fast-moving visual and auditory stimuli:
RETRACTED ARTICLE: γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) administration improves action selection processes: a randomised controlled trial
…so, hopefully this experiment will be repeated, without disappearing participants!
The sweet spot
You may be wondering how something that slows a person down (having a relaxing effect) can also speed a person up. This has to do with what it is and isn’t affecting; think of it like a “focus mode” on your computer or other device that greys-out everything else a bit so that you can focus on what you’re doing.
It’s in some ways (by different neurochemical pathways, though) a similar effect to the “relaxed alertness” created by l-theanine supplementation.
There’s also a sweet spot whereby GABA is toning some things down just the right amount, without adversely affecting performance in areas we don’t want slowed down. For the science of this, see:
Is it safe?
GABA is “Generally Recognized As Safe”. However:
- you should speak with your pharmacist if you are taking any medications for blood pressure or epilepsy, as GABA supplementation may cause them to work too well.
- you should absolutely not take GABA with alcohol or opioids as (dose-dependent for all the substances involved, and also depending on your metabolic base rate and other factors) its acute depression of the CNS can mean you relax and slow down too much, and you may find yourself not breathing often enough to sustain life.
Aside from that, it is considered safe up to at least 1g/kg/day*. Given that popular doses are 120–750mg, and most people weigh more than 750g, this is very safe for most people:
United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Safety Review of Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA)
Where can I get it?
We don’t sell it, but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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Codependent No More – by Melody Beattie
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This is a book review, not a book summary, but first let’s quickly cover a common misconception, because the word “codependent” gets misused a lot in popular parlance:
- What codependence isn’t: “we depend on each other and must do everything together”
- What codependence is:“person 1 has a dependency on a substance (or perhaps a behavior, such as gambling); person 2 is trying to look after person 1, and so has developed a secondary relationship with the substance/behavior. Person 2 is now said to be codependent, because it becomes all-consuming for them too, even if they’re not using the substance/behavior directly”
Funny how often it happens that the reality is more complex than the perception, isn’t it?
Melody Beattie unravels all this for us. We get a compassionate and insightful look at how we can look after ourselves, while looking after another. Perhaps most importantly: how and where to draw a line of what we can and cannot do/change for them.
Because when we love someone, of course we want to fight their battles with them, if not for them. But if we want to be their rock of strength, we can’t get lost in it too, and of course that hurts.
Beatty takes us through these ideas and more, for example:
- How to examine our own feelings even when it’s scary
- How to practice self-love and regain self-worth, while still caring for them
- How to stop being reactionary, step back, and act with purpose
If the book has any weak point, it’s that it repeatedly recommends 12-step programs, when in reality that’s just one option. But for those who wish to take another approach, this book does not require involvement in a 12-step program, so it’s not a barrier to usefulness.
Click here to check out Codependent No More and take care of yourself, too
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Cherries’ Very Healthy Wealth Of Benefits!
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Cherries’ Health Benefits Simply Pop
First, be aware, there are different kinds:
Sweet & Sour
Cherries can be divided into sweet vs sour. These are mostly nutritionally similar, though sour ones do have some extra benefits.
Sweet and sour cherries are closely related but botanically different plants; it’s not simply a matter of ripeness (or preparation).
These can mostly be sorted into varieties of Prunus avium and Prunus cerasus, respectively:
Cherry Antioxidants: From Farm to Table
Sour cherry varieties include morello and montmorency, so look out for those names in particular when doing your grocery-shopping.
You may remember that it’s a good rule of thumb that foods that are more “bitter, astringent, or pungent” will tend to have a higher polyphenol content (that’s good):
Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Juiced up
Almost certainly for reasons of budget and convenience, as much as for standardization, most studies into the benefits of cherries have been conducted using concentrated cherry juice as a supplement.
At home, we need not worry so much about standardization, and our budget and convenience are ours to manage. To this end, as a general rule of thumb, whole fruits are pretty much always better than juice:
Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Antioxidant & anti-inflammatory!
Cherries are a very good source of antioxidants, and as such they also reduce inflammation, which in turn means ameliorating autoimmune diseases, from common things like arthritis…
…to less common things like gout:
Cherry Consumption and the Risk of Recurrent Gout Attacks
This can also be measured by monitoring uric acid metabolites:
Consumption of cherries lowers plasma urate in healthy women
Anti-diabetic effect
Most of the studies on this have been rat studies, and the human studies have been less “the effect of cherry consumption on diabetes” and more a matter of separate studies adding up to this conclusion in, the manner of “cherries have this substance, this substance has this effect, therefore cherries will have this effect”. You can see an example of this discussed over the course of 15 studies, here:
A Review of the Health Benefits of Cherries ← skip to section 2.2.1: “Cherry Intake And Diabetes”
In short, the jury is out on cherry juice, but eating cherries themselves (much like getting plenty of fruit in general) is considered good against diabetes.
Good for healthy sleep
For this one, the juice suffices (actual cherries are still recommended, but the juice gave clear significant positive results):
Pilot Study of the Tart Cherry Juice for the Treatment of Insomnia and Investigation of Mechanisms ← this was specifically in people over the age of 50
Importantly, it’s not that cherries have a sedative effect, but rather they support the body’s ability to produce melatonin adequately when the time comes:
Effect of tart cherry juice (Prunus cerasus) on melatonin levels and enhanced sleep quality
Post-exercise recovery
Cherries are well-known for boosting post-exercise recovery, though they may actually improve performance during exercise too, if eaten beforehand/
For example, these marathon-runners who averaged 13% compared to placebo control:
As for its recovery benefits, we wrote about this before:
How To Speed Up Recovery After A Workout (According To Actual Science)
Want to get some?
We recommend your local supermarket (or farmer’s market!), but if for any reason you prefer to take a supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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The Power Foods Diet – by Dr. Neal Barnard
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First, what this is not: it’s not a cookbook. There are recipes, more than a hundred if we consider such things as “barbecue sauce” as a standalone recipe, and if we overlook such things as how “perfect hot oatmeal” is followed on the next page by a recipe for “perfect hot oatmeal with berries”.
However, as we say, it’s not a cookbook; it’s first and foremost an educational text on the topic of nutrition.
Here we will learn about good eating for general health, which foods are natural appetite-suppressants, which foods reduce our body’s absorption of sugars from foods (not merely slowing, but flushing them away so they cannot be absorbed at all), and which foods actually boost metabolism for a few hours after the meal.
Dr. Barnard also talks about some foods that are more healthy, or less healthy, than popularly believed, and how to use all this information to craft a good, optimized, dietary plan for you.
Bottom line: there’s a lot of good information here, and the recipes are simply a bonus.
Click here to check out The Power Foods Diet, and optimize yours!
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Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes – by Ginger Vieira
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If you or a loved one has Type 1 Diabetes, you’ll know that exercise can be especially frustrating…
- If you don’t do it, you risk weight gain and eventual insulin resistance.
- If you do it, you risk dangerous hypos, or perhaps hypers if you took off your pump or skipped a bolus.
Unfortunately, the popular medical advice is “well, just do your best”.
Ginger Vieira is Type 1 Diabetic, and writes with 20+ experience of managing her diabetes while being a keen exerciser. As T1D folks out there will also know, comorbidities are very common; in her case, fibromyalgia was the biggest additional blow to her ability to exercise, along with an underactive thyroid. So when it comes to dealing with the practical nuts and bolts of things, she (while herself observing she’s not a doctor, let alone your doctor) has a lot more practical knowledge than an endocrinologist (without diabetes) behind a desk.
Speaking of nuts and bolts, this book isn’t a pep talk.
It has a bit of that in, but most of it is really practical information, e.g: using fasted exercise (4 hours from last meal+bolus) to prevent hypos, counterintuitive as that may seem—the key is that timing a workout for when you have the least amount of fast-acting insulin in your body means your body can’t easily use your blood sugars for energy, and draws from your fat reserves instead… Win/Win!
That’s just one quick tip because this is a 1-minute review, but Vieira gives:
- whole chapters, with example datasets (real numbers)
- tech-specific advice, e.g. pump, injection, etc
- insulin-specific advice, e.g. fast vs slow, and adjustments to each in the context of exercise
- timing advice re meal/bolus/exercise for different insulins and techs
- blood-sugar management advice for different exercise types (aerobic/anaerobic, sprint/endurance, etc)
…and lots more that we don’t have room to mention here
Basically… If you or a loved one has T1D, we really recommend this book!
Order a copy of “Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes” from Amazon today!
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Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue!
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How To Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue
Chronic fatigue is on the rise, and it can make life a living Hell. Days blur into one, and you try to take each day as it comes, but sometimes several days gang up on you at once.
You probably know some lifestyle changes that might help—if only you had the energy to implement them.
You’d like to eat well, but you need to…
- Buy the fresh produce (and take a little rest after)
- Put the groceries away (and take a little rest after)
- Wash the vegetables (and take a little rest after)
- Chop the things as necessary (and take a little rest after)
- Cook dinner (and take a little rest after)
…and now you’re too exhausted to eat it.
So, what can be done?
First, avoid things that cause inflammation, as this is a major contributor to chronic fatigue. You might like our previous main feature:
Next up, really do stay hydrated. It’s less about quantity, and more about ubiquity. Hydrate often.
Best is if you always have some (hydrating) drink on the go.
Do experiment with your diet, and/but keep a food journal of what you eat and how you feel 30–60 minutes after eating it. Only make one change at a time, otherwise you won’t know which change made the difference.
Notice what patterns emerge over time, and adjust your ingredients accordingly.
Limit your caffeine intake. We know that sometimes it seems like the only way to get through the day, but you will always crash later, because it was only ever taxing your adrenal system (thus: making you more tired in the long run) and pulling the wool over the eyes of your adenosine receptors (blocking you from feeling how tired you are, but not actually reducing your body’s tiredness).
Put simply, caffeine is the “payday loan” of energy.
Eat more non-starchy vegetables, and enjoy healthy fats. Those healthy fats can come from nuts and seeds, avocado, or fish (not fried, though!).
The non-starchy vegetables will boost your vitamins and fiber while being easy on your beleaguered metabolism, while the healthy fats will perk up your energy levels without spiking insulin like sugars would.
Pay the fatigue tax up front. What this means is… Instead of throwing away vegetables that didn’t get used because it would take too much effort and you just need an easier dinner today, buy ready-chopped vegetables, for example.
And if you buy vegetables frozen, they’re also often not only cheaper, but also (counterintuitively) contain more nutrients.
A note of distinction:
Many more people have chronic fatigue (the symptom: being exhausted all the time) than have chronic fatigue syndrome (the illness: myalgic encephalomyelitis).
This is because fatigue can be a symptom of many, many other conditions, and can be heavily influenced by lifestyle factors too.
A lot of the advice for dealing with chronic fatigue is often the same in both cases, but some will be different, because for example:
- If your fatigue is from some other condition, that condition probably impacts what lifestyle factors you are (and are not) able to change, too
- If your fatigue is from lifestyle factors, that hopefully means you can change those and enjoy less fatigue…
- But if it’s not from lifestyle factors, as in ME/CFS, then advice to “exercise more” etc is not going to help so much.
There are ways to know the difference though:
Check out: Do You Have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
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10almonds Tells The Tea…
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Let’s Bust Some Myths!
It’s too late after puberty, hormones won’t change xyz
While yes, many adult trans people dearly wish they’d been able to medically transition before going through the “wrong” puberty, the truth is that a lot of changes will still occur later… even to “unchangeable” things like the skeleton.
The body is remaking itself throughout life, and hormones tell it how to do that. Some parts are just quicker or slower than others. Also: the skeleton is pulled-on constantly by our muscles, and in a battle of muscle vs bone, muscle will always win over time.
Examples of this include:
- trans men building bigger bones to support their bigger muscles
- trans women getting smaller, with wider hips and a pelvic tilt
Trans people have sporting advantages
Assuming at least a year’s cross-sex hormonal treatment, there is no useful advantage to being trans when engaging in a sport. There are small advantages and disadvantages (which goes for any person’s body, really). For example:
- Trans women will tend to be taller than cis women on average…
- …but that larger frame is now being powered by smaller muscles, because they shrink much quicker than the skeleton.
- Trans men taking T are the only athletes allowed to take testosterone…
- …but they will still often be smaller than their fellow male competitors, for example.
Read: Do Trans Women Athletes Have Advantages? (A rather balanced expert overview, which does also cover trans men)
There’s a trans population explosion; it’s a social contagion epidemic!
Source for figures: The Overall Rate Of Left-Handedness (Researchgate)
Left-handed people used to make up around 3% of the population… Until the 1920s, when that figure jumped sharply upwards, before plateauing at around 12% in around 1960, where it’s stayed since. What happened?! Simple, schools stopped forcing children to use their right hand.
Today, people ask for trans healthcare because they know it exists! Decades ago, it wasn’t such common knowledge.
The same explanation can be applied to other “population explosions” such as for autism and ADHD.
Fun fact: Mt. Everest was “discovered” in 1852, but scientists suspect it probably existed long before then! People whose ancestors were living on it long before 1852 also agree. Sometimes something exists for a long time, and only comes to wider public awareness later.
Transgender healthcare is too readily available, especially to children!
To believe some press outlets, you’d think:
- HRT is available from school vending machines,
- kids can get a walk-in top surgery at recess,
- and there’s an after-school sterilization club.
In reality, while availability varies from place to place, trans healthcare is heavily gatekept. Even adults have trouble getting it, often having to wait years and/or pay large sums of money… and get permission from a flock of doctors, psychologists, and the like. For those under the age of 18, it’s almost impossible in many places, even with parental support.
Puberty-blockers shouldn’t be given to teenagers, as the effects are irreversible
Quick question: who do you think should be given puberty-blockers? For whom do you think they were developed? Not adults, for sure! They were not developed for trans teens either, but for cis pre-teens with precocious puberty, to keep puberty at bay, to do it correctly later. Nobody argues they’re unsafe for much younger cis children, and only object when it’s trans teens.
They’re not only safe and reversible, but also self-reversing. Stop taking them, and the normally scheduled puberty promptly ensues by itself. For trans kids, the desired effect is to buy the kid time to make an informed and well-considered decision. After all, the effects of the wrong puberty are really difficult to undo!
A lot of people rush medical transition and regret it!
Trans people wish it could be rushed! It’s a lot harder to get gender-affirming care as a trans person, than it is to get the same (or comparable) care as a cis person. Yes, cis people get gender-affirming care, from hormones to surgeries, and have done for a long time.
As for regret… Medical transition has around a 1% regret rate. For comparison, hip replacement has a 4.8% regret rate and knee replacement has a 17.1% regret rate.
A medical procedure with a 99% success rate would generally be considered a miracle cure!
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