GABA has changed my life :)

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Sorting through more of my old files today, I retrieved this set of four studies:

Autism and raised levels of copper in plasma vs controls
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3738468/

High Copper levels as GABA antagonists
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3235993/

Addressing high copper levels:
http://nutritionalbalancing.org/center/ ... xicity.php

High copper foods:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000 ... 000-3.html?

If you read them, it will be obvious (I think) why I stored them as a group, and their relationship to the topic of this thread. Quite a few people over the past years on WP have expressed interest in trialling GABA, though for some it may not be as simple as taking supplemental GABA, if your blood and plasma have high levels of antagonists like copper; you would need to address that also to obtain the supplemental GABA benefits.

If my memory serves me correctly (I often wonder, at my age!) copper and zinc have an inverse relationship in the body: as one goes higher the other lowers. This raises another intriguing possibility to me: the immune problems which a proportion of the spectrum have may be partly related to a high copper/low zinc ratio. Zinc, as most people probably know, is an important mineral for immune function, and there are some other studies which I can recall reading though didn't file for future reference identifying low zinc levels in ASD sample populations.

Given the complexity of GABA agonists and antagonists I realise that probably only a handful of members are interested, though it is that handful who may have other interesting studies, knowledge and/or experiences to share on this topic.

(just thinking, not criticizing)
wiki-La molécule de GABA ne peut pas traverser la barrière hémato-encéphalique, donc le rôle de neurotransmetteur ne peut être accompli que par le GABA présent et relargué par les neurones et pas par celui apporté par l'alimentation.
wiki -In general, GABA does not cross the blood–brain barrier, although certain areas of the brain that have no effective blood–brain barrier, such as the periventricular nucleus, can be reached by drugs such as systemically injected GABA. At least one study suggests that orally administered GABA increases the amount of Human Growth Hormone (HGH). GABA directly injected to the brain has been reported to have both stimulatory and inhibitory effects on the production of growth hormone, depending on the physiology of the individual. Certain pro-drugs of GABA (ex. picamilon) have been developed to permeate the blood–brain barrier, then separate into GABA and the carrier molecule once inside the brain. This allows for a direct increase of GABA levels throughout all areas of the brain, in a manner following the distribution pattern of the pro-drug prior to metabolism.

The Science and Pseudoscience of Children's Mental Health: Cutting Edge

Yes Traven, this comes up from time to time, and I have posted links on other threads regarding new pathways that have been identified. "The brain has no lymph system" was another (more entrenched) belief that was erroneous; the notion that GABA can't enter the brain's neural system is another which is persistent though not so entrenched I think. People who take tranquilisers like Xanax and Klonopin and Valium will usually report that these work rapidly on their anxiety, and the mode of action of these oral tablets is that they are absorbed via the digestive canal and work by raising GABA levels in the brain (especially Klonopin). This is the last time I am addressing this point though, unless startling new research arrives, as it has been addressed quite a lot of times before.

I take Neurontin/Gabapentin which has an effect on GABA. I take it for my OCD & it helps alot with the obsessive thoughts & the compulsions. It doesn't help with the anxiety aspect thou but I take Buspar which helps my anxiety alot.

Yes, Buspar is interesting. I haven't used it though there are a number of reports like yours, and it is said to raise GABA levels too, though I haven't checked out the research on it myself to date.

I've done a little research on Buspar before I started taking it & I don't remember reading that it has an effect on GABA but I could of missed it or just forgot. I liked how it was specially for anxiety instead of being an antidepressant or a benzo. It does help my Generalized Anxiety & stopped me from having panic attacks but it didn't help my obsessions or compulsions. After trying Buspar for alittle while, I've done research on OCD treatments & decided to try Neurontin. The combination of Busapr & Neurontin works well for me; they help me with different things so I kind of need both.

I forgot to mention that my girlfriend takes a supplement called NAC(N-Acetyl Cysteine) which is antioxidant that can have an effect on GABA. She wasn't ready to try meds but was willing to try a supplement. It helps her OCD but I don't think it helps with her general anxiety too much. She also takes Busapr which helps her anxiety some. She takes 1gram of NAC 2x a day. I thought about trying NAC alittle but the Neurontin has been working for me & it's a lot cheaper to get a prescription of that cuz I'm in the Medicare extra help program.

As said, nothing much goes into your brain to promote gaba in your brain.
although supplement reviews says it mays them go to sleep easier
if its calms you down and makes you sleep easier, Kava tea, chamomile does the same trick too

I've read some precursor to produce GABA in your brain includes green tea Theamine , glutamine

Made me feel really social and great for the first 3 days or so taking 500mg 2 times a day and then by day 4 or 5 it didn't go jack s**t anymore. I guess I developed a tolerance for it...

The effect you get may indeed be the effect of GABA, but when you take other things as well you cannot be sure of the cause-and-effect.

Amino acids have great potential but given that these are the building blocks of protein, that the body can source itself when needed, means that more of a good thing does not ultimately guarantee more of a good effect - as the body will adjust to it and find a way to balance the new high levels of GABA. The body and the mind are great at balancing themselves, always to the default state.

So I expect that a lot of you guys will experience rather short lived effects - but I am looking forward to read more on your experiences as it is very interesting

Can anyone recommend me an effective GABA supplement?

Since it's just a basic chemical, it shouldn't make a difference what brand you choose -- they will all be the same. 500 and 750 mg seem to be the most common sizes. I've been trying it for a couple of weeks and it seems to have definitely helped with anxiety. Some people have said to take it on an empty stomach, but that didn't seem to agree with me so I've been taking 750 mg with meals.

B19! I want to post because I want to follow this thread so I can come back and read the links and things more thoroughly. Are you still taking GABA?

I tried it recently, and the results were truly amazing, but I stopped taking it because I have pervasive depressive disorder, and I kept reading things online about how some people who take GABA for more than 2 weeks can have a major depressive episode, or build up a tolerance to it.

If you're still taking it, did you not build up a tolerance? I don't mean to be nosey. I just wondered.

I switched to co-enzyme Q10 to try to heal my digestive tract so that my body could make it's own GABA, but it's not working as dramatically as the GABA. And to be 100% honest, I'm struggling with a major depressive episode right now, anyway. I keep thinking back on the feeling of peace and well being the GABA gave me when I took it, and wondering if that's the way regular people feel all of the time.

Then I found this thread!

I have read an article that says that GABA doesn't have to cross the blood brain barrier in order to get into the brain. I will try to see if I can find the link. I've also thought . . . why does it have to cross into the brain at all? It's a short chain fatty acid, and that is easy food for the mitochondria in your cells in your body. If you have a digestive disorder - and I've read that lots of people with autism do - and your mitochondria are not getting fed because of that, just feeding them GABA should make you feel better without crossing any blood brain barrier, shouldn't it?

I have lots of links about short chain fatty acids, and mitochondria, if anyone wants to look at them, too.

I'm so excited about this thread! I will be back tomorrow to read through it all better, but right now I'm signing off of the computer.

I was going to try everything I could to fix my digestion before trying GABA long term, but now I want to read the links here about people with autism being deficient in GABA. Thank you so much for the links. This means a lot to me!

There is some quite recent research on one particular probiotic as an exceptional GABA booster and I will try and find that for you.

As to pathways - there seems to be a ventral pathway for GABA transportation into the brain, cited by various researchers, and if you have a leaky gut, which seems to be the case for at least a section of people on the spectrum, then it is said that GABA has better and more immediate access to the brain. Whatever. The important thing is that somehow, for some of us it gets into our neural pathways and tops up the available GABA to a 'normal' level, and the effect can be almost immediate and remarkable, as you have also experienced.

As you did, when this first happened to me, I wondered if that was how 'normal' people felt all of the time,and I realised that they were far more different from my innate genetic self than I had thought or known previously. I spent months on end researching GABA after that, amazed that all that life-changing information had bypassed me for so many decades, despite the fact that I was reasonably well educated and had read very widely on anxiety causes and remedies.

I still take GABA occasionally via low dose Clonazepam if I am hyperstressed though my natural levels seem to have increased in the last couple of years (possibly due to giving up GABA antagonists such as coffee). I am going to try the particular probiotic that has been researched though have not done so as yet.

Thank you very much for your feedback. It is refreshing to hear from someone whose experience relates so well to my own, (though not the depression). I know that the effect lessened over time when I took GABA every day, so you have to have space it out after a while to maintain the effect.

Hi, JakeASD.

If you go back to the original post in this thread, there is one link given for a site about GABA. If you look on that site, there is a page with information about good brands of GABA to try. There actually is a difference between natural GABA, and chemically produced GABA (according to the site) in terms of side effects. The GABA I tried is on the list of good brands on this site, and it is from a company called, "Solgar".

Thanks for your reply, B19.

I'm still reading all of the links in this thread. Thanks for the links regarding copper, too. I have been starting to read a little bit about that, lately. There isn't enough time in the day!

I noticed that you said that you have low blood pressure, earlier in the thread. I do, also, and I thought I would share a link I read recently about a study regarding mitochondrial preference for butyric acid when blood flow is restricted to the heart. If you read the whole thing, you'll see that the researchers made sure that oxygen levels were not any different, only blood flow. (Fair warning, the study was conducted on pigs, so if you don't like animal research, you may not want to read it. However, I thought it was excellent, and fairly easy to understand.) Here is the link:

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/105/3/367.full

The main reason that I wanted to try GABA, actually, is because I have muscle spasticity and pain that has been chronic. I've told so many doctors about it, and they show little interest. I have taken burdock root (arctium lappa) since 2011 to help with some of my pain, but didn't know why it worked. I recently joined a forum where I met other people with pain similar to mine, and one of the members tried the burdock, and it worked for her. She asked me why. We are working on two theories. One is that burdock is a diuretic, and might effect the cerebrospinal fluid pressure somehow.

But I'm more partial to the second theory, which is that burdock is a prebiotic. A prebiotic is a food that makes it all the way through the digestive tract pretty much undigested, and when it reaches the colon, the good bacteria there can digest it, and through a fermentation process, change it into a short chain fatty acid, which feeds the mitochondria in your cells. Not every cell in the body has mitochondria, but muscle cells do, and if they are starving for fatty acids, they can't produce the energy they need to function properly.

On that same forum, I read about the medication, baclofen, which can relax spastic muscles, and when I looked it up, I learned that it is not habit forming, and people don't build up a tolerance to it. I also read that it worked with GABA receptors, and so that led me to reading about GABA, and learning that it is also a short chain fatty acid. I tried it, and the result was the muscle relaxation that I had wished for my entire life. The sense of well being was only a pleasant surprise, to me.

Here are some other links about mitochondria and fatty acids (these are just abstracts, and are very short):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23703093
http://pen.sagepub.com/content/38/5/587.abstract

Here is a link about mitochondrial disease:

http://www.umdf.org/site/c.8qKOJ0MvF7LU ... isease.htm

And here are links that I've just come across today, and haven't had time to read yet, but I found them based upon things that you have said earlier in this thread. They mostly look pretty good, and I'd like to share them!:

https://healingautismandadhd.wordpress. ... ents/gaba/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477717/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4085902/
http://autismcoach.com/neurotransmitters-and-autism/
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content ... 3.full.pdf

I have also learned that GABA can help people with conditions as varied as tinnitus, stroke, and diabetic neuropathic pain. It's my belief that everyone's body chemistry is different, though. And I also want to stress that anyone wanting to try an herb or supplement should read about it carefully, and consider things like whether you may be allergic, or have another condition, or be taking a medication that would interact badly with it. Burdock root, for example, can lower blood sugar, so people already taking medication to regulate blood sugar should not take burdock root!!

I am going to look up GABA agonists, as well. Thank you for mentioning that. I do drink a lot of coffee. For now, as I said before, I am trying out co enzyme Q10, and that seems to be having a mild positive effect. I've bought a bottle of a combination of enzymes to try when I run out of the Q10. I'm hoping that it will work better than just taking one enzyme at a time. But I can see that there is a lot more to learn. I've noticed in my reading that a lot of holistic practitioners recommend not just digestive enzymes, but also adding micro-nutrients, and essential fatty acids. So, in the long run, I may do that. But I don't care to take more things than I have to.

I really appreciate your posts telling me that many people with autism are deficient in GABA. I've been feeling unwell for so long, and I'm very glad to learn anything I can. I feel like I'm finally on the right track with the autism/digestive disorders lead. I wish I had known about all of this thirty years ago!

Take care, everyone.

I forgot to include the link that discussed GABA and the blood brain barrier. Here it is:

http://www.naturalstresscare.org/gaba.aspx#.VxvyyfkrKUk

And another about healing the gut, I haven't read yet, but it looks very thorough:

http://fixyourgut.com/improve-your-mito ... ochondria/