GAMMA-AMINOBUTYRIC ACID (GABA) IN THE TREATMENT OF LONG HAUL COVID
GABA is a naturally occurring amino acid that the body uses as a neurotransmitter in our brains. Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers that are used for communication within our brains. They enable various parts of the brain to interact and communicate with each other.
Sometimes the goal of the neurotransmitter is to stimulate a certain area of the brain. These are called excitatory neurotransmitters. Other times the goal is to calm an area down that is already excited. These are known as inhibitory neurotransmitters.
GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. It is what your body sends in to calm you down.
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When GABA attaches to a receptor on the outside of the neuron, it exhibits a calming effect.
This calming of your brain results in your feelings of anxiety, fear, loathing, and stress melting away.The result is that you feel calm, relaxed, decreased muscle tension, stress and anxiety, and a better restful restoring sleep. Not a bad thing in today’s insane world. For those reasons, it is very popular as a supplement.
You should be aware that just like it makes you calm, it can also make you feel sleepy. For that reason, I would not use GABA when driving or operating any heavy equipment.
GABA’s availability in food is very limited. Some fermented foods have GABA in them such as kimchi, miso, and tempeh. It is also found in cruciferous vegetables, rice, mushrooms, spinach, sweet potatoes, kale, broccoli, and chestnuts.
However, it is not clear how much of GABA in foods is absorbed by the body. Supplements on the other hand are more concentrated and appear to be absorbed, due to their calming effect.
Another method of raising your GABA levels is to reverse engineer it. In other words, since it is a protein, by definition, all proteins are made of chains of amino acids. Always, there are certain amino acids that are key in the construction of any given protein.
In the case of GABA, the amino acid that is the backbone of its construction is L-glutamine. L-glutamine is converted into glutamic acid, which in turn is made into GABA. That chemical conversion requires the help of zinc, vitamin B6, and taurine.
L-glutamine along with the amino acid cysteine are involved in the metabolic pathway that produces glutathione.
Glutathione is the master antioxidant in the human body, and increasing its levels helps the immune system hum along at its optimal capacity.
Glutathione and vitamin C also help to regenerate one another, and alpha lipoic acid helps to regenerate both.
One thing to be aware of, and I thought this was odd, but anxiety medications such as Xanax, Ativan, Klonipin, Serax, and Valium all lower GABA levels.
You would think since they are calming, they would naturally raise GABA levels. But you would be wrong. There is a feedback loop with those meds calming the brain and hence the brain shutting down its own immediate needs for GABA production. And so, it is.
Hence, I think it is far easier to provide the building blocks such as L-glutamine, than hoping to absorb GABA from foods, without its destruction in the acid pit of the stomach.
L-glutamine also happens to be the only fuel that the enterocytes, that line the small intestine, use for fuel; unlike almost all the other cells in the body that utilize glucose.
The only other exception to that rule are the cells that line the colon. They use medium chain triglycerides for fuel. For that reason, supplementing with L-glutamine is a reliable way to both raise GABA levels and help heal bowel problems like Leaky Gut Syndrome. But alas, I digress.
HOW THE MEDICAL UNDERGROUND UTILIZES GABA
For our purposes, for the treatment of Long Haul Covid, recent research shows that GABA may be another arrow in our quiver of treatments. How so, you ask?
COVID-19 infections produce significant stress and inflammation on the body; causing the adrenal glands to release stress hormones hence activating the body’s fight or flight mode or sympathetic nervous system.
Since GABA is calming, it inhibits the sympathetic overdrive that is so harmful to the body, especially long term, as in Long Haul Covid.
Researchers gave GABA immediately after infecting mice with Murine Coronavirus (Mouse coronavirus) resulting in a significant reduction in the severity of their illnesses, pneumonia, and even death.
How that will translate to humans is yet unclear. Mice are used extensively in research for human diseases because the results so often are applicable to humans.
If you wanted to supplement with L-glutamine, it is readily available online. In capsule form, they usually are 500 mg doses. The acceptable range of intake, meaning the doses that produced very few side effects, were in the 500 mg three times a day to twice that dose.
Since GABA is produced naturally by the body, it is generally recognized as very safe for supplementation. There are no reported drug interactions, so you do not have to worry about adding it to any of your current medications.
As with every supplement, there are no studies in women who are pregnant or breast feeding. For that reason, nobody knows for sure if it is safe for them to use it.
There is no set dose of GABA for our purposes. Most of the available supplements range from 500 mg to 750 mg. I would take that once or twice a day, depending upon your response, on an empty stomach.
Sometimes GABA supplements also contain L-theanine, which is also a wonderful calming amino acid. If our goal is to dampen the sympathetic nervous system activation, then both should be synergistic.
My feelings are that GABA is natural, has virtually no side effects, and is so useful as a tool to calm and relax you and help counteract the negative effects of Long Haul Covid, then why not supplement it?
We have several options to calm down the sympathetic overdrive in Long Haul Covid which is so important, since chronic stress hormone release is so damaging to the body. For that reason, along with its virtual lack of negative side effects I think it is a wonderful choice to add to our treatment of Long Haul Covid.
This disclaimer provides that such medical information is merely information – not advice.
If users need medical advice, they should consult their doctor or other appropriate medical professional.
***Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Ralph La Guardia, MD
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