SLEEP
Hopefully this group will help you catch some Zzzz’s
Organizer:
- Organized by
-
-
The 1st week.
-
The 1st week.
For both the wife and I, in our first week taking niacin we not only slept so much deeper, but also were tired much sooner in the evening and wanted to sleep much later in the morning. Heads up if you have a tight schedule and ramp up the niacin quick. Try to make sure you have time for the rest. It was deep heavy sleep the kind we must have been missing on for a long time.
-
1 Reply
-
This is a typical response early on maybe even first few weeks, often sporadically, for those most especially who need to regain neural/CNS control in the brain, but you are definitely right in the sense of wanting to know and try to best adjust (but not over-worry) about this nuance. In the long run, a week or two, with sufficient dosing, one will readily understand what I mean. The little call-it “growing pain” in terms of the sleep nuances reported are related to regaining not necessarily the amount of time (albeit that plays a role of course too) but the depth, ultimately one’s REM-pulsed sleep, which over niacin/glutamine deficiency, have a lot of that to make up. Most should feel better after a few deep sleeps as the body regains this. Check out the below – they gave mice suffering with some pesticide lab agent-induced sleep disorders to what would be 50-60 g one-time dose of flush niacin in humans and it put them lights out, regaining their deep sleep and microglia control and ultimately neural health thereafter:
“250 mg/kg nicotinic acid induced marked and long-lasting suppression of VO2, RER and feeding. Similar robust effects were observed after gavage administration of 1 g/kg nicotinic acid (Fig. 6, Table 6).”
Nicotinic acid promotes sleep through prostaglandin synthesis
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53648-7–
Here now is what even low-dose 250 mg for 6-12 months did (and the authors knew they had so much more room for improvement, as they note in the end) in full-blown Parkinson’s Diseased in-patient military veterans at the VA:
“We have previously shown that niacin and NAD levels in PD patients are decreased compared to age-matched controls. Fatigue, depression, strength, sleep, and quality of life indicators may be affected by the reduction in niacin levels. In this study, six months or one year of niacin reduced typical PD motor symptoms and fatigue and stabilized serotonin levels and REM sleep percentage. These effects are highly beneficial for the PD patient’s quality of life. Many PD patients complain of both depression and fatigue. This study showed a halting or slowing of the drop in serotonin levels by niacin, which could potentially reduce depression or improve mood. Additionally, fatigue is likely enhanced by increasing NAD, which is low in aging populations and even lower in PD. Grip strength, although not significant, showed a trend of increasing strength bilaterally in the niacin group, but not with placebo over six months of treatment. Grip strength is well-known to correlate with longevity, so this could be a predictor of increased life expectancy by taking niacin [27]. Almost all reported secondary measures demonstrated a trend towards improvement over one year.
Most notably, serotonin levels, fatigue, and grip strength stood out in our study. Serotonin levels were significantly lowered in the placebo-treated group but not in the niacin-treated group after the first six months. The FSS scores were markedly better in the niacin-treated group but not the placebo group from six to twelve months. Both of these findings may explain the reporting of an uplift in mood reported by PD subjects who received niacin for one year.5. Conclusions
The findings presented here show that treatment with low-dose daily niacin supplementation compared to placebo resulted in significantly improved motor function outcomes. We have already demonstrated that niacin acts by polarizing the activated microglial cells in the brain and reducing GPR109A expression in white blood cells, thus reducing neuroinflammation. Our findings support the use of low-dose niacin supplementation in PD as an adjunct therapy that can reduce neuroinflammation and improve motor functions in PD patients.”Low-Dose Niacin Supplementation Improves Motor Function in US Veterans with Parkinson’s Disease: A Single-Center, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial
https://mdpi.com/2227-9059/9/12/1881
–
These modulations you and wife are feeling are typical, but yea – during work it would not be good to all the sudden after a few doses finally get your “beauty rest” back on the keyboard or something or while watching kids or something. However, there are worse things, and it is not necessarily a completely unavoidable/delayable sleep. Some people experience it early-on harder than others (again, those who need to recover the REM and parasympathetic lined up with the nervous system after trauma, damage, injury, sickness, “life”, … being niacin/glutamine deficient for decades), but it all goes away and everything is Gucci in a week or two (some in a few days if they hit the ground running with higher dose). Of course, during sleep is when we have the most available ATP to (further) fuel niacin, glutamine, water (and glucose) to do their ATP-producing work to clear gunk and restore our damaged cells, so the deep sleep is a huge benefit that can’t be avoided and logically shouldn’t.
Log in to reply.