Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered that dozens of adults with an elevated need for sleep have a substance in their cerebrospinal fluid that acts like a sleeping pill.Well, this probably partially explains the effect of Xyrem. It's a GABA blocker.
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The paper describes how samples of patients' cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) contain a substance that enhances the effects of the brain chemical GABA (gamma-amino butyric acid). GABA is one of the main inhibitory chemicals of the nervous system -- alcohol, barbituates and benzodiazepines all enhance the effects of GABA. In the laboratory, the size of the effect on GABA receptor function is more than twice as large in the hyper-sleepy patients, on average, than in control samples. "In some of the more severely affected patients, we estimated the magnitude of the GABA-enhancing effect as nearly equivalent to that expected for someone receiving sedation for outpatient colonoscopy," Rye says. "This is a level of impaired consciousness that many subjects had to combat on almost a daily basis in order to live their usual lives."
But I'll bet a thousand dollars whatever it is, it's related to gluten. Either opioids or antibodies or insulin metabolism. Been there, done that.
Update: Cha ching. I'm putting my money on insulin. It seems to magnify the effects of GABA.
And for the record, I wrote to Dr. Rye and told him to look it up.
