BCAAs and sleep

[dashforce]

Recently I've experimenting with 7-10 grams of BCAAs in the middle of the night, and find that it's been upsetting my sleep (can't get back to sleep). I only take them if I wake up naturally (to go to the bathroom).

I have often done middle-of-the-night WP shakes without noticing these problems.

I have a theory, though -- and I'm seeing some anecdotal support on other forums about parts of it.

Here's the thing. We all know that BCAAs = rise in insulin. So when in a fasted state (like middle of the night)...

BCAAs = insulin spike (w/o much glucose) = hypoglycemia = catecholamine release to compensate for hypoglycemia = simultaneous lipolysis and proteogenesis (if the plasma aminos are enough to drown out the catecholamine proteolysis problem), but no ZZZZZs.

What do you guys think? Anyone have any related issues?

[President Wilson]

It is a possibility, and I like your thinking. What you might do is combine it with fish oil pills to slow down its digestion. that should solve the problem

[dashforce]

Thanks for the response, Pres! Do you think that the anabolic benefit would be decreased at all by slowing the absorption time?

[Damien Voorhees]

Gosh, you guys are geniuses! /forum/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[President Wilson]

Well,

the rate of protein synthesis may be somewhat slowed, but because the aminos are so rapidly digested anyway, you should get a similar anabolic response.

In fact, one of the issues with the high rate of absorbtion is that a proportion of those amino acids will be used as fuel. When fats are added this has a sparing effect, so in reality, it could be more anabolic

[dashforce]

Speaking of digestion/absorption rates, what do you think of these ideas that I've come across recently:

Whey hydrosylate (spl) is "faster" than BCAAs because a protein transport mechanism is better adapted to peptides than individual ("pre-digested") aminos...

Legumes should be avoided because of their protease inhibitors leading to poor digestion/absorption of PRO...

and (non-protein containing) liquid volume should be kept to a minimum during meal time (outside of meal time, HYDRATE!) to maximize the substrate (PRO) concentration. This month in Biochem we were introduced to Michaelis-Menton kinetics, and if this situation applies, catalysis rate would definitely be optimized by maxing out [S] (by keeping non-S volume to a minimum).

Sorry 'bout all these Qs... I just see these things that make sense, but doing a little of my own investigating hasn't yielded anything in reference to the first two at all. Nothing "scientific," at least.

Thanks again.

Edit: upon rereading that last Q, let me rephrase for clarity:

Don't drink much water with your PRO meals because dilution issues can make protease-mediated catalysis slower.