{"id":1904,"date":"2014-11-25T22:33:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T03:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.willclower.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/does-t-day-turkey-put-you-into-a-narcoleptic-coma.html"},"modified":"2016-09-19T11:19:20","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T15:19:20","slug":"does-t-day-turkey-put-you-into-a-narcoleptic-coma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=1904","title":{"rendered":"Does T-Day Turkey Put You Into a Narcoleptic Coma?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I\u2019ve honestly had someone ask me whether they should be concerned. <\/span>

<\/span><\/span>\u201cI\u2019m going over to my parent\u2019s house for Thanksgiving. I\u2019ll have a lot of turkey, but then I have to drive home. Won\u2019t this make me go to sleep? <\/span><\/span>Should I just plan to stay there for the night?\u201d, as if they\u2019d had 6 drinks, or were just worried that they\u2019d lapse into spontaneous<\/span> unconsciousness on I-95.<\/span>

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<\/span><\/span>Follow @willclower<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n


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Like every pearl of a myth, there\u2019s an irritating single grain of truth that starts it all.<\/span><\/div>\n
Turkey does contain tryptophan, tryptophan is an amino acid that gets converted into melatonin, and melatonin is a sleep-inducing hormone <\/span><\/span>[grain of truth … check]<\/span>. So there is a series of logical stepping stones that can take you from your T-Day feast straight to sleep in no time.<\/span><\/div>\n

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But. <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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First of all, turkey isn’t the only food with tryptophan, and it’s not even the food with the most tryptophan. Pork chops and cheddar cheese both have more than turkey, and when\u2019s the last time you face planted into your pork-o-melt sandwich before even getting half way through it? Don\u2019t answer that. Regardless of the true cause, you\u2019ll never convince your date that it was the \u201ctryptophan\u201d that made you pass out.  <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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The point is that oral consumption of tryptophan must get into the brain before getting converted into anything that can influence your likelihood of going to sleep. And before it gets through the blood-brain gate keeper at all, some of it gets lost to the production of the vitamin niacin in your liver. <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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With the remaining tryptophan, the blood-brain barrier gate keeper only lets certain amino acids across, and all of the many amino acids have to compete for just a few seats on the bus. Tryptophan is the red headed step child that is the last to go (gets out-competed for the receptors of the amino acids transporters). <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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But. <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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When you have a meal high in carbohydrates, your body produces insulin which helps poor stuck-at-the-station tryptophan out. It does this because insulin escorts all the competitor amino acids from the blood stream into muscles and organs. All of them except tryptophan!! <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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This leaves more tryptophan in the blood and allows some of it to get across and into the brain while the other amino acids are off messing around in the muscles.<\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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So. Carbohydrates. You mean like potatoes and stuffing and yams and my amazing pumpkin pie? Yeah, like that. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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No worries though, because the impact of that little bit of tryptophan on your ability to stay awake on the college football recovery couch is minimal. Think about it this way. When people dose up on tryptophan supplements (as a sleep aid), they\u2019re instructed that it must be taken on an empty stomach to have any effect \u2013 but in this case you\u2019re eating turkey so you’re safe! <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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That\u2019s not to say that you won\u2019t need a recovery-nap after the Thanksgiving turkey-palooza, but you\u2019re sleepiness will be coming from the volume of food and libation you consumed rather than the biochemical blahbiddy blah percolating around in your cerebrovascular whatnot. <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span>For more information: Click here to visit Will Clower’s website. <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve honestly had someone ask me whether they should be concerned. \u201cI\u2019m going over to my parent\u2019s house for Thanksgiving. I\u2019ll have a lot of turkey, but then I have to … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[494],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Qv5g-uI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1975,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=1975","url_meta":{"origin":1904,"position":0},"title":"Thanksgiving “Myth-conceptions”","author":"Will Clower","date":"November 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, here's whopper number 1: \u00a0Turkey makes you tired.Here's the theory. 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