Vol 31–The unexpected dangers of alpha-GPC: is it worth the potential risks?

Quick Look  👀

1 oz of water to garden your health:  

1 Budding Tweet

2 Weeds to avoid

2 Websites to cultivate your garden

Random Musings

Reading Time: 4 minutes and 50 seconds

Action to water your health

This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Alpha-glycerophosphocholine (alpha-GPC or α-GPC).

I recently saw this ingredient in one of my friend’s pre-workout supplements. Never heard of it. No idea what it does.

So often we consume “things” without knowing what the heck is in them (including myself).

So I did a deep dive into this ingredient. Let’s see what we uncovered.

Alpha-glycerophosphocholine (alpha-GPC or α-GPC). Is a prodrug ( it changes in your body before it starts working) for both choline and glycerophosphate.

Choline. Is a precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.  Nerves use choline to make acetylcholine, which acts as a messenger between nerves. Acetylcholine is important because:

• Tells muscles to twitch more.

• Tells your hippocampus to store a memory.

• Plays an essential role in alertness, attention, learning, and memory.

• So much more!

Nautral sources of choline. Meat, eggs, poultry, fish, and dairy products all contain choline. With that said, the amount you get from most foods is tiny. The highest density is meat products (with an emphasis on organ meats) and wheat germ.

Sounds like the self-proclaimed “liver king” who eats raw organs and meats is getting enough 😮

Ok, where were we?

Glycerophosphate. Is a precursor to phosphatidylcholine. Phosphatidylcholine is a fat found naturally in human cells and a significant source of choline.

Glycerophosphate is important because it can cross the blood-brain barrier easily and works in tandem with other compounds and neurotransmitters in the brain.

Effects of alpha-GPC.

• ↑ Dopamine release during neuronal action potentials.

• ↑ brain serotonin concentrations

• ↑ brain acetylcholine levels

• Preserving acetylcholine concentrations during stressors

• Protective against cholinergic toxins

Benefits of alpha-GPC.

• Protective against cholinergic toxins.

• Neuroprotective.

• Increased attention and reaction time in persons undergoing acute stress [1].

• Improved learning in both active and passive avoidance learning tasks [2].

• Enhance power output

The drawback of alpha-GPC. A recent cohort study found “Use of α-GPC was associated with a higher 10-year incident stroke risk in a dose-response manner after adjusting for traditional cerebrovascular risk factors.” [3]

Alpha-GPC helps manage or prevent dementia progression globally. So the population studied was large for their results.

The mechanism is thought to be from alpha-GPC→ turn into→choline→ broken down in gut muscoa→gut byproduct from microbes is→ trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO).

Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO). Without getting into the weeds, the TMAO pathway promotes the development of atherosclerosis and thrombosis [4].

This was seen in mice and in people from a cohort study.

Dosage of alpha-GPC. For symptoms of cognitive decline, almost all studies used a dosage of 1,200 mg per day, divided into three doses of 400 mg.

For boosting power output, studies have used a dosage of 300–600 mg, supplemented 30–60 minutes before to exercise.

☒ Action: I would never consume a product that has alpha-GPC. People might comment that there are no randomized controlled trials blah blah blah. Sure, that is true, but do you want to take a product that has preliminary evidence of increased atherosclerosis? if the benefits outweigh the risks for you then yes. Otherwise, I would pass.

Budding Tweet

Andrew Huberman, a Ph.D. neurobiologist at Stanford recommends alpha-GPC but with the caveat of adding 600mg of garlic capsule to offset the increased TMAO caused by it.

One way that garlic may help to offset the effects of trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) is through its active compound, allicin.

Allicin has shown to modulate the gut microbiota, which can influence the production of TMAO.

Some studies have suggested that allicin may inhibit the growth of certain bacteria that produce TMAO, while promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria.

Allicin may directly inhibit the production of TMAO by inhibiting the enzyme responsible for its synthesis. These mechanisms may help to reduce the levels of TMAO in the body, potentially leading to a reduction in the risk of atherosclerosis.

You can read all about it [5] one important caveat is that the study was done with a specific protocol “The blended raw garlic juice used in this pilot study contained 0.89 mg/mL allicin, and the participants consumed 55 mL of the prepared garlic juice per day for a week.”

So if you take alpha-GPC you should also take garlic juice, not a capsule, as the study. Yuk!

Weeds to avoid

1️⃣ Buying more stuff that you don’t need. Remember when you lived off next to nothing? But that dopamine hit feels so good! 

2️⃣ Only drinking water. Make sure you have electrolytes as well. some options include:

• Watermelon juice.

• Coconut water.

• Sports drink. I like this Gatorade alternative barcode (cleaner).

• Electrolyte-infused water: Lots of companies now have pills you can drop into your water and infuse with electrolytes.

Websites to cultivate your garden

Character AI: Chat with the AI version of Socrates, Walter White, or many other people/characters. Play an interactive game, get dating advice, get help with languages and so much more. You can spend all day here.

Tana: Another notetaking app? Yes and no. I’ve been using Tana exclusively for the past month and it works with my notetaking brain.

I believe there is no “best” notetaking app. Only, the best one that works with your brain. I can spend another hour writing about its unique super tags, and searchability but it’s always better if you try it out yourself.

Random Musings

1. I’ve been stretching more consistently. At night it helps calm my central nervous system and puts me in a relaxed state.

2. Been drinking MUD/WTR again. You can read my review here. I can sensitive to caffeine so this helps tie me over.

3. I threw away ~20 pairs of socks that had holes in them. This is your friendly reminder to toss your socks with holes in them.

You're an awesome human

Martin, CEO of braincrumbss

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