The Function Of GABA

“GABA” stands for “Gamma Amino Butyric Acid,” a neurotransmitter long known for its relaxing, anticonvulsant (meaning “anti-seizure”) activity. We have certainly found ways to increase its presence with drugs that operate on, well, “lateral pathways” to increase its presence quantitatively. Unfortunately, these usually involve addictive substances, like benzodiazepines, which are pretty heavily addictive for most folks.

I am really glad those loveable Brits at U. Cambridge are saying they help “repress” unwanted thoughts. This is to me, a direct validation of Freudian Thought. We “repress” thoughts, and this seems to be linked to the way we do so.

I have long believed that we know enough about neurotransmitters to have a classification of psychiatric illness that is determined by neurotransmitter deficits or malfunctions. The report here seems to tie together illnesses, like anxiety and schizophrenia, which are unrelated according to the current simplified classification.

The current classification is a chain of numbered, but really only minimally different, Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals — “DSMs”– used in psychiatric and psychological practice to tell insurance companies what they are paying for.

Such classification, a pure description of behavior, is better suited to governmental and insurance type systems than for medical practice. For these reasons, they are likely to be around for a long time. Those are the people who are running the show, anyway.

These modes of classification have been consecrated by their use for pharmaceutical research. This is how a certain pharmaceutical may be FDA-approved for a certain illness.

Whoopee!

Let’s go back to GABA and this new role for it that crosses the line between different illnesses.

I frequently prescribe a substance called “L-Theanine,” a simple, single amino acid which is pretty cheap and easy to get, sold as an over-the-counter in lots of nutrition stores and pharmacies.

In various concentrations, and with better absorption on an empty stomach, and with the same tender loving care I would give to any prescription, it is ceremoniously taken.

It does not have the daunting list of side effects that prescription psychotropics usually have.

It can be used to treat many kinds of anxiety — what passes for “attention deficit disorder,” and now, I am beginning to think, other stuff, too.

It is a fairly teency molecule that cross into the interior of a nerve cell without much trouble, and my patients generally love it.

We know that L-theanine can directly become Gamma Amino Butyric Acid (GABA)

I soak up this stuff.

The “awful rowing” (like the poetess Anne Sexton said) toward a reality that is God’s absolute truth.

All I learn I apply, as I can, to taking care of my patients.

Stay tuned.