BoatBanter.com - Happy Thanksgiving

Sorry, I was a bit sleepy from all the turkey...

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"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"katy" wrote in message
...
You kinda just took all the joy out of it, Jon...

Capt. JG wrote:
Just put the bird in... 5 hours to go and counting.... then the
tryptophan kicks in... at least psychologically speaking..

Tryptophan and turkey

According to popular belief, tryptophan in turkey meat causes drowsiness.
Turkey does contain tryptophan, which does have a documented
sleep-inducing effect as it is readily converted into serotonin by the
body. However, tryptophan is effective only when taken on its own as a
free amino acid. Tryptophan in turkey is found as part of a protein, and,
in small enough amounts, this mechanism seems unlikely.

A more-likely hypothesis is that the ingestion of large quantities of
food, such as at a Thanksgiving feast, means that large quantities of
both carbohydrates and branched-chain amino acids are consumed. Like
carbohydrates, branched-chain amino acids require insulin to be
transduced through the myocyte membranes, which, after a large meal,
creates a competition among the amino acids and glucose for insulin,
while simultaneously creating tryptophan's reduced competition with other
amino acids for the Large Neutral Amino Acid Transporter protein for
transduction across the blood-brain barrier.