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Stress-related insomnia and L-carnitine
Recently, you suggested that a reader who was suffering from stress-related insomnia would benefit from taking a supplement of L-carnitine. I’ve scanned lots of nutrition books and technical information and cannot corroborate this. Where does your information for your column come from?
Dr Erika Schwartz is the author of an excellent and thought-provoking book called Natural Energy (published in 2000 by Vermilion, £8.99). In it, she writes extensively about her clinical and research experience of L-carnitine and asserts: 'Carnitine is a precursor to acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter that helps maintain normal brain function, In addition, it held normalise the level of 'feel good' endorphins which enhances our ability to cope with stress.'
Dr Schwartz, who is a medically-trained doctor and not a supplement maker, concludes: 'Study after study has led to the conclusion that carnitine makes people mentally sharper, happier, and better able to cope.' It is in this context that L-carnitine can be useful in helping alleviate stress-related insomnia.
My information for this column is sourced from all over the world. In the last six months, for instance, I have travelled to the Brazilian rainforest, to Florida, and to New Zealand to interview natural health experts across a wide range of topics. I attend international conferences and liaise with both practitioners and academics involved in integrated medicine and natural health both here and abroad. I do all my own journalistic research and a great deal of the material you will read in this column is sourced from the original clinical researchers - and not, as you may suspect, the supplement makers or their public relations consultants.