GABA - How It Works

Relax and Unwind with GABA Brain Food™

GABA Brain Food users report:

• Increased sense of ease and relaxation†
• Increased comfort in social situations†
• Clear thoughts and a calm mind†
• Reduced feelings of irritability†

The neurotransmitter GABA acts like a “brake” to keep excitation in check. Too much excitation can lead to irritability, restlessness, and sleep disruption to name a few. GABA’s role as the main inhibitory neurotransmitter helps provide this function in the human body.

View GABA Brain Food™ Diagram

GABA is what is known as a self-inhibiting compound. This means, when you take more GABA than your body needs, it blocks its own transport into the brain to maintain constant, normal GABA concentrations. To circumvent this mechanistic limitation, we included the ingredients L-Citrulline, Rosmarinic Acid, and Grape Seed Extract. These natural ingredients work synergistically to both increase GABA’s transport into the brain and work to sustain elevated concentrations of GABA.

The main challenge in increasing brain levels of GABA via supplementation is circumventing the molecule’s inherent self-inhibiting characteristic. It is suggested that increasing GABA’s permeability across the blood-brain barrier is an effective target to increase brain levels of GABA. One way to do this is to increase vasodilation by upregulating nitric oxide (NO) production in the body.

L-citrulline is a precursor to the amino acid, L-Arginine, which has a potent effect on stimulating NO production. Additionally, grape seed extract has been shown to increase the production of Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase (eNOS), an enzyme used to generate NO from L-Arginine.  

Once GABA is made more permeable and able to freely cross the blood-brain barrier with increased NO production, it is naturally broken down by the enzyme GABA-Transaminase (GABA-T). To attenuate the degradation of GABA by GABA-T we incorporated rosmarinic acid into our formulation, which has an inhibitory effect on GABA-T, thus allowing for sustained, elevated levels of GABA in the brain for a longer period of time.

Summary:

• First, our carefully selected ingredients in GABA Brain Food™ work synergistically to boost NO production to increase permeability of GABA across the blood-brain barrier.
• Next, once GABA enters the brain, catalyzing enzyme GABA-T is inhibited to prevent degradation of GABA and ensure levels are elevated and sustained.