So I have been eating a ton of fruit for the last month and I have been having serious insomnia. I usually sleep like a brick so this is a very unnatural state for me. I realized that I was eating big bowls of fruit about 1.5-2 hours before I go to bed and started wondering if there was a connection. I did a little research and found that if you have fructose malabsorption and fructose enters your small intestine it can eat up all the tryptophan and cause depression and insomnia. I have also been sort of depressed lately and have been crying a lot (even when there is no hormonal explanation ) I was thinking that my lack of sleep was making me weepy but now I'm starting to think it's all connected to fructose! I suspected before that I may have fructose malabsorption but I really didn't want it to be true. I love fruit and would be devastated to have to give it up. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

I think you'd have some pretty bad diarrhea if you had fructose malabsorption wouldn't you?

fm can also manifest as constipation, which I have struggled with since childhood. But I wonder if any kind of sugar that feeds bad gut bacteria could cause insomnia by allowing the bacteria to eat up your tryptophan.

I was just reading some interesting things about gut bacteria in "Why Stomach Acid Is Good For You." There are gut organisms that can steal B12, but produce an analog of B12 that shows up as true B12 in blood tests, so you can't tell you're deficient. I thought that was interesting since my B12 test was normal, yet I still have some low B12 symptoms such as mild depression.

I thought I brought the book with me, but I don't seem to have it, so I can't tell you right now what the gut bacteria do with which amino acids...

Thank you for posting this, Cap -- I had no idea and am experiencing exactly the same thing. Very useful to know.

And this is possibly a threadjacker, certainly somewhat orthagonal to the point so I'll keep it short -- I'm still not convinced that one's diet holds all the answers to depression.

Have you researched "FODMAPS"? If not, I recommend googling "low-fodmap diet." The best single title I have found is this one:

http://www.amazon.com/IBS-Free-Last...76558016&sr=1-8

It is a step-by-step guide to the varieties of carbohydrates (fructose, fructans, galactans, etc.) that combine to produce the issues that get lumped together as IBS or Fructose Malabsorption. Really helpful.

I am also beginning to think that gut bacteria has an impact on sleep. I have been supplementing butyrate and have been sleeping much better lately.

Do you take it any particular time of the day?

I think I'm getting my first batch of "welcome to menopause" symptoms and it looks like I've got heart palpitations and insomnia. No hot flashes, thankfully!

aimee, there's a big difference between eating tons and giving it up.
moderation falls somewhere in between.

having a small serving before bed has been shown to improve sleep...something about stimulating melatonin (not sure).
also it keeps the liver from needing to make glucose during the night.

high sugar intake often causes depression...doesn't really matter where it comes from.
'tons' sounds excessive, no?

I take cal-mag butyrate with every meal. I am also taking Seriphos at 10:00 a.m., 2:00 and 10:00 p.m. I started with the Seriphos first and saw a little improvement, but it really kicked in when I added the cal-mag butyrate. (FWIW, I have been using calcium and/or magnesium for years without seeing any real improvement in sleep) I assumed that the sleep improvement was a cumulative effect of the Seriphos over time, but as I read more about butyrate, I found that people are using it to treat sleep disorders in autistic children. The gut flora, apparently, plays a role in GABA breaching the blood/brain barrier.

I am taking the Seriphos to address high cortisol. I am also avoiding grains, dairy, and sweeteners (caloric and otherwise).

When I say tons I mean tons in the paleo world, like for instance I may have one and a half cups of pineapple or 20 cherries. I'm a slight drama queen I guess. I have been trying to have something else instead and tried a sweet potato. I did sleep better that night but then I wonder if it's all psychological. I am always thinking that if something weird is happening to me it must be something I'm eating but I guess there's the chance it has nothing to do with food. I'm always looking for the ultimate diet that will give me near perfect weight and health but perhaps fluctuations just happen no matter what you're eating.
I am still trying to understand the whole gut bacteria thing though. I think I have some malabsorption problems somewhere in my gut but I can't figure out what is causing it. I had blood work done a while back when I was doing carnivore for like 3 weeks and it came back that I had low b-12. I know I was ingesting enough b-12 so the problem has to be absorption. Hmm did I just hijack my own thread?

I just looked up Seriphos and it sounds great. I have been taking magnesium before bed for a few years and at first it was totally relaxing me, almost like I was on a sedative and now I hardly feel anything. I may try this stuff. Is it completely safe? Are there any side effects that you know of. My mom has MS and has been gradually having trouble remembering things, it seems this may help her too.

Thanks, Nelson, always great to hear about something that is working. It sounds like you sort of need to know when your coritsol is too high though for it to really work.

B12 is one of the biggest issues discussed in "Why Stomach Acid Is Good For You." Your stomach's parietal cells are supposed to produce hydrochloric acid and intrinsic factor, both of which are needed for B12 absorption. I think he said the inability to produce intrinsic factor was an advanced stage of pernicious anemia, though, so hopefully you don't have that.

My wife also has low B12 despite eating plenty of meat. Right now we're supplementing with both raw liver and sublingual B12 lozenges. I think I'm going to start giving them to her with Angostura bitters, which she said she would prefer to straight-up HCl supplementation.

If you don't have intrinsic factor how can you get B12 out of liver? That's why I thought they made sublingual B12.

Not having intrinsic factor is a worst-case scenario. She doesn't have a pernicious anemia diagnosis.

At any rate, she told me she's been feeling better since we started the liver.