Difficulty sleeping can seriously impact your well-being and affect your ability to function in everyday life. While self-help techniques, certain medications and herbal remedies can offer relief from your symptoms, some practitioners, including nutritionist and physiologist Hulda Clark, believe orthinine supplementation can also help promote sleep. However, as of 2011 there is not much clinical evidence to support this claim. Consult your doctor before using any dietary supplement.
About Orthinine
Orthinine is an amino acid produced by your body that plays an important role in protein metabolism. It is considered a "conditionally essential nutrient," meaning that you don't need to obtain it from food sources, since your body can usually manufacture it from other nutrients. The nutrients used to make orthinine are found in protein-rich foods. However, during times of stress or illness your body may not be able to meet your nutritional demands, necessitating dietary supplementation. Orthinine's exact mechanism of action is not well understood as of 2011. However, according to Tufts Medical Center, orthinine is thought to promote muscle and tissue building. Orthinine may be beneficial for promoting sleep in people with certain medical conditions, however, as of 2011 its use in the general population suffering from insomnia has not been studied.
Sleep and Illness
During times of stress and illness, your quality of sleep can be severely impacted. Having a chronic illness can impair your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep due to worry about your condition or the effects of certain medications. Mental illness such as anxiety and depression can also be a possible cause of insomnia, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Clinical Evidence
A limited amount of research has examined orthinine's effect on laboratory animals. An animal study on neonatal chicks, published in the February 2010 issue of the journal "Nutritional Neuroscience," found that l-orthinine had a sedative and hypnotic effect when the chicks were exposed to an acute stress situation. Supplements with sedative properties help you relax and promote sleep. No studies have been performed on healthy adults suffering from sleep disorders. However, available human studies have focused on the benefits of orthinine for promoting sleep in people suffering from certain illnesses. A study published in the April 1, 2011 issue of the journal "Clinical Drug Investigation" found that cirrhotic patients, those with acute cirrhosis, treated with L-ornithine-L-aspartate -- a combination of orthinine and aspartate -- experienced improvements in the level of symptom severity and had improved quality of sleep and reduced levels of fatigue. As of 2011, more studies are needed to evaluate the benefits of orthinine supplementation on sleep disorders in the general population.
Considerations
You should not use orthinine to self-treat your condition. Consult your doctor to discuss treatment options if you suffer from persistent difficulty sleeping. Insomnia can be a sign of a serious underlying illness. There are no known safety issues associated with the use of orthinine as of 2011. However, as with any dietary supplement inform your doctor if you choose to use orthinine.
References
- Dr. Clark Information Center: Sleep Problems
- Tufts Medical Center: Orthinine Alpha-Ketoglutarate
- "Clinical Drug Investigation"; Oral L-Ornithine-L-Aspartate Improves Health-Related Quality of Life in Cirrhotic Patients with Hepatic Encephalopathy: An Open-Label, Prospective, Multicentre Observational Study; J. Ong et al.; April 1, 2011
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Adult Sleep Disorders
- "Nutritional Neuroscience"; Central L-Orthinine, But Not Polyamines, Induces a Hypnotic Effect in Neonatal Chicks Under Acute Stress; I. Kurauchi et al.; February 2010
