2.6.1.1. The Cheese’s Tryptophan

In a thin book, called “Daro va Shafa” (medicine & Cure), a collection of traditional Islamic medicine from the Holy Prophet SAAS, it is mentioned that eating cheese makes someone to fall asleep.

When I read this I got astonished and kept it in my head. Some 5 months later, in my Histology course in medicine, while I was studying for my exam I came up with a theory to solve the problem of insomnia. I noted my theory beside the fact of the effect of visual light on our pineal gland (in our brain) which regulates its production of the amino acid tryptophan, which in turn is decisive for humans to sleep or vice versa.

Let’s go into this much deeper.

Dr. Judith Bryans, a nutrition scientist at The Dairy Council said:
“One of the amino acids contained in cheese – tryptophan – has been shown to reduce stress while inducing sleep. In other words, the cheese to help you have a good night sleep. “1,2,3

But that chemical process does tryptophan follow in the human body that leads one to fall asleep?

The wonderful effect of tryptophan on both mood (or “bad mood”) and sleep may be that your body naturally converts tryptophan to both serotonin and melatonin.
Serotonin levels affect mood, and melatonin affects sleep.

Here’s how the body normally works without the consumption of tryptophan. This is while one needs to bear in mind that our body already has tryptophan. But why should one then eat cheese to get tryptophan into our body? The answer to the question is.

It is important to a small agency called pineal gland or epiphysis located at the rear of the third ventricle recording the light surrounding us.
In mammals, the structure is deeply embedded in the skull but still registers the light.
This gland consist of two types of cells: glial cells and pinealocytes.
Pinealocytes look like neurons with short axons that docks to the blood vessels through its committees. Pinealocytes produce melatonin. Synthesis and secretion of melatonin is regulated by light illumination from the eye.

Melatonin’s main functions:

– Regulation of daily body rhythms and sleep cycle
– Inhibits the secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and thus avoids the gonad’s fat formation.
Moreover, it regulates the steroidogenic activity of gonads especially in the menstrual cycle.
Melatonin also has anti-oxidative effect, as there are receptors for melatonin also in other places of the body, i.e. for defense against infections and inflammations.

Sympathetic nerve fibers from superior cervical ganglion enters the gland with the light of information along a long road:

1. In the retina (of the eye) light-sensitive cells can be found. Signals from these light-sensitive cells travel to the nucleus suprachiasmicus (of the hypothalamus) through a nerve bundle called the retinohypothalamic tract.
2. The information from the hypothalamus is sent to the lateral nuclei in the gray matter of the spinal cord at thoracic level.
3. The information from the spinal cord is transmitted to superior cervical ganglion (preganglionic sympathetic fibers).
4. The information from superior cervical ganglion is sent over by postganglionic sympathtic fibers which go in association with the blood vessels that go into the pineal gland.
5. Darkness stimulates the production of melatonin. Light suppresses the rapid production of melatonin. This means that melatonin levels in the blood varies throughout the 24.hour period; they are high at night and drop when ones eyes are opened.

Melatonin acts both on the hypothalamus (sleep cycles) and on the adenohypophysis to inhibit gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) and growth hormone (GH) secretion.
These cycles (the increase and decrease of melatonin) begins in puberty.
In infants, they are on a constant high level (since babies sleep a lot). In older the curve becomes less sharp. Melatonin seems to promote a good sleep and therefore the elder can have trouble sleeping.
Melatonin is a hormone that is a strong antioxidant and acts against OH free radicals, which is important to avoid cancer or even to fight against it.

The formation of melatonin:

Its formation starts from tryptophan and continues via serotonin:

Tryptophan –> 5-hydroxytryptophan –> serotonin –> N-acetylserotonin –> melatonin

As pointed out earlier the hormone serotonin, which is initially formed from tryptophan reduces mood such as bad temper or even stress; in other words, it affects the feelings, behaviors and thoughts.
There is an endogenous internal clock from the nucleus suprachiasmaticus (of the hypothalamus), whose cells have an intrinsic rhythm that is balanced and adjusted in light illumination (of the eye).

Melatonin can be bought in the U.S., Britain, France, in healthy diet and it can be consumed when wants to be sleepy. It cannot be bought in Sweden since no one has its patent and it isn’t profitable to sell it in Sweden.

Then what’s the solution to this health problem?

تَداوَوْا؛ فَاِنَّ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ الدَّاءَ أَنْزَلَ الدَّوَاءَ.

Cure yourselves, for He who has let diseases befall you, has created their medicines too.
(The Holy Prophet Mohammed(SAAS) – Nahj al-Fasahah p.53)

تَداوَوْا عِبَادَ اللَّهِ؛ فَاِنَّ اللَّهَ تَعَالى لَمْ يَضَعْ دَاءً اِلاّ وَضَعَ لَهُ دَوَاءً؛ غَيْرَ دَاءٍ واحِدٍ؛ الهَرِمِ.

Cure yourselves, O servants of the Exalted God! for he has created a (specific) medicine for any single kind of disease, save old age.
(The Holy Prophet Mohammed(SAAS) – Nahj al-Fasahah p.53)

Thus, one can solve this problem and it is simply to eat cheese. This shows in other words, that cheese can be used as a natural medicine instead of consuming drugs which all have side-effects on our body. As everyone surely know, sleeping problems does exists in epidemic values in the Western world, due to their fast growing life which is threatened by constant stress on a daily-basis.

Most drugs used are designed to prevent the degradation of serotonin in the body. Examples of these medicines called SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) are:
Prozac (fluoxetine), Paxil (Paroxetine, Zoloft (Sertaline), Desyrel (Trazodone) and Effexor (Venlafaxine) 2

On the other hand what makes the cheese work is its increase in the formation of serotonin, but to prevent the body from doing its normal job which is to break down the extra serotonin (to become N-acetylserotonin among others). In other words, drugs tend to strive against the bodies natural being while its natural cure – cheese – allows the natural process in the body to work but instead fixes the problem. The main problem for people with sleep problems is that the amount of tryptophan in their pinealocyts in pineal gland are not sufficient to create enough serotonin, and especially melatonin. Thus the drug, which belongs to the anti-depressant class, does not work specifically enough to fix the lack of melatonin but rather that of serotonin. This is one of the many reasons why drugs belonging to this class have many side-effects (www.emedicinehealth.com/ssris_and_depression/page5_em.htm)

A good and important question that many might want to ask is:
What kind of cheese is best to consume?

According to researchers the cheese that works best to tackle this problem is Cheshire. It is the typical white salty cheese that people from the Middle East (and many Mediterranean countries) eat. The same cheese, but in its yellow form, is also found in other countries such as Britain.
Due to its salty taste, it should be put into a (previously-boiled) water with an average temperature to reduce its salinity, where the salty content leaves the cheese to the water. The reason to do so before consuming it is to reduce the risk of high blood pressure resulting from salty cheese or food.

So from now on, if you meet people with sleep problems, depression or anxiety you can recommend them to eat cheese.

Source:

1. http://www.britishcheese.com/news.cfm?page_id=240

2. http://www.naturdoctor.com/Chapters/Research/insomnia_tryptophan.html

3. Medical text book: Histology a text and atlas by Ross, Michael H, 5th edition (2006).