Getting startled is natural and important, but when it happens too easily or with too exaggerated a response, this could indicate a problem. Here's how to solve it.
30 yrs ago diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse. The criteria for the diagnosis after a Holter moniter test was: female, tall, slim, long fingers, hyperstartle reflex. I take between 6-7 grams of glycine a day divided bwtn meals. I think it helps me with my response time to coworkers coming up behind me- I sit with my back to the main room- I’m more chill now.
Yes I have genetic SNPs that make me have low glycine and Betaine. I’ve always had a strong startle and was always diagnosed with hyperactive reflexes. Ever since I was little if the doctor hits my knee with the little hammer it’s always a strong response. Taking methylated vitamins caused severe reaction almost like my brain was being fried. I was trying to get my nutrition from my diet but I finally gave up since it seems I do need to supplement niacin and N6 which aligns with your article. My serine was also low on a organic acids test, in addition to glycine and Betaine. I do wonder too about lysine. When I took glycine by itself I became agitated. Does taking glycine by itself lower lysine? My lysine was low too on the organic acids. I found symptoms of insomnia etc got better following a diet that said to have a higher lysine to Arginine ratio at each meal. I wonder how the lysine ties in with glycine. Collagen has more arginine than glycine and it seems to throw me off. Anyway this article does describe me.
Thanks, Heidi. Actually I haven't had a single drink in over 20 years, and I've been eating a really healthy diet -- not vegetarian but mostly plants, all home-cooked, organic, pasture raised, wild caught, etc -- for over 10 years, plus taking a few top-of-the-line brand supplements like Garden of Life brand B-complex capsules and sub-lingual B-12, plus D3, K2, etc. I don't eat a lot of any single thing, but on any given day I typically have at least a little bit of over 30 different ingredients (including herbs and spices) on my plate. I first discovered Chris Masterjohn many years ago on westonaprice.org way back before he even got his PhD, and have been "harnessing the power of nutrients" for myself ever since. I'm now 74 years old and not taking a single Big Pharma product, not so much as a stinking baby aspirin, my blood pressure stays around 115/70, my BMI stays around 19, I get plenty of exercise, and I'm healthier today than most 50 year olds. I figure that at the age of 74 today, in just a few years my life will be about half over.
Actually it was specifically Source Naturals brand GABA Calm that I tried when I discovered glycine, which is one of its 4 ingredients and only 50 mg of it which is tiny compared to the 1.5 grams of it that really does the trick for me. I don't know the underlying cause of my tendency to be glycine deficient, probably genetic, but I doubt it's because of some other nutrient deficiency since I have no other symptoms of any kind.
What a wonderful article. I used to have gelatina almost every day and I stopped. That’s when that strange response started. It happens if I’m asleep and someone touches me even if they’re not trying to wake me up. Like to take off my glasses if I feel asleep somewhere. I gasp for air like I’m suffocating and feel like I’m having a heart attack. But I’ve also been struggling with hyperammonemia since the C came around so I had to switch from high protein to high carb to balance the symptoms of hyperammonemia. I will give your recommendations a try and report back 🫡 thank you!
I had an overactive startle reaction when I was at the lowest point of a health crisis in 2014-2016. Loud noises felt like they penetrated my whole being and make my heart jump and my body react. I tried glycine at the time (only 3 g at bedtime) and I didn't notice a change.
What did help was supporting my adrenals. I took Thorne's adrenal cortex extract first thing in the morning (for awhile it was 3 or 4 pills) and within 25 minutes my heart rate would normalize and I wouldn't feel so strung out. I'd take 1-3 right after lunch, since it was believed the effects wore off in 6 hours. I would even take it after dinner sometimes, even though it's supposedly energizing. It actually helped me to regulate my heart rate and calm down the reactions to foods that would show up in the middle of the night. Now I take a pill before hiking as a workaround to get energy because I'm very fit but I can tell I'm not producing energy correctly. I believe I have an energy metabolism issue. Now, if I can just get in to see Chris.... 😁
I should also say I'm not a candidate for gelatin or collagen supplementation. They cause major histamine reactions for me, including racing heart rate, bad dreams, and insomnia, which would create an overactive startle reflex within a day or two. It would take 3 days of a low histamine diet for my body to get rid of the excess histamine and get back to normal.
About 10 years ago I was experimenting with various supplements and stumbled across one that contained GABA, tyrosine, taurine and glycine that seemed to help me feel a bit more relaxed. I then tried taking each of them separately and got no noticeable effect from the GABA, tyrosine or taurine, but when I tried dumping a gram of glycine under my tongue it was like, "Oh my God!" My entire life I had suffered from both an exaggerated startle response and pretty much never-ending physical tension (with nothing psychological like anxiety accompanying it). Twenty years before I discovered glycine I had found that drinking alcohol helped, presumably (I recently learned) because it increases the synaptic sensitivity to whatever glycine was available to serve as a neurotransmitter in the parasympathetic nervous system. But after a blood test my doctor warned me that all the alcohol I was drinking every night after getting home from work was doing a job on my liver, so I stopped that and just learned to put up with the constant tension. I wonder sometimes whether some number of alcoholics might be using alcohol primarily as a self-prescribed medication to treat the symptoms of glycine deficiency the way I did.
Since I discovered glycine I have been taking about 1.5 grams of it under the tongue every night just before going to bed. I sleep better and both the physical tension and exaggerated startle response have completely disappeared. I also make my own bone broth, primarily from chicken's feet, and drink a cup of that every day with a scoop of collagen powder added. It sure does work for me!
It's great you found what works for you! Have you ever looked into beri beri (vit b1) and other vitamin deficiencies since you drank alcohol? I know GABA can be calming for most ppl, esp drinkers, but it is best taken sublingually. GABA Calm is a good one if you haven't tried it and want to give it another go.
Heidi, I intended to reply to your comment but for some reason Substack posted it as a top level comment instead of as a reply to you so you wouldn't have gotten a notification. I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding it.
It’s not sleepiness, I just seem immune to feeling anxious or very excited. Even stimulants can’t do it, or life-threatening situations. To some extent it’s always seemed like I get a burst of dopamine and focus when I should be freaked out, but a decade or so ago I still merely had a high threshold for it, it wasn’t nearly impossible like it is now. I say “nearly” because I can count on one hand some unusual days where I suddenly had a normal startle response, but it never lasted through the next day and I can’t identify anything I ate or took or did those days to explain it. The days were years apart.
Unfortunately, when this started to be a consistent issue, I also felt as if my reward circuits quit working too, so I don’t just get to have a super power where I’m never frightened or jittery. It made me realize how much positive and negative kinds of excitement have in common physiologically.
In "Testing Nutritional Status", Chris mentions niacin toxicity as possibly leasing to lethargy and mild vitamin C deficiency with lowered noradrenaline production. But I suppose lethargy might be too strong of a word here?
I've had a life-long issue with an exaggerated startle response. Ie; It's risky to sneak up behind me to scare me. Even knowing the phone will ring will make me jump/react. Sudden movements by anyone/anything will make me jump/react. Anxious to experiment with the 'glycine' suggestion as a potential remedy. It's physically exhausting to have this reaction.
Glycine in its amino acid for causes me paresthesia, sting and burning in my hands. Doesn't happen with bone broth, but I'd need to be drinking it by the litre to reach 20g. Any thoughts on work arounds?
We respond well to glycine. We started taking magnesium glycinate but figured out it was the glycine that was beneficial. Glycine helps our energy levels and sleep, but has not helped muscle stiffness and pain. Thank you for the dose suggestion, we may try a higher dose.
Hoping we can find supplements that help because diazepam etc is a non-starter for us lol.
Great timing on this post though as we just started glycine a few months ago, and are trying to figure out what might help stiff and painful muscles that do not recover/relax by themselves.
I find Dimethylglycine powder helpful in larger amounts, a few grams mixed with some bicarbonate to cut the acidity plus some juice or sweetener with vanilla in a large glass of water. I drink it gradually rather than all at once. Keep it in the fridge in a bottle and sip occasionally.
Betaine is trimethylglycine but I have a gene difference that makes it harder for me to convert the betaine into DMG, so that is why I tried it. It makes me feel cheerful, probably less anxious or irritable and 'jumpy' maybe.
I was startling a lot, but I do have PTSD from 29 years of domestic violence. I did not know that's what caused it. Very enlightening. I don't startle as much now since it's been 9 years since my divorce from my narcissistic personality disorder husband. But I still have nightmares of him attacking me and take Prazosin for it. Wondering if there is a more natural approach for that.
"Roughly 3 grams out of every ten grams of gelatin or collagen is glycine". I've seen this figure repeated by others as well but according to Cronometer's NCCDB data, you actually get roughly 2 g (1.9 g to be more precise) of glycine per 10 g of plain gelatin. In terms of protein you get a similar ratio (2.2 g of glycine per 10 g).
No matter how you look at it, every 10 g is ~1/5 glycine; something similar happens with pork skin and some collagen peptide products I've checked. Something might be missing from my equation.
A figure I have from the literature is 29%, which trumps anything from USDA since USDA does not even trust their own amino acid data. But it may be quite variable depending on source.
30 yrs ago diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse. The criteria for the diagnosis after a Holter moniter test was: female, tall, slim, long fingers, hyperstartle reflex. I take between 6-7 grams of glycine a day divided bwtn meals. I think it helps me with my response time to coworkers coming up behind me- I sit with my back to the main room- I’m more chill now.
Yes I have genetic SNPs that make me have low glycine and Betaine. I’ve always had a strong startle and was always diagnosed with hyperactive reflexes. Ever since I was little if the doctor hits my knee with the little hammer it’s always a strong response. Taking methylated vitamins caused severe reaction almost like my brain was being fried. I was trying to get my nutrition from my diet but I finally gave up since it seems I do need to supplement niacin and N6 which aligns with your article. My serine was also low on a organic acids test, in addition to glycine and Betaine. I do wonder too about lysine. When I took glycine by itself I became agitated. Does taking glycine by itself lower lysine? My lysine was low too on the organic acids. I found symptoms of insomnia etc got better following a diet that said to have a higher lysine to Arginine ratio at each meal. I wonder how the lysine ties in with glycine. Collagen has more arginine than glycine and it seems to throw me off. Anyway this article does describe me.
Thanks, Heidi. Actually I haven't had a single drink in over 20 years, and I've been eating a really healthy diet -- not vegetarian but mostly plants, all home-cooked, organic, pasture raised, wild caught, etc -- for over 10 years, plus taking a few top-of-the-line brand supplements like Garden of Life brand B-complex capsules and sub-lingual B-12, plus D3, K2, etc. I don't eat a lot of any single thing, but on any given day I typically have at least a little bit of over 30 different ingredients (including herbs and spices) on my plate. I first discovered Chris Masterjohn many years ago on westonaprice.org way back before he even got his PhD, and have been "harnessing the power of nutrients" for myself ever since. I'm now 74 years old and not taking a single Big Pharma product, not so much as a stinking baby aspirin, my blood pressure stays around 115/70, my BMI stays around 19, I get plenty of exercise, and I'm healthier today than most 50 year olds. I figure that at the age of 74 today, in just a few years my life will be about half over.
Actually it was specifically Source Naturals brand GABA Calm that I tried when I discovered glycine, which is one of its 4 ingredients and only 50 mg of it which is tiny compared to the 1.5 grams of it that really does the trick for me. I don't know the underlying cause of my tendency to be glycine deficient, probably genetic, but I doubt it's because of some other nutrient deficiency since I have no other symptoms of any kind.
What a wonderful article. I used to have gelatina almost every day and I stopped. That’s when that strange response started. It happens if I’m asleep and someone touches me even if they’re not trying to wake me up. Like to take off my glasses if I feel asleep somewhere. I gasp for air like I’m suffocating and feel like I’m having a heart attack. But I’ve also been struggling with hyperammonemia since the C came around so I had to switch from high protein to high carb to balance the symptoms of hyperammonemia. I will give your recommendations a try and report back 🫡 thank you!
I respond horribly to glycine...hoping B6 will help. Thank you!
Great post!
I had an overactive startle reaction when I was at the lowest point of a health crisis in 2014-2016. Loud noises felt like they penetrated my whole being and make my heart jump and my body react. I tried glycine at the time (only 3 g at bedtime) and I didn't notice a change.
What did help was supporting my adrenals. I took Thorne's adrenal cortex extract first thing in the morning (for awhile it was 3 or 4 pills) and within 25 minutes my heart rate would normalize and I wouldn't feel so strung out. I'd take 1-3 right after lunch, since it was believed the effects wore off in 6 hours. I would even take it after dinner sometimes, even though it's supposedly energizing. It actually helped me to regulate my heart rate and calm down the reactions to foods that would show up in the middle of the night. Now I take a pill before hiking as a workaround to get energy because I'm very fit but I can tell I'm not producing energy correctly. I believe I have an energy metabolism issue. Now, if I can just get in to see Chris.... 😁
I should also say I'm not a candidate for gelatin or collagen supplementation. They cause major histamine reactions for me, including racing heart rate, bad dreams, and insomnia, which would create an overactive startle reflex within a day or two. It would take 3 days of a low histamine diet for my body to get rid of the excess histamine and get back to normal.
did you fix your adrenal problems?
About 10 years ago I was experimenting with various supplements and stumbled across one that contained GABA, tyrosine, taurine and glycine that seemed to help me feel a bit more relaxed. I then tried taking each of them separately and got no noticeable effect from the GABA, tyrosine or taurine, but when I tried dumping a gram of glycine under my tongue it was like, "Oh my God!" My entire life I had suffered from both an exaggerated startle response and pretty much never-ending physical tension (with nothing psychological like anxiety accompanying it). Twenty years before I discovered glycine I had found that drinking alcohol helped, presumably (I recently learned) because it increases the synaptic sensitivity to whatever glycine was available to serve as a neurotransmitter in the parasympathetic nervous system. But after a blood test my doctor warned me that all the alcohol I was drinking every night after getting home from work was doing a job on my liver, so I stopped that and just learned to put up with the constant tension. I wonder sometimes whether some number of alcoholics might be using alcohol primarily as a self-prescribed medication to treat the symptoms of glycine deficiency the way I did.
Since I discovered glycine I have been taking about 1.5 grams of it under the tongue every night just before going to bed. I sleep better and both the physical tension and exaggerated startle response have completely disappeared. I also make my own bone broth, primarily from chicken's feet, and drink a cup of that every day with a scoop of collagen powder added. It sure does work for me!
It's great you found what works for you! Have you ever looked into beri beri (vit b1) and other vitamin deficiencies since you drank alcohol? I know GABA can be calming for most ppl, esp drinkers, but it is best taken sublingually. GABA Calm is a good one if you haven't tried it and want to give it another go.
Heidi, I intended to reply to your comment but for some reason Substack posted it as a top level comment instead of as a reply to you so you wouldn't have gotten a notification. I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding it.
Does anyone know what treats the opposite problem, i.e. inability to startle?
Somnolence? I reach for caffeine.
It’s not sleepiness, I just seem immune to feeling anxious or very excited. Even stimulants can’t do it, or life-threatening situations. To some extent it’s always seemed like I get a burst of dopamine and focus when I should be freaked out, but a decade or so ago I still merely had a high threshold for it, it wasn’t nearly impossible like it is now. I say “nearly” because I can count on one hand some unusual days where I suddenly had a normal startle response, but it never lasted through the next day and I can’t identify anything I ate or took or did those days to explain it. The days were years apart.
Unfortunately, when this started to be a consistent issue, I also felt as if my reward circuits quit working too, so I don’t just get to have a super power where I’m never frightened or jittery. It made me realize how much positive and negative kinds of excitement have in common physiologically.
In "Testing Nutritional Status", Chris mentions niacin toxicity as possibly leasing to lethargy and mild vitamin C deficiency with lowered noradrenaline production. But I suppose lethargy might be too strong of a word here?
Hmm, yeah, not really lethargy, but I do feel like I just don’t make adrenaline. Thanks for the idea!
I've had a life-long issue with an exaggerated startle response. Ie; It's risky to sneak up behind me to scare me. Even knowing the phone will ring will make me jump/react. Sudden movements by anyone/anything will make me jump/react. Anxious to experiment with the 'glycine' suggestion as a potential remedy. It's physically exhausting to have this reaction.
did it help you?
sigh... can't say it did ... because I haven't stuck with it religiously.
Glycine in its amino acid for causes me paresthesia, sting and burning in my hands. Doesn't happen with bone broth, but I'd need to be drinking it by the litre to reach 20g. Any thoughts on work arounds?
me too, except in the face :( i cant do bone broth or collagen either. did you figure it out?
I haven't tried the powder since. I tolerate bysglycinate with both magnesium and iron. Maybe I'll give it another go.
Excellent article. To what extent is glycine deficiency associated with glyphosate ubiquity?
We respond well to glycine. We started taking magnesium glycinate but figured out it was the glycine that was beneficial. Glycine helps our energy levels and sleep, but has not helped muscle stiffness and pain. Thank you for the dose suggestion, we may try a higher dose.
We suspect we may have a similar auto-immune disease called Stiff-Person Syndrome. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/stiff-person-syndrome-sps
Hoping we can find supplements that help because diazepam etc is a non-starter for us lol.
Great timing on this post though as we just started glycine a few months ago, and are trying to figure out what might help stiff and painful muscles that do not recover/relax by themselves.
I find Dimethylglycine powder helpful in larger amounts, a few grams mixed with some bicarbonate to cut the acidity plus some juice or sweetener with vanilla in a large glass of water. I drink it gradually rather than all at once. Keep it in the fridge in a bottle and sip occasionally.
Betaine is trimethylglycine but I have a gene difference that makes it harder for me to convert the betaine into DMG, so that is why I tried it. It makes me feel cheerful, probably less anxious or irritable and 'jumpy' maybe.
I was startling a lot, but I do have PTSD from 29 years of domestic violence. I did not know that's what caused it. Very enlightening. I don't startle as much now since it's been 9 years since my divorce from my narcissistic personality disorder husband. But I still have nightmares of him attacking me and take Prazosin for it. Wondering if there is a more natural approach for that.
"Roughly 3 grams out of every ten grams of gelatin or collagen is glycine". I've seen this figure repeated by others as well but according to Cronometer's NCCDB data, you actually get roughly 2 g (1.9 g to be more precise) of glycine per 10 g of plain gelatin. In terms of protein you get a similar ratio (2.2 g of glycine per 10 g).
No matter how you look at it, every 10 g is ~1/5 glycine; something similar happens with pork skin and some collagen peptide products I've checked. Something might be missing from my equation.
Regardless, very interesting article.
A figure I have from the literature is 29%, which trumps anything from USDA since USDA does not even trust their own amino acid data. But it may be quite variable depending on source.
Hi Chris,
Will taking Glycine in higher doses have an effect of blood Ketone and Glucose levels in those of us using a therapeutic ketone diet?