Why Would Citrate or Malate Cause Insomnia?

The second runner-up of the July Question Contest.

The second runner-up of the July Question Contest is about supplements containing citrate, and by extension malate. I have summarized it as follows:

Why would citrate or malate cause insomnia?

If you are short on time, skip to “The Bottom Line” below.

JP had asked the question, and Heidi N jumped in in the comments. JP gets insomnia from malate-bound minerals while Heidi N gets insomnia from citrate-bound minerals, and neither of them have the opposite reaction. JP wonders if citrate being sourced from mold is a problem for some people, and they both wonder if some people have “problems with their Krebs cycle.”

What I personally find interesting is that JP and Heidi have the complete opposite reaction to these two organic acids. This suggests to me that they each have an underlying idiosyncrasy in their energy metabolism that dictates which foods and supplements they would do best on.

Let’s consider hypothesis 1 to be metabolic problems and hypothesis 2 to be mold contamination. I believe these indicate metabolic problems, so I will cover the metabolic issues first.

This written and referenced version. The video and podcast version is available here.