Daily supplementation with 350 mg of Gencor’s branded PEA ingredient Levagen+ was associated with significant reductions in the time people needed to fall asleep compared to placebo, reported scientists in Sleep Science and Practice.
In addition, PEA supplementation was associated with better cognition on waking and a shorter time to feel fully awake, reported the scientists from RDC Clinical (Australia) and the Universities of Queensland and Sydney.
“This is of particular interest as sleep inertia and daytime grogginess is a common side effect of many pharmaceutical options for the treatment of sleep disturbance,” they wrote.
However, there were no differences between the placebo and PEA groups for sleep quantity or quality.
“The combination of the PEA group reporting falling asleep faster and waking up feeling more alert and awake compared to the placebo group, suggests that future studies on PEA and sleep should focus on populations with difficulty getting to sleep and/or waking up,” wrote the scientists.
Levagen+
Interest in the endocannabinoid system has grown significantly in recent years. For companies seeking a way to impact the endocannabinoid system beyond CBD and hemp, an option is palmitoylethanolamide (PEA).
Speaking with NutraIngredients-USA at Expo West 2019, R.V. Venkatesh, CEO of Gencor, explained that palmitoylethanolamide was first discovered in 1957 as a component in egg yolk, when egg yolk was being researched for its anti-inflammatory properties.
PEA is produced by our body as a first responder to pain, stress, inflammation and is used up locally in all tissues, he said.