13/11/2025
A white powder can change the night. Not melatonin.
Cornflour (in the the U.K. this is the terminology we use for white fine pure starch)
Professor Richard Kelley at the Kennedy Krieger Institute documented something important in his metabolic work.
Some autistic children wake repeatedly because their brain runs out of fuel before morning.
The final hours of the night are the weak point.
❗️Glucose drops.
❗️Glycogen empties too early.
❗️Mitochondria cannot hold the load. ❗️Cortisol rises to compensate and that cortisol surge becomes the wake trigger.
The brain forces the child up again and again.
Parents describe the same pattern:
⚠️Restless nights
⚠️Multiple wakings
⚠️Hard to settle back
⚠️Irritable on waking
⚠️Unsteady early morning
⚠️Behaviour dipping when meals are late
⚠️Crashing during illness
The organic acids often reflect it:
⚡️Raised α-ketoglutaric acid,
⚡️Shifts in lactate and pyruvate handling, markers that signal overnight energy stress.
🧠This is why Kelley used cornflour.
It digests slowly and releases glucose gradually for several hours.
🧠It helps prevent the early morning drop that drives the cortisol spike and fragments sleep.
Parents often see clear change:
✔️Fewer wakings
✔️Longer stretches
✔️Better mornings.
This fits the physiology.
Other slow release starches which may work:
❓Potato starch
❓Green banana flour
❓Tapioca starch (uncooked)
❓Ground lentil or chickpea starch
❓Oat resistant starch fractions
❓Partially hydrolysed guar gum
Full explanation is in my glucose metabolism article.
Link in comments 👇
