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How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs (2007)
- dekken_ 8y agoBeen taking Tryptophan for about four years, changed my life when I found it
- ddorian43 8y agoExplain.
- dekken_ 8y agoHad mood/sleep problems since 14 years old (16 years go), waking up more tired than the night before. Found Tryptophan (and 5htp), actually slept. My guess is people with stress/gastro issues don't get the adequate serotonin for "normality"
- dan00 8y ago> My guess is people with stress/gastro issues don't get the adequate serotonin for "normality". If your gut has issues with absorbing fructose, then the free fructose seems to connect with tryptophan, which hinders the tryptophan from being absorbed.
- fsloth 8y agoHow are you taking it? A special diet or a pill?
- dekken_ 8y ago5htp as pill. L-tryptophan as powder
- shanehoban 8y agoDo you take both, or would you mind explaining your dosage? I see you've mentioned you seem to have developed a tolerance. Mind sharing more detail on the above such as how long you have been taking the above and the dosage used for each, as well as the notice of tolerance of each etc.?
- dekken_ 8y agoI do take both, 400mg of 5htp most mornings and L-Tryptophan (about a teaspoon) mixed with oil in the most evenings I go on and off them sometimes if they're not doing much
- collyw 8y agoI have had problems sleeping for years, and used 5-HTP in the past. Like many things (e.g melatonin) I found it worked at first but doesn't seem to be anywhere near as effective as it used to be. Do you still find it effective after 4 years of use?
- ddeokbokki 8y agoAre you taking tolerance breaks?
- collyw 8y agoI don't take it regularly any more. But effectively yes, I would run out, not order any for a few weeks / months then order some.
- dekken_ 8y agoMore info on niacin/tryptophan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yofewUE6L-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yofewUE6L-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l0S25DIxqw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l0S25DIxqw
- mrpinc 8y agoI took niacin once in pill form and it made my body burst out into a fierce itch rash that lasted about an hour.
- dekken_ 8y agoThat's know as a "niacin flush" AFAIK - you might have taken too much too soon
- rubicon33 8y agoFrom the article, they mentioned that taking tryptophan or eating foods with tryptophan in them, reduces the uptake of tryptophan due to amino acid competition: > There is competition between the various amino acids for the transport system, so after the ingestion of a meal containing protein, the rise in the plasma level of the other large neutral amino acids will prevent the rise in plasma tryptophan from increasing brain tryptophan So possible OP took it on an empty stomach which spiked the levels in the body?
- swozey 8y agoThis is extremely common with niacin ingestion. If you look up a lot of pre-workout drinks (no xplode for a specific example) it's one of the most common complaints/mentions. I haven't used it in forever but when I did sort of just got accustomed to being itchy until it wore off. I've read that it can cause liver issues, though. I just quit taking pwo's altogether.
- booleanbetrayal 8y agoHardcore ravers used to pre/post-load on 5-HTP years ago.
- dekken_ 8y agothey still do - https://rollsafe.org/mdma-supplements/ https://rollsafe.org/mdma-supplements/
- ada1981 8y agoAnd for therapeutic applications as well.
- copperx 8y agoIsn't it ironic that the article is about increasing serotonin without using a drug, and the first reflex is to suggest a drug?
- everfree 8y agoIt's a supplement, they're entirely different according to the FDA.
- dagurp 8y agoaccording to lobbyists
- LinuxBender 8y ago5-HTP is created by your body, from L-Tryptophan, which is an amino acid. Your body converts many micro-nutrients into various amino acids and hormones. Some vendors pre-convert these things so they are in a safer form to use. 5-HTP is much safer to consume than L-Tryptophan.
- copperx 8y ago
- ada1981 8y agoTLDR; 1) Think Happy Thoughts. 2) Bright Light Exposure. 3) Exercise. 4) Tryptophan.
- peterwwillis 8y agoNot addressed in paper: why life is now more depressing and how to make it less depressing without brain chemical hacks
- nwah1 8y agoCitation needed
- ljoshua 8y agoActually, this was tangentially addressed. It specifically mentions the fact that we are getting less bright light exposure today due to our increasingly indoor habits (versus historical contexts where humans typically worked outside more), as well as the decrease in physical activity due to the changing nature of work as well. Furthermore, it specifically highlighted the disconnect between physical labor and reward (it called it "effort-based rewards"), or in very crude terms, we run to run these days, instead of running to catch our meal. There's certainly a good deal more to the topic you brought up as a whole, but those were a couple of interesting points from the article that I thought it addressed.
- peterwwillis 8y agoThose are reasons to want a serotonin hit, but they don't explain the huge cultural trend towards depression. Just look at 50 years ago. We were working in about the same way that we work today, in basically the same environments. Same amount of light, same lack of physical labor. How did we get more depressed in the same environment over such a short period of time?
- poushkar 8y agoIt is believed that 50 years ago depression was less researched and therefore less diagnosed/recognised. Also, social stigma of mental disorders was stronger and people generally kept quiet about it. The bottom line is: it was always there, it's just that we talk about it more nowadays.
- 8y ago
- openloop 8y agoEat food.
- lelf 8y agopdf — https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2077351/pdf/20071100s00001p394.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2077351/pdf/200...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Beefin 8y agoDoing my best to summarize the effects of 5-HTP and its' corresponding pubmed research: https://nutripeek.com/detail/5-htp https://nutripeek.com/detail/5-htp
- jw1224 8y agoDo you know anything about how EGCG affects absorption of 5-HTP? I've read in several places that 5-HTP is more effective when consumed with EGCG (green tea extract), but I'm not sure if this is just urban legend or if it has any real–world effects.
- stronglikedan 8y agoI've also heard of it (somewhere here on HN) being paired with L-Tyrosine.
- Beefin 8y agoPiperine typically increases the bioavailability of most substances, especially fat soluble ones like 5-htp
- maccio92 8y agoThis site looks very similar to examine.com. Are you familiar? Wondering what advantages your site might be aiming for over examine
- ineedasername 8y agoTLDR: Four methods. 1) PET/CT stimulation 2) Exposure to bright light 3) Exercise 4) Diet
- wickerman 8y agoAnother great exercise in confirming common sense.
- copperx 8y ago> PET/CT stimulation I didn't find the definition for PET/CT in the article. It sounds like PET/CT scans.
- ineedasername 8y agoYeah, I know the usual terminology is for a PET "scan", which sounds passive, so I'm not sure if they're doign something different here.
- PascLeRasc 8y agoI have a seasonal depression diagnosis and lifting weights has been by far the best treatment for me. Meditation, light therapy, and vitamins/nootropics are all good on their own, they each sort of take away some of the symptoms, but I wouldn't say the depression isn't still there. But weightlifting is incredible. I feel amazing after a heavy session - deadlifting and benching especially give me a kind of euphoria. Gym fixes my lack of appetite, lack of social energy, disorganization, lack of motivation to work on my hobbies, work focus, anxiety, everything. I can't recommend lifting enough.
- eiriklv 8y agoLifting weight increases androgens (testosterone/dht) which seem to have very positive effects when it comes to alleviating depressive symptoms. [1] - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2712976 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst...
- rubicon33 8y agoInteresting review of non-drug approaches to depression and mood: - Alterations in thought (meditation) - Exposure to bright light (outdoors) - Exercise - tryptophan supplementation taken WITHOUT food for greater uptake - α-Lactalbumin found in Milk but not really a great option Definitely can speak to the exposure to light, and exercise ones. Nothing lifts my mood more than going for a run outside, in the heat of the sun.
- arunc 8y agoThat's a big article and thanks for summarizing it!
- dawhizkid 8y agoDidn't read the article but surprised 5-HTP not mentioned?
- rubicon33 8y agoNo mention of 5-HTP. I was surprised too.
- erinaceousjones 8y agoTryptophan itself as a component of food is mentioned however, as well as tryptophan supplementation. I'd consider 5-htp and L-tryptophan to be under that "tryptophan supplementation" umbrella. The difference between 5htp and l-tryptophan is that the former doesn't require a transport molecule to get past the blood-brain barrier, so it [citation needed] converts to serotonin quicker, whereas with l-tryptophan there's a rate-limiting effect. 5-htp for faster effects, L-tryptophan to prevent building a tolerance to the extra serotonin.
- xkcd-sucks 8y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3415362/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3415362/
- cedricium 8y ago
- teekert 8y agoThis type of article makes me realize how much a love the more and more used abstract section with a couple of lines of: Introduction, method, result and discussion.
- DanBC 8y agoPeople in this thread are repeating the myth that exercise is a treatment for depression, when all the evidence we have shows that it probably isn't. The article links to an old version of the NICE guidance. The new version of that is here: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg90 https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg90 It's important to note that exercise isn't being touted as a treatment for depression, but as something that may help people with sub-clinical symptoms. They have one or two symptoms of depression, but not the whole package. > Low-intensity psychosocial interventions > For people with persistent subthreshold depressive symptoms or mild to moderate depression, consider offering one or more of the following interventions, guided by the person's preference: > individual guided self-help based on the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) > computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (CCBT)[4] > a structured group physical activity programme. NICE does not recommend exercise as a treatment for depression. This is because the evidence we have shows it does not work. It's not, as the author of the submitted article suggests, that we don't yet have good enough evidence.
- AWildC182 8y agoYea, I think people are confusing the effects of exercise in different cases. IMO there are really at least two groups here: A) >= moderately athletic people with above average health and can sustain strenuous cardiovascular activity. For these people going out and exercising is a form of self actualization which IME is a pretty hard counter to depression. It's an "easy" way of being very good at something and that gives people some level of self worth. People on the upper end of this group are also competitive and tend to participate in teams or events that give them lots of social contact with like minded people which helps further. B) The average non-athletic person sitting at home struggling with depression. They can try exercising and it might help but most of the time it's going to cause them to feel self conscious at the gym and worthless when they don't see any progress because they have no training or experience with how to work out (and most of the services claiming to provide such are garbage cash grabs). For these people it'll always be an uphill battle but from the point of view of people in A) they just look like they're not trying. In the end they go home feeling worse off than before because they didn't achieve anything and probably feel that it's yet another thing they can't do well or yet another failed attempt at self help. Even those that get some traction are a long way off from reaching that self actualization stage. tl;dr exercise seems to be about maintaining a lack of depression rather than bootstrapping your way out of it.
- xkcd-sucks 8y agoSurprisingly, a carbohydrate-only meal provides an immediate, drastic increase in serotonin biosynthesis. A high protein meal does not. And it's probably pretty irrelevant to clinical stuff because there have to be high protein meals in the past to get the effect. The reasons are: - Trp transport into CNS is rate limited by large neutral amino acid (LNAAt) transporter - Trp has a lower affinity for LNAAt than other amino acids - Trp, 5HTP, serotonin are strongly buffered by blood plasma proteins So, with a high protein meal, the isoleucine, phenylalanine etc. are outcompeting typtophan at getting into the brain. With a low protein meal, insulin triggers uptake of amino acids into tissue (again, preferentially stuff that's not Trp), and Trp in blood is enriched as it dissociates from plasma proteins. Then the composition of blood amino acids is mostly Trp so it is taken up by brain tissue. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22677921 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22677921 [1] http://wurtmanlab.mit.edu/static/pdf/1001.pdf http://wurtmanlab.mit.edu/static/pdf/1001.pdf
- eiriklv 8y agoSo many people (including doctors) seem to be set on the idea that serotonin makes you happy and therefore is the solution to depression. This is only half true, and not in the way that most think. Serotonin (if high) makes you numb [1]. But that might be the lesser of two evils when it comes to depression [2], which is why it’s become popular as a mechanism to treat it. It not a solution, it’s just masking the underlying problem by replacing one set of symptoms with another. [1] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989833/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989833/ [2] - https://www.health.harvard.edu/depression/is-your-antidepressant-making-life-a-little-too-blah https://www.health.harvard.edu/depression/is-your-antidepres...
- laythea 8y agoThat does beg the interesting question that if you don't feel depressed, are you really depressed?
- xkcd-sucks 8y agoMost "Clinical *" diagnoses are predicated on "causes problems for you or others", so probably not. Unless somebody else feels you're depressed and is really convincing.
- eiriklv 8y agoIf you don’t feel anything - are you really living? Look up emotional bluntness and anhedonia.
- laythea 8y agoYes but, the lack of feelings can be classed as a feeling also. Where does that leave us! :)
- crdrost 8y agoYou are not, on present definitions. This is one of those things that a lot of members of the public at large do not seem to know; they think that depression is defined as some sort of chemical imbalance in the brain, and it is not. Depression is defined in the DSM more or less as, being sad too often, except in cases of mourning etc. where people are often incredibly sad. It is literally defined as an overabundance of feeling. This matters to me because I no longer have depression—I am “cured!”—because I am no longer too sad often enough to qualify for the diagnosis. I did not use medicine but developed better coping mechanisms. The cause of my depression is still around—my negative thoughts will on average trigger one or more additional negative thoughts until I am paralyzed with self-doubt and negativity. Indeed, and this is somewhat hard to explain to folks who have never had this problem, I will sometimes luxuriate in those negative emotions because they have a sort of familiarity or nostalgia, I spent so much time being so sad that it is sometimes desirable to feel unpleasant again. That sort of complicated “if you seek out sadness is it really sadness” type of question is 100% interesting and valid. But I developed coping mechanisms to deal with those sorts of emotional overloads and recognize that they are happening and escape them, and I do not frequently return back to those unhealthy thought patterns. In that respect I am cured. The psychiatrists define depression so that that is what cured looks like: we have not necessarily addressed whatever the underlying cause is, but we have treated the symptoms. So it is literally impossible to be depressed if you don't feel sad often enough; it is part of the definition. Anyone who says “oh I get really sad and maybe even suicidal, but I am not depressed” is making a nonclinical statement that would not be directly translatable as a clinical one.
- jonathanfoster 8y agoOne of the key findings is positive thinking can increase serotonin. “Self-induced changes in mood can influence serotonin synthesis.” For those interested in a practical approach to positive thinking, check out “How Full is Your Bucket” by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton [1]. They discuss the 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions and how it’s the key to a happy relationship [2]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/How-Full-Your-Bucket-Rath/dp/1595620036 https://www.amazon.com/How-Full-Your-Bucket-Rath/dp/15956200... [2] https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-magic-relationship-ratio-according-science/ https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-magic-relationship-ratio-ac...