5-HTP is more efficient at raising serotonin levels than Prozac is

I read the book "The Mood Cure" by Julia Ross, M.A. a while ago. The book is full of useful information and really shows how much Big Pharma enjoys screwing everyone over (most of the time). Here's an excerpt:

Page 43: "The manufacturer of Prozac, Eli Lilly, recently conducted a study combining 5-HTP with Prozac. Serotonin activity was increased 150 percent on Prozac alone. It increased 615 percent after 5-HTP was added.
In terms of side effects, serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft cause sexual dysfunction in 50-75 percent of users, while 5-HTP studies show no sexual dysfunction and few other side effects. In one study, 5-HTP had fewer side effects than the placebo!"

So there you have it. Eli Lilly themselves found that 5-HTP was better at doing what antidepressants are supposed to do than...prescription antidepressants do.

Think about it.

I read that book ... It has been years. I am the first to hate big pharma. The thing is I don't think "more is better" when it comes to seratonin. In fact you can actually od on seratonin AKA seratonin syndrome. Unfortunately because it is so hard to get funding for these types of studies it is hard to find unbiased research. 5-HTP, Sam-E and Hyperion don't work on everybody any more then ssri's do. Finding a professional... Preferably licensed ... is vital but really hard. If you are already in a bad place and one of those isn't the right choice you could run into bigger problems. Then you go to the doctor and they say it is out of scope.

My PA will support such treatments but she is not all that confident in the information available. She has sent patients to do a genetic type test and at least one came back with a recommendation of SAM-E. He has been on it for a while and is doing great.

The two times I started ssri's I was really in a horrible place. The first time I new very little about alternative choices. Last year I did and still decided it was the best course because of where I was at and because I could afford to miss work out of experimentation. But I was able to come off it for a long time because of lifestyle changes. To make a long story short... I would love to find an expert in these alternatives but it is unlikely until there is more research or I become rich. In the meantime good nutrition and exercise seem to be the best way to regulate without a lot of risk. Programs like Weston foundation or what nouishingtraditions.com recommends. I think she even points out that eating proper foods allows the brain to naturally control how much seratonin is produced while I think of HTP-5 or ssri's as manually manipulating. That's just my learned opinion. As I said. Much research to be done

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5htp has done nothing but made me feel
More anxious. Well the mood food one has anyway ? Xx

bump for awareness

Dosing your brain with outside seratonin is like giving a person a fish instead of teaching them to fish. It actually shuts down your own seratonin production, that's why going off of antidepressants is so hard. What they need to work on is a way to help the whole body increase it's own production. But that's a hard complicated process no quick buck for big Pharma. Probably would have less side effects too and side effects are big business.

Yes, I agree with you! But I have a rhetorical question about this whole idea of low seratonin. In fact I don't think I buy it at all. 99% of seratonin is in the gut. >Non starvation< aruyvedic style cleanses or panchakarma detoxes (way out of my budget) that specifically rid a lot of excess seratonin from your gut among other things. If we need more why does that work? I don't know that anyone has studied it but I know from personal experience those cleanses seriously work on depression. And the effects last for months (which is why it should be a seasonal practice.) I would like somebody to explain that. Maybe I should try and find somebody to ask because it has puzzled me for a while.

Sugar elevates you mood but there is no reason to add refined sugar. Sugar in raw foods is really enough. It feels like the same problem to me.

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You may be right. Taking L-Tryptophan could work better for some people.

[QUOTE=Michanne;3600400]Yes, I agree with you! But I have a rhetorical question about this whole idea of low seratonin. In fact I don't think I buy it at all. 99% of seratonin is in the gut. >Non starvation< aruyvedic style cleanses or panchakarma detoxes (way out of my budget) that specifically rid a lot of excess seratonin from your gut among other things. If we need more why does that work? I don't know that anyone has studied it but I know from personal experience those cleanses seriously work on depression. And the effects last for months (which is why it should be a seasonal practice.) I would like somebody to explain that. Maybe I should try and find somebody to ask because it has puzzled me for a while.

Sugar elevates you mood but there is no reason to add refined sugar. Sugar in raw foods is really enough. It feels like the same problem to me.

I agree with you too.

Sugar, fructose corn syrup, chemicals and hormones all probably affect the mood and general health of all of us. There was a great book back n the 70s called the Sugar Blues that convinced me.

I saw a documentary on how a group of Swedish surgeons and scientists almost completely cured PTP induced Parkinson's disease by injecting brain cells of the dopamine producing part of an aborted fetuses brain into the same part of the diseased patients brains.

Idk if the same thing can be done with serotonin but I don't see it happening in America in my lifetime because it's a sensitive issue which I think is stupid.

Also, I don't think serotonin syndrome means anywhere near an overdose of serotonin.

I take 5-HTP and L-Tryptophan. I still get depressed....still want to die...still Bulimic...still get emotional flashbacks. I'm actually thinking of taking psych meds to be a zombie and no longer feel or think. I suppose that is better than dead some would say......I wont say that.

L-tryptophan was a new thing for depression when there was a need for antidepressants with fewer side effects. As the first SSRIs were trialled, there was a sense of competition with L-tryptophan, and when it was suspected to cause EMS, the makers of SSRIs of course took an advantage and tried to push L-tryptophan out of the market. Instead of them coexisting, SSRIs became the drug of choice. That is how the market works.

You'd think some kind, well meaning producers of natural stuff came and gave us 5HTP. Nope. Since L-tryptophan was pretty shamed, they decided to market 5HTP instead. L-tryptophan converts to 5HTP in the body so they are in a way the same. Since there was no chance coming back to the most lucrative market, prescription med, 5HTP was instead pushed on the alternative market.

Still, it is a chemical and comes from the same type of companies that make prescription med.

It is just by chance 5HTP is seen as an alternative thing, it could just as well been prescribed by doctors.

I tend to prefer the promise of nutrition over anything in a plastic bottle. Even vitamins are coming under fire with more research. Your body/brain decides what it needs much more efficiently. Foods containing the nutrients you are trying to replace may contain other nutrients that help your body to absorb it or they might be things that work together. You get the added bonus of feeling satisfied. The field is only 100 years old so obviously there is much to discover.

You can get l-tryptophan from foods. Eat more foods high in tryptophan.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/24...in-tryptophan/

Moxie, you mentioned bulimia. I don't know how helpful this advice is to you. I don't mean to trigger if I have. Just so you know I read your comment. Being numb only works for a short amount of time. I hope you are able to get some peace.

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