Posted by paulk on October 27, 2005, at 10:36:58
- about this:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/505203
"...tryptophan content of 4.8 g per 100 g increases.."
"... 2 milk shakes enriched with 20 g of A-LAC..."or in other words 0.48G/G * 20 = 0.96G of tryptophan at bedtime? Or depending on how you read it it might be twice that - in 2 shakes?
The original Tryptophan studies I read about (Dr. Wurtman MIT??) used 2-4G of tryptophan to treat depression - I don't remember if it was more than once a day.
I take about 1G of tryptophan at bedtime (an empty stomach helps it work as there is a competitive transport across the blood brain barrier) that I get in purified form from a veterinary supply at bed time and find it helps my dysthymia/Limbic-ADD more than any pharmacological treatment ever has.
I think there are some side effects - sometimes it may be causing sweating and if I take too much I feel foggy in the morning. The side effects seem to be similar to SSRI except there is no sexual side effects except right after taking it. I don't experience poop-out which makes sense - tyrptophan does not increase the serotonin in the whole brain as a SSRI and is only increased as expressed by the upstream neuron. Also, I think the increase being once a day might also help avoid the down regulating of receptors.
I've also tried different Benzodiazapans to help with sleep and found that while they help cause sleep the quality of the sleep was still poor. Using SSRI didn't seem to help overall as I would be foggy headed all the time. MAOI's worked a bit better, but not as well as Tryptophan.
Tryptophan helps me get restful sleep. I used to swim 2 miles a day at 5PM and found the extreme work out helped produce restful sleep similar to what I'm experiencing with Tryptophan - I still walk a mile or more every day in the morning.
The banning of Tryptophan by the FDA (within 2 weeks of Prozacs introduction) is suspect and historic. If a drug was found to be contaminated it would be off the market temporarily. If a batch of Tofu was found to be contaminated it would not be banned - perhaps inspected.
There are no $Billions to be made in the use of tryptophan as a way to improve sleep/depression so it has not been studied much. I have not met any doctors that used it in treatment and most remember that it is not as effective for major depression based on one study. I think I remember the dosage for that study being quite low?
I read somewhere that there is a pharmacological source of tryptophan - expensive and silly 250mg capsules - taking 4 would be very expensive.
poster:paulk
thread:572371
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20051025/msgs/572371.html