Supplementing with L-Tryptophan to get the benefits of increased growth hormone?

[watermelonbrah]

I have a few questions about supplementing with tryptophan for this benefit.
-how much and when should it be taken?
-how long should it be taken?
-are there any harmful effects associated with taking L-tryptophan in teenagers
-in the end is it worth it?
-Where should I order it from?
-Pill or powder form?
-Any reputable manufactures or manufacturers to avoid?

PS: Lmk if I posted this in the wrong section.

[watermelonbrah]

anyone?

[kurious]

I'm not an expert on bodybuilding supplements, but what I know about tryptophan is that it is a precursor to serotonin, and not really beneficial for growth hormone boosting. The FDA has tried to limit tryptophan availability in the U.S. I dont think I can link yet, so just type "is tryptophan FDA approved" into google search and read a few articles on the subject. Also you are 16, right now your hormones are fine (unless told otherwise by health professional).

[pcproffy]

A better way to increase your HGH is to make sure you get full sleep every night and avoid carbs before going to bed.

[ricka182]

You're 16. Don't mess with your hormones. The only supps you need are food and sleep. Lots of food, lots of sleep. Are you in a rush to get "jacked"? You'll just look stupid years later when your body doesn't function right. I'm not saying l-tryptophan is that dangerous, but your body is making enough of everything you need to grow right now, naturally.

[hughfuve]

I have a few questions about supplementing with tryptophan for this benefit.
-how much and when should it be taken?
-how long should it be taken?
-are there any harmful effects associated with taking L-tryptophan in teenagers
-in the end is it worth it?
-Where should I order it from?
-Pill or powder form?
-Any reputable manufactures or manufacturers to avoid?

PS: Lmk if I posted this in the wrong section.

This has to be the most natural and safest way to boost growth hormone levels. What you are doing is providing the building blocks for serotonin so that your body can perform its natural function more easily, in a way that is more balanced with the other hormones in your body.


Tryptophan was once banned by the FDA in USA because of an emergency oversight due to a manufacturing blunder in japan, they feared there might be a wide spread problem that was poisoning supplies. It turned out to be a mistake and it took many years for the product to become available in the US again, meanwhile the rest of the world has been using it unrestricted with 40 years of research behind it.

Tryptophan is a precursor to Serotonin and is somehow beneficial to the release of growth hormone, it is part of the cycle that stimulates the pituitary to release the GH just after you sleep. There are surely other factors involved, but research has shown it causes an elevated release of GH. The Serotonin however needs to be in your brain, not in your blood. If it is just in your body it produces other results that are counter productive, so the trick is to cross the blood brain barrier, here is how to do that.

You can take between 500mgs and 10grams a day. 10gms was reported to give the most benefit, but benefits dropped off sharply above 2gms. Taking just 500 to 2gms is more cost effective.

It should be taken at night before you sleep.

Do not eat any food 3 hours before sleeping - only water. If you do, it will introduce proteins (aminos) and this will limit the ability to cross your blood/brain barrier. Making it pretty much useless. This probably accounts for the variable results reported by users and in tests.

Shortly after you go to sleep about 15mins to 1 hour your body will release its growth hormone. You can boost this further by waking yourself by alarm in 4 hours and keeping a 2nd dose near your bed with a glass of water. Take your second dose and go back to sleep. You will release growth hormone again.

You want about 9 hours sleep and that wake up will help with that. The more sleep you get the better it works.

I only took 1.5gms - twice a day = so 3gms per day. You sleep like a switch was turned off.

I did it for weight loss to get into a weight limited competition, I dropped over 30lbs in 30 days by going low carb (0 carb except a few veges), high protein. (It also helps with appetite suppression.) NOTE: This really is an unhealthy way to lose weight, you only want to drop 1lb to 2lb a month at most.

Normally with something like this, to avoid extreme weight loss, you want to be taking at least your body weight in lbs in protein. So if you ware 200lbs then you need at least 200gms of protein. But you also want good protein, vegetarian proteins wont cut it, you want high concentrates of leucine so whey proteins, eggs, meats and fish. I ate a lot of tuna, canned fish (watch the mercury) turkey and egg whites.
(You can make high protein versions of foods by slicing turkey so that it looks like shredded fettuccine then use that instead of the pasta in pasta dishes.)

In addition you want to take 3 times your body weight in carbs (mainly complex carbs) and be adding at least 1x your body weight in carbs per hour of working out that you do. So at 200lbs you'd want 600gms of carbs and on a 3 hour workout you'd add another 600gms, you might even want to add more carbs if you are burning extremely high calories. The idea is to work out how many calories you are burning on your workout and make sure you have the carbs per day to compensate, so you dont eat yourself and eat your muscles.

Immediately after workouts make sure to add some simple sugars to restore your glycogen stores. Its okay to drink sugary drinks within 15 minutes and make sure you get your main food in your system within 1 to 2 hours.

The reason for the carbs is that you dont want to get into a low carb situation at any time during the day, because it will mess up your blood sugar and the effectiveness of your GH program.

Teenagers do have INSANE levels of GH, but this is the program I have used from 30yrs to 45yrs of age when I have needed to compete in various sports, it has been very effective.

As a teenageer, you can probably just skip the tryptophan, and instead
- be very careful what you eat within 3 hours of sleeping, keep your stomach empty except for water. (limit competitive aminos)
- balance your carbs and proteins as suggested.
- wake yourself after 4 hours of sleep, drink water and go back to sleep. - get a double burst
- take afternoon naps - when you can - to get yourself peaked before a big workout.
- take days off, and go three times as hard at least 1 day a week before a 2 day break. - vary your routine.

[Mr.Cooper69]

Strongest first post ever

[foshizzle57]

New Mood by Onnit (a very reliable source, I am not associated with them) contains both l-tryptophan and 5-htp which is the metabolite of l-tryptophan along with a bunch of other stress reducers and sleep aids.
Theoretically this would provide 600 mg of l-tryptophan (100 mg would be in 5-htp form) which would fit in hughfuve's recommendations.

You can always buy l-tryptophan as a solo supplement, it is a natural amino acid so you dont have anything to worry about while taking it.

[power8867]

I wanted to start a new Thread about serotonin and growth hormone, then I found this one.
As you might know growth hormone increases during deep sleep. you can search for "sleep" and "growth hormone" on google scholar, there are plenty of experimental papers on the subject. Supplementing with l-tryptophan increases serotonin levels and promotes deep sleep. So, I gave it a shot. Here is my experience. Taking just 500 mg l-tryptophan 1-2 hours before sleep, resulted in much deeper sleep than ususal. How do I know? I've had color vivid dreams that I hadn't experienced for years. The next morning, the muscles that I hit the day before get unusually stiff and sore. I never experience this kind of soreness the day after workouts when I'm not on l-tryptophan. The stiffness fades out after 2-3 days as well as deep dreams which is because of high serotonin levels, I suppose! If the stiffness doesn't go away the day before restarting my workout, I take 5 grams of BCAAs and the stiffness is gone much faster. The thing is after this 2-3 days muscle stiffness and recovery, I've seen more progress than when I don't take l-tryptophan. There is not much research on the link between serotonin level and muscle growth. I've just found one research paper which studies the link in rats. But I'm just experimenting to see whether it has positive effect on my muscle gains or not and so far I've seen more progress when I boost my serotonin level during my days off.

[thackes1]

I have a few questions about supplementing with tryptophan for this benefit.
-how much and when should it be taken?
-how long should it be taken?
-are there any harmful effects associated with taking L-tryptophan in teenagers
-in the end is it worth it?
-Where should I order it from?
-Pill or powder form?
-Any reputable manufactures or manufacturers to avoid?

PS: Lmk if I posted this in the wrong section.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showa_..._contamination

Tryptophan supplementation is controversial given the Showa Denko controversy, where contaminated batches or tryptophan itself induced EMS. Personally, I avoid products with tryptophan. It is easy to get enough from natural sources anyhow. Eat your turkey.

[thackes1]

I have a few questions about supplementing with tryptophan for this benefit.
-how much and when should it be taken?
-how long should it be taken?
-are there any harmful effects associated with taking L-tryptophan in teenagers
-in the end is it worth it?
-Where should I order it from?
-Pill or powder form?
-Any reputable manufactures or manufacturers to avoid?

PS: Lmk if I posted this in the wrong section.

If you're looking for an HGH bump. Drink a solid protein shake before bed with some carbs mixed in. Also, take a pre-workout with a solid dose of Alpha-GPC. 600 mg of alpha-GPC is what has been studied, but there isn't a single pre with that large of a dose. The largest does of alpha-GPC that I have seen is in Momentum's catalyst, 300 mg.

[power8867]

Tryptophan supplementation is controversial given the Showa Denko controversy, where contaminated batches or tryptophan itself induced EMS. Personally, I avoid products with tryptophan. It is easy to get enough from natural sources anyhow. Eat your turkey.

EMS was caused by a bacteria in the tryptophan capsules produced by a japanese company.
Turkey never gives you the same results, because it is all about the competition between tryptophan and other amino acids mostly bcaas when it comes to passing the brain barrier. Tryptophan capsules increase the tryptophan in serum keeping other amino acids intact while turkey and any protein has a bunch of amino acids including bcaas and can never increase the the tryptophan/bcaa ratio in the serum as even a 100 mg l-tryptophan capsule can do.

[thackes1]

EMS was caused by a bacteria in the tryptophan capsules produced by a japanese company.
Turkey never gives you the same results, because it is all about the competition between tryptophan and other amino acids mostly bcaas when it comes to passing the brain barrier. Tryptophan capsules increase the tryptophan in serum keeping other amino acids intact while turkey and any protein has a bunch of amino acids including bcaas and can never increase the the tryptophan/bcaa ratio in the serum as even a 100 mg l-tryptophan capsule can do.

Of course, L-tryptophan supplementation alone versus food will lead to improved transport of l-tryptophan across the blood brain barrier. Another way to do so is fast a few hours and then eat only carbs before bed. This will raise the relative levels of tryptophan compared to other amino acids in the blood indirectly, leading to increased transport across the BBB, and subsequently fatigue and deep sleep. The contamination was thought to be bacterial, but that has never been actually confirmed. However, the supplement industry has generally improved since that point in time, and it is likely that the l-tryptophan produced in labs today is a higher quality. To my knowledge though, there really isn't a lot of research on l-tryptophan supplementation.

[graysonthacker]

L-tryptophan just scares me a little. No need for it, but I'm sure it is effective. Turkey seems to have the effects that tryptophan alone does even though it has the other amino acids along with it.

[sledgecock]

Of course, L-tryptophan supplementation alone versus food will lead to improved transport of l-tryptophan across the blood brain barrier. Another way to do so is fast a few hours and then eat only carbs before bed. This will raise the relative levels of tryptophan compared to other amino acids in the blood indirectly, leading to increased transport across the BBB, and subsequently fatigue and deep sleep. The contamination was thought to be bacterial, but that has never been actually confirmed. However, the supplement industry has generally improved since that point in time, and it is likely that the l-tryptophan produced in labs today is a higher quality. To my knowledge though, there really isn't a lot of research on l-tryptophan supplementation.

According to “Prescription for Nutritional Healing,” researchers in Taiwan discovered banana peel extract can ease depression because of its effect on serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter in the brain responsible for balancing mood and emotions. Others found that eating two banana skins a day for three days increased blood serotonin levels by 16 percent. Further, banana skin contains lutein, a powerful antioxidant that protects the eye from free radicals and harmful frequencies of UV radiation from the sun.

[thackes1]

According to “Prescription for Nutritional Healing,” researchers in Taiwan discovered banana peel extract can ease depression because of its effect on serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter in the brain responsible for balancing mood and emotions. Others found that eating two banana skins a day for three days increased blood serotonin levels by 16 percent. Further, banana skin contains lutein, a powerful antioxidant that protects the eye from free radicals and harmful frequencies of UV radiation from the sun.

Interesting facts. Do they have any idea what in the banana peel extract had the effect on serotonin and through what mechanism? What was the citation on the article too?

[sledgecock]

Interesting facts. Do they have any idea what in the banana peel extract had the effect on serotonin and through what mechanism? What was the citation on the article too?

I think it was tryptophan in the banana peel here's the link: http://www.livestrong.com/article/45...-banana-peels/

[thackes1]

I think it was tryptophan in the banana peel here's the link: http://www.livestrong.com/article/45...-banana-peels/

Ah I see. Well that would be a safe natural source of tryptophan then. I wonder what the concentration of tryptophan in the banana peel is. The issue with studying the effects of banana peel is that there could be other active ingredient in there that also are contributing to the effect.