Natural Antidepressants
The serotonin hypothesis has also inspired numerous natural treatments thought to treat depression via their effects on serotonin. The logic is that since serotonin is made from the precursor 5 hydroxytryptophan (5HTP) or from dietary tryptophan 50.
This basic idea is that if low serotonin is the cause of symptoms, massive doses of the building blocks for serotonin would raise serotonin and reverse the symptoms.
Again, this idea was studied in the late 1960s and found not to work. Nonetheless the myth has not yet died and in fact, many in natural medicine have doubled down and claimed that higher doses are needed and that in addition to serotonin precursors, amino acid precursors to other neurotransmitters must be included.
I call this the ‘key mistake.’ there are numerous examples where chemical reactions cannot occur without adequate amounts of an essential molecule as is true for 5HTP and serotonin. If 5HTP is lacking, serotonin cannot be made.
Think of 5HTP like a key for the car. Without it, the car cannot even move.
However, it does not stand to reason that the more 5HTP that a person ingests the more serotonin they will make.
Without the key, your car will not go. But once you have your key, more keys won’t make your car go any faster.
To date, no high-quality controlled human studies have shown that 5HTP or tryptophan supplementation can improve depression more than would be expected by a placebo response 51. Given that the serotonin hypothesis has failed, this is not surprising.
There is some evidence that oral 5HTP may slow cognitive tasks and due to serotonin formation in the intestinal tract, 5HTP may often cause gastrointestinal side effects 52.
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