The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements. Julia Ross
her precious serotonin stores. The only time Lynne smiled easily was when she mentioned tennis, which she played almost daily after work and on weekends. (And a good thing, too, since exercise raises serotonin levels.)
Within minutes of talking to Lynne, it was obvious that she was a perfect candidate for 5-HTP. In addition to suggesting 5-HTP in the afternoon and at bedtime, our staff advised her to eat more protein and take the basic supplements. A week later, when Lynne came back into the office, she was a different person. The previously worried, irritable woman was now smiling and joking. I wasn’t surprised to hear that she was also getting to sleep earlier and waking up so alert that she didn’t need her coffee. Three weeks later, she reported that her mood and sleep were still great, but that another totally unexpected benefit had kicked in. Her tennis game had improved so much that she found herself winning against higher-ranked opponents because she was so much more relaxed and rested. No mean feat at 56! After a few months, Lynne found that she no longer needed her 5-HTP. All of the benefits she’d received by using it were holding, despite the fact that she still had no regular job.
About 85 percent of our dark-cloud clients who have tried 5-HTP, like Lynne, have experienced a remarkable improvement in mood and outlook. The odds of it helping you are overwhelmingly in your favor. However, 5-HTP doesn’t work for everyone. If you don’t feel better after a week on up to 300 milligrams a day of 5-HTP, you can use one of the other super-serotonin-elevating remedies that I discuss next.
Another Serotonin Savior—Tryptophan
Some people need additional nutritional help, beyond what 5-HTP can provide in the serotonin-building department. About 15 percent of our clients have found that 5-HTP either did nothing or made them sleepless, queasy, or mildly uncomfortable in some other way. (Note: If you get any adverse symptom from 5-HTP or any other supplement, stop taking it!) If you turn out to be one of the few who does not respond well to 5-HTP, there are two excellent backup remedies. One or both should work beautifully for you.
The first is the amino acid I’ve already mentioned as being the unique food source of both 5-HTP and serotonin. It’s the amino acid tryptophan.
You know that high-protein foods contain this very special amino, but you probably don’t know that tryptophan is also available as a supplement. Taken between meals in this concentrated form, it is converted much more quickly than it is from food, where it’s less concentrated and has to compete with all the other aminos in the bloodstream to get into your brain. Our clients find that tryptophan supplements work as quickly as 5-HTP does and research shows it to be equally impressive:
Actually, tryptophan has had an even longer and more illustrious history as a serotonin savior than 5-HTP, but it was taken out of circulation for several years and has only recently been returned. (For a full recounting of the tryptophan saga, see page 222.)
Tryptophan is harder to find and more expensive than 5-HTP, but it’s a godsend for those who don’t do well on 5-HTP. Tryptophan not only converts to 5-HTP and then to serotonin in minutes, it can also be used to make the important B vitamin niacin and many other valuable enzymes in the body. It is available by prescription (from compounding pharmacists only), mail order, and through some health practitioners. We’ve carried it in our clinic since 1999. You’ll find ordering suggestions in the Action Steps at the end of this chapter.
The Happy Herb: Saint-John’s Wort
Aside from 5-HTP and tryptophan, the only other really effective natural serotonin booster I know of is the ancient herbal remedy Saint-John’s wort. Much of the research on Saint-John’s wort has been done in Germany, where this herb outsells Prozac as an antidepressant. The reason is that it’s been found to work as well as or better than Prozac and similar drugs, with few side effects:
We’ve found that Saint-John’s wort often helps to raise serotonin levels when the amino acids somehow do not. One of our clients, Nan, was always irritable and sleepless. Unfortunately, she was very sensitive to foods and supplements, and she got headachy and spacey on 5-HTP and tryptophan, so we tried a tincture (liquid extract) of Saint-John’s wort. That did the trick, reducing most of her angry feelings and helping her get to sleep. It wasn’t quite as complete a solution as we’re used to getting from 5-HTP and tryptophan, but she was definitely feeling and sleeping better because of it.
While we understand how nutrients like 5-HTP and tryptophan work in the brain, Saint-John’s wort, like most herbs (and the drugs often derived from them), is mysterious in action. We sometimes successfully combine Saint-John’s wort with 5-HTP or tryptophan. Mostly, though, we rely on it as a safe alternative when the other two supplements just don’t work. This typically happens only when thyroid function is sluggish. For example, we discovered that Nan had thyroiditis, a not uncommon autoimmune disease of the thyroid gland. (More later on the thyroid factor.)
SAM-e Sometimes
There’s one other nutrient that sometimes helps when serotonin levels are low and the other supplements don’t work. SAM-e, a natural antidepressant used and researched extensively in Europe, became a sensation in the United States when it appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine in 1999. It has been researched and used successfully for many years in Europe for depression, and it helps with a variety of other ailments, including arthritis and liver damage as well.
SAM-e (S-adenosyl-L-methionine) is a chemical found