Serotonin

[uru]

Has anyone tried buying and just taking serotonin tablets?

[MyNameIsTerry]

The problem would be Serotonin is in a very small quantity in the brain and most is used in processes around the body and stored in the gut. You can ingest Serotonin, there are very few foods that contain it, but it won't pass the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). So, it's going to get used outside of the brain.

You can influence brain Serotonin though, you just feed your body the precursors, and in the right way. L-Tryptophan is what your brain will make it from but the problem is that if you don't consume carbs with it, the are other amino acids that compete to pull L-Tryptophan into processes outside of the brain. So, in a typical protein based meal these BCAA's will win but you can tilt it back in favour of the L-Tryptophan going to the brain by consuming a carb based meal as the carbs make the change.

Some people buy L-Tryptophan tablets and because the BCAA's aren't in them, this works too.

Others buy 5-HTP which I think is similar but it's so long since I've looked at that that I can't remember how it fits into the equation without checking.

At least in precursor form the brain makes the choice. Flooding yourself with Serotonin you don't need has an obvious possible risk otherwise. The brain works hard to balance things.

It's an important question to ask though because when do you ever hear a GP prescribing SSRI's and telling people to make sure they get enough of the right diet? Probably never. All SSRI's do is increase it in the space and plug up the holes in the receptors to slow it down but what if you aren't even eating enough? What if not eating enough is contributing to why you are seeing the GP in the first place? It's a poor strategy to only slow down wastage if you are not putting enough in the tank in the first place, but that's the meds world for you!