I am on 5-htp but then read that druggies who wish to quit ecstacy and other drugs are put on 5htp so that they can "feel good" without being addicted to illegal drugs.

 

Do you think I could become addicted to 5-htp? It puts a lot of serotonin in the body

 

Does anyone know how much htp would be taken to equate taking drugs?

 

or to equate taking acupuncture?

 

Please link where you read that, as it couldn't be further from the truth. Did some clueless person tell you that, or did you really read it in print? I'd love to see someone honestly asserting that in print (aside from someone posting in a forum).

And no, you won't become addicted, and no, it doesn't put a lot of serotonin in your body. It is merely a precursor, if your body had trouble making enough on its own, you could *potentially* find this to help. But it won't get you high by any stretch. No way, no how.

So, no amount of 5htp equals even a tiny amount of the (holy) ecstasy.

How much 5htp equals accupuncture? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't accupuncture unblock chi or something? Either way, as far as I've ever heard, accupuncture is kind of a placebo-type thing. Nobody can prove it doesn't work, but is there ANY documentationed proof of it working? I mean I know people who say it helps solve this or that, but it is always a subjective improvement. For instance, can accupuncture lower cholesterol? Has this been documented? Surely a placebo effect can cause subjective improvements, and that seems to be what accupuncture is for. So, how many mg's of 5htp equal that? Well, considering you cannot quantify accupuncture's results, and 5htp really does work and is quantifiable, you can't compare the two. That's like saying "what will help me get out of debt quicker, working at mcdonald's or praying?" One of the options is measurable, provable, and performs unquestionably. The other is debatable, largely unprovable, and therefore cannot be measured or quantified.

As a side note, just to help set ya on the right track. You said druggies are 'put on' 5htp to feel good w/o using illegal drugs'. That doesn't even make sense. I urge you to provide a link to where you read that because I believe it is made up. It doesn't make sense for a couple reasons. First off, you say they are 'put on' to 5htp. That means someone intervened, otherwise you would have said 'druggies go on'. If someone intervened with a drug addict, they wouldn't be looking for a product to make the person 'feel good'. So that doesn't make sense. Also, the bottom line is that 5htp has NO abuse potential. None. So, those two glaring problems with your statement are leading me to believe you made it up, or are just repeating somethign you have no clue about in a matter of fact way. So, please bring us something to show that people are honestly entertaining the idea of putting 'druggies on 5htp to feel good w/o using illegal drugs'.

Oh, and by the way, you never even mentioned what you're using this for. You ask how many mg's of 5htp are equal to accupuncture. If i understand correctly, accupuncture is kind of a cure all - it can be prescribed for a ridiculous variety, kidn of like the old 'cures what ails ya' approach. How would someone who believes in teh efficacy of accupuncture even begin to (if it were even possible) give you a dosage if you don't tell what you're trying to do?

And, just to throw this out there, your signature's alarmist description of farming leads me to believe you're vegan/vegetarian. True? If so, you should be aware of the fact that your body's primary precursor to serotonin is l-tryptophan, in fact you could use that amino acid in a similar manner to how you use 5htp (although dosages would vary wildly).

Are you supplementing your vegan / vegetarian diet with the proper amino acids to prevent problems from occuring?

Thank you for the response.

I did not think out my first post very well - it was the early morning where I am and I was only trying to find other people who know more about 5-htp.

I had typed into google: "5-htp serotonin ecstacy acupuncture" and read a few sites that seemed interesting. I know very little about 5-htp.

Yes, acupuncture is about unblocking the Chi and I had 14 sessions of it done. I didnt believe it when I went first started it, but I was desperate for ANYTHING, and was extremely surprised that it did stop all the pain from my menstrual cramps (I have dysmenorrhea... the pain was so bad I was fainting and had to be carried into the house).

After I stopped acupuncture for 6 months, the pain returned. My acupuncturist assured me the pain would be permanently gone for the rest of my life because he "had unblocked my Chi." I did a little research and found that when tiny needles puncture the skin in acupuncture, our bodies release small amounts of serotonin. Serotonin helps us not feel pain.

I went out and bought 5-htp because I knew it was the precursor to serotonin and the pain for my menstrual cramps immediately returned to being painless like during my acupuncture treatments.

I also noticed that when I was having acupuncture sessions, I was very happy and content with life more than usual . When I stopped the acupuncture, I returned to normal. Now that I am taking 5htp, I have returned to feeling like I was on acupuncture.

I noticed that taking too much 5-htp made me sleep allllllll day... happily and contently all the way through my exams at school , so I have lowered the dosage considerably, LOL. I am just curious how much serotonin was released into my body at every acupuncture session.

I am looking for other people who know more about 5-htp because I would like to know more about it. It is verrry new to me.

I do not know anything about ecstacy and other drugs except that you "feel good" while on it.. so I am only guessing that perhaps the body releases serotonin.

There was a study on accupuncture that showed it was effective against pain it was properly scientifically constructed and performed, i can't link to it becuase i saw it on tv.

I read somewhere that 5-htp as usually formulated and sold with B6 is very dangerous.

I've never seen 5-HTP and B6 in the same pill, though that could be a great recipe for vivid dreams...

Yeah, 5HTP will not get you "high". It'll help you sleep, as it did for me.

Here's the real deal on the ecstasy issue: some users, in an attempt of harm reduction, will take 5HTP before and after ecstasy to compensate for lost serotonin. I guess the real issue is, with long term ecstasy use your serotonin receptors become tired and give out...

I don't particularly see any synthetic drug as something that's ideal for long term (and occassional) use, though.

I read somewhere that 5-htp as usually formulated and sold with B6 is very dangerous.

 

You probably read something about that which I posted in the past.

Yes, taking 5-HTP is potentially very dangerous. AVOID.

Bryan

Hey, are you sure you are not thinking of 5-HP which was yanked by the FDA because it was potentially dangerous... and it did the same thing as 5-HTP (created serotonin in the body)??

Hey, are you sure you are not thinking of 5-HP which was yanked by the FDA because it was potentially dangerous... and it did the same thing as 5-HTP (created serotonin in the body)??

I'm not sure what you mean by "5-HP". You seem to be thinking of the amino acid tryptophan, which was taken off the market by the FDA several years ago because of a tainted batch which injured several people, and even caused a few deaths.

No, I was indeed referring to 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan), which is an intermediate step in the pathway from tryptophan to serotonin. It is potentially dangerous to take orally, and taking it with vitamin B6 is even worse. AVOID.

Bryan

For those of you who continue to think that taking 5-HTP is a perfectly safe thing to do, please read the following post by Dr. Stephen Harris (a well-known life-extension researcher) from the science newsgroup sci.life-extension. This material is lengthy and _quite_ technical, but you need to work your way through it so that you can see why 5-HTP isn't a benign substance:

From: [email protected](Steven B. Harris)

Subject: 5-HTP + B6 = Trouble; Doc Harris Presents Green Banana Award (was: US ban on tryptophan)

Date: 29 Dec 1996

Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition, sci.med, sci.pharmacy, misc.health.alternative, sci.life-extension, alt.support.depression

Simon Friedman <[email protected]> wrote:

Jack Challem wrote:

> If you look around, you will find a few companies now selling tryptophan supplements to doctors in the US. The molecular structure is slightly different, basically just the immediate precursor molecule. I checked with my FDA contact, and he said yes, it's true.<

>>You can also buy 5-hydroxytryptophan from at least 2 mail-order outlets that I know of. 5-HTP is the next step in metabolism from trypophan on its way to become serotonin. Simon<<

------------------------------------------------------------

Comment: Yes, and in fact 5-HTP needs only one more step to become serotonin-- a decarboxylation. The sequence is:

Tryptophan --> 5-HTP --> Serotonin.

An exactly analogous sequence is:

Tyrosine --> L-DOPA --> Dopamine

In both cases the end product neurotransmitter does not get across the blood brain barrier very well, but all of the precursor molecules above are transported by the brain's large neutral amino acid pump, and they get into the brain fine. Thus, if you are a Parkinson's patient who wants to raise dopamine levels, you must take L-DOPA, not dopamine. Similarly, it would do you no good to take serotonin-- you must take tryptophan or 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP).

Now for the complications. (Aren't there always complications in life?) The final reaction to the neurotransmitter in both the case of dopamine and serotonin, is decarboxylation, and the same enzyme (the aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase) is involved in both conversions. This decarboxylase enzyme is present in the liver, and it acts in the case of L-DOPA to convert the compound to dopamine before it can make it into the brain (and if this happens, the L-DOPA is wasted). The decarboxylase enzyme uses B6 as a cofactor for this reaction, and for this reason a Parkinson's disease patient taking L-DOPA cannot take more than the RDA of B6, because doing so would act to neutralize oral L-DOPA too quickly. These days, almost all Parkinson's patients on L-DOPA take the drug in a combination with an artificial decarboxylase inhibitor, called Carbidopa (the combination is called Sinemet). But even with Carbidopa, Parkinson's patients are advised not to exceed a daily dose of B6 of 25 mg, since more will overwhelm the Carbidopa effect, and cause pharmacologic L-DOPA to be destroyed in the liver before it can get into the brain.

Now, Carbidopa, because it acts on the same metabolizing enzyme in the liver, performs exactly the same preservative service for 5-HTP as for L-DOPA. For this reason, neurologists have experimented with giving Carbidopa to people who needed to take 5-HTP to raise brain serotonin (this in the days before selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor antidepressants like Prozac were available). The problem today with 5-HTP-selling companies bypassing doctors and going to laymen, is that a lot of health enthusiasts with problems who are enthusiastically taking 5-HTP are NOT taking Carbidopa, but they ARE taking a lot of B6 in one form or another. Yet without Carbidopa, more than a few milligrams of extra B6 per day would be expected to insure that most dietary 5-HTP gets turned into serotonin before it can get into the brain.

Alas, one company I know packages their 5-HTP in 50 mg capsules with 10 mg of B6. They do this ostensibly so that 5-HTP can be converted to serotonin in the brain. Duh. This insures that any 5-HTP will get converted to serotonin in the liver instead, and thus never make it to the brain. Vitamin B6 is the *LAST* thing you want in an 5-HTP product.

At the very best, people who take B-vitamins with 5-HTP, or who take 5-HTP products with B6, waste their money. All this would be merely humorous (caveat emptor) were it not for some other facts. At worst, ignorant people fooling with 5-HTP actually risk their health, since serotonin in the peripheral blood is not benign. Serotonin causes not only harmless flushing and diarrhea, but people with serotonin secreting tumors (hindgut carcinoids) also have problems with fibrosis of the endocardium and valves in their right hearts, which can cause heart failure. This fibrosis is caused by the serotonin. This effect can also be seen with dietary intake of only modest amounts of serotonin, and there has actually been described in the medical literature a tribe of South Sea islanders with right heart fibrosis as a result of eating green banana mash (matuki), which poisons them with its serotonin content. No, I'm not making this up. The hydroxylation of tryptophan is a rate-limiting step in the peripheral production of serotonin, and one bypasses it at one's peril.

How much does it take? Several hundred milligrams of 5-HTP taken per day, if converted to serotonin, would result in a urinary excretion of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) of several hundred milligrams also-- an amount well within the urinary excretion range of the average person with a serotonin producing carcinoid. Such a dose of 5-HTP certainly would result in a serotonin blood load comparable to that of green-banana-diet eating people who have serotonin-induced heart valve disease. Normally, people do not excrete breakdown products of more than 10 mg of serotonin metabolites per day. If you take one capsule per day of 50 mg 5-HTP with 10 mg B6, however, you would be expected to go to at least 50 mg per day of 5-HIAA in the urine. Less metabolism in the liver (less B6) would result in less 5-HIAA in the urine. If you are going to take 5-HTP, therefore, you probably need 5-HIAA urine monitoring, to figure out just how big a dose of systemic serotonin you're actually getting (and incidentally, how much 5-HTP you're wasting). See a doctor!

For all the reasons outlined above, I am presenting those vitamin companies who sell 5-HTP with B6, or who sell it alone but don't warn their customers about 5-HIAA monitoring or B6 intake, a special award: the Green Banana Award. This honor is for those supplement-sellers who monkey around with people's health before consulting with some really good nutrition and medical specialists to make sure they don't f*&% up and hurt somebody. Hopefully, companies which receive the Green Banana Award will contemplate its message, and will thereby change their behavior in order to avoid some of the less-coveted awards which otherwise await them in the future: the Civil Damage Award, for instance, or even the All-Expense-Paid Guest of the Federal Government Award.

Steven B. Harris, M.D.

interesting. Will the ingredients in the following 5-htp cause acne?

main ingredient: 5-htp 100mg griffonia simplicifolia seed

other ingredients: dibasic calcium phosphate, hypromellose, cellulose, stearic acid, silica, magnesium stearate, methylcellulose, glycerin