5 HTP for Depression, Anxiety, and More

Okay, so we're going to be talking about 5 HTP today. My name is Dr. Nicole, and you can learn more about the awesome stuff that we have going on by clicking on the link in the bio. We have tons of free resources if you're dealing with anxiety, depression, difficulty sleeping, bipolar disorder, or if you just want to improve your overall brain health and mental health. I have a ton of free stuff for you, so be sure to check it out. So today we're going to be talking about 5 HTP. 5 HTP is 5 hydroxy tryptophan. 5 hydroxy tryptophan is a chemical that is made from either tryptophan in your body or you can take it as a supplement. And what it does is it helps your body to make a neurotransmitter called serotonin. Serotonin regulates your mood. You've probably heard of serotonin, as it boosts your mood, it helps you feel good. And a lot of medications work by aiming to increase serotonin. For example, Zoloft, Prozac, Lexapro, Effexor, these are different types of medications that aim to help with anxiety, depression, fibromyalgia, and IBS by increasing serotonin levels. And so you may not have known that 5 HTP for some people can be very valuable. But what you may not know is how to use 5 HTP in a way that will get you the best results, and how to not use htp, because if you use it the wrong way, it can actually make you worse. And we're going to be talking about that today. So I'm going to be flipping the camera over and I drew a chart for you, and I'm going to be explaining through that chart because my goal is for you to understand what 5 HTP is and how it fits into your neurobiology so that you can be empowered to take that information to your doctor. And so I'm really happy to have this drawing. And I also have some answers to frequently asked questions. We got a lot of questions on a recent post about 5 HTP. And so stay tuned because I will be going over some of the answers about that at the end. So let's flip the camera. And so what you're going to see here is a pathway. And by the end of this live, you are going to understand the pathway. And 5 HTP is here. And so that's how it's all fitting into place. And so what we want to do is we want to start at the beginning. We want to start with Tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid. Your body uses amino acids to make neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine and epinephrine, gaba, norepinephrine. These are all the cast in your brain chemistry. These all impact how you think and how you feel. And when they're in balance, your mood is good, your concentration is good, and when they're out of balance, you can start to develop symptoms. And so we start with tryptophan, and then your body will go in one or two directions. It's either going to go down the serotonin pathway or it's going to go down this other pathway, which we call the chyerenin pathway. And so let's start by going down the desired pathway. This is what you want to have happen. So your body starts with tryptophan and then it goes through an enzyme process and it makes five htp. Did you know that you can buy tryptophan over the counter? You can buy it at vitamin stores, health food stores, online. You could also buy five htp. And so a lot of people ask me the question, which one should I buy? And so when I'm having a conversation about tryptophan versus 5 HTP, there's always something that you want to keep in mind is I have found in my clinical practice over the past decade that tryptophan tends to be more relaxing. So if you have anxiety with depression, if you feel restless and agitated with depression, then tryptophan may be a better fit for you. 5 HTP tends to work with anxiety and depression. That is more on the lethargic, tired, exhausted, kind of chronic fatigue side. I found that in my clinical practice that 5 HTP can be a little bit more energizing and stimulating. And so I often dose it in the morning, whereas I found that tryptophan works really nicely when dosed in the evening because it can help you sleep. So we start at tryptophan, you go down a pathway, and. And then we get to 5 HTP. So let's say that your body isn't doing that properly and you want to take 5 HTP to try to help with your mood. So what will happen is you take 5 HTP and then it will go down a pathway to help make serotonin. What's super cool about 5 HTP is that it crosses the blood brain barrier. And I actually drew a picture of this for you. So think about the blood brain barrier. This is a. This is a neuron in your brain and then you have this barrier and you'll see serotonin can't cross the blood brain barrier, but you'll notice that 5 HTP can. So when you take 5 HTP, the vitamin, the nutrients, the 5 HTP will actually cross through the blood brain barrier and can impact your mood and your brain. It crosses the blood brain barrier more efficiently and more effectively than tryptophan does. As you see here. Some of the tryptophan goes in, some of the tryptophan ricochets off. So back to this first drawing. So you take your 5 HTP, it goes, and it helps your brain make serotonin. And of course we don't want to have too much serotonin. Your body is all about checks and balances. And so with the help of copper, vitamin B2 and a pathway called the MAO pathway, it breaks the serotonin down into 5 HIAA, and then it can also break your serotonin down into melatonin, which helps you sleep, and it helps to do this with same. So what also happens is that in order for 5 HTP to get down and make your serotonin so that your mood is nice and stable is it needs this enzyme. And so this enzyme has a really big long name, L aromatic amino acid decarboxylase enzyme, which we're just going to call aaa. So your body, you take your five HTP crosses through your blood brain barrier, your body uses this enzyme, it makes serotonin, you feel good. But in order to have a balanced mood, we also want to make sure we have good levels of dopamine, right? And so what's really interesting is that this enzyme that helps your body make five HTP into serotonin uses this enzyme, but so does your body when it's trying to make dopamine. So they have to share an enzyme. So kind of think of it like you have one car and two people who have to go two different places to do two different things. So your body has five HTP and that wants to make serotonin, so it's using some enzyme. And then your body also wants to make dopamine, and so it's using that enzyme too. But what can happen is if you're taking a 5 HTP supplement, you are pushing this pathway more and more and more and more, and it starts to use up this enzyme so that you don't have enough to make L dopa into dopamine. And if you don't have enough dopamine, you're not going to have enough norepinephrine and you're not going to have enough epinephrine. And so this is why sometimes 5htp has side effects. So some of the side effects of 5htp are symptoms of low dopamine, low norepinephrine, and low epinephrine. So let's talk about what those symptoms look like. So dopamine is your feel good neurotransmitter. Dopamine helps you feel happy. It helps you have motivation. If you have low dopamine, you might notice that you just have like, no happiness, no feel good. You may crave things that boost your dopamine, like sugar or chocolate, driving recklessly, alcohol, other substances. And so if you have really high five HTP trying to go to serotonin, but you notice you're feeling worse, it may be that you are using up all that triple A D and you're not making your dopamine. And so you'll have symptoms of low dopamine. You don't have that feel good, happy feeling, right? And so then because you don't have enough dopamine, you're not going to make enough norepinephrine or epinephrine. Norepinephrine and epinephrine are the spark plugs in your car. They're the get up and go. It's what helps give you energy and motivation. It's what helps you feel like you have the spark to do your day. So if you're feeling like you're lethargic, or if you feel like you have chronic fatigue, or if you feel just like you're exhausted, you have low blood pressure, you get dizzy when you stand up, or you feel like you have to stabilize yourself with a chair in order to stand up, or if you feel like your blood sugar isn't stable and you're often dealing with low blood sugar, it could be that your norepinephrine and your epinephrine are out of balance. And so as you see, we want to balance making serotonin with balancing of making dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. So that can be tricky because as you can see, dopamine and serotonin live on a teeter totter. As serotonin levels go up, dopamine levels may go down. And as dopamine goes up, serotonin may go down. So as you can imagine, you want to find a really nice balance. And that's one of the reasons why people have so many side effects from antidepressant medications is you start taking your antidepressant, your serotonin levels go up, you're feeling like you're feeling a little bit more motivated and energized, but you don't have that feel good happiness. You just feel meh. And this is why some people feel that way, is because as their serotonin is going up, if they're not compensating for that, their dopamine may be going down and you may still feel depressed. And so we know that 5 HTP will deplete your dopamine, right? Because as 5 HTP goes up, dopamine goes down, right? And we know that as dopamine goes up by giving it a precursor that will deplete your 5 HTP. And so again, it's a teeter totter. It's all about having a nice balance. And so let's rewind and make sure that we're all on the same page with 5HTP. So what is 5HTP? Remember that 5HTP is 5 hydroxytryptophan, and it helps your body to make safety. Serotonin and symptoms of low serotonin. Signs that you may need 5 HTP is if you feel depressed, anxious, if you have panic attacks, problems sleeping or impulsivity, suicidal thoughts, if you're gaining weight, if your gut's upset, if you have body pains, headache, even if your bones are brittle, these are signs that your serotonin may be low. But on the other hand, there is the same same thing is too much of a good thing, right? And so too much serotonin, if you overdose with 5 HTP or if you're taking an antidepressant medication that's increasing serotonin, and then you mix, you can end up with symptoms of high serotonin. And high serotonin, if it's unchecked, can cause serotonin syndrome. And so signs of high serotonin would be agitation, restlessness, fever, heart irregularities, high blood pressure, diarrhea, muscle spasms and twitching. And it can get so severe that people can go into a coma. Serotonin syndrome can be very, very dangerous. And so that's why when we're taking something like tryptophan or 5 HTP or even other plants like St. John's wort that can help increase serotonin, that we want to be really careful so that our doctor is helping monitor so that we're not overdosing ourselves serotonin. So it's really important. And so let's go back. We talked about this at the Beginning. But just to recap, you can get five HTP three primary ways. One is that you can get it from tryptophan. Your body will turn tryptophan naturally into 5 HTP. Interestingly, we see up here that estrogen can increase this. And so some people, when they're having PMS or menopause or postpartum, estrogen levels may be rising and dropping and that can interfere with your serotonin levels. And so there's a link between your hormones and your mood. Right? Serotonin and 5 HTP can also come from tryptophan containing foods. Remember, tryptophan is found in different foods like milk, tuna, turkey, chicken, oat, cheese, nuts and seeds. And so increasing these foods can increase your tryptophan, which then of course can increase your 5 HTP and then increase your serotonin. And then of course, serotonin can be or 5 HTP to make serotonin can be found in over the counter supplements like Grinfolio simplaticofa. So the benefits of 5 HTP are many. 5 HTP can reduce anxiety, it can lift your mood, it can help with your sleep, it can help with weight loss, it can decrease headaches, body pains. 5 HTP can be pretty awesome. So what we want to talk about is how to reduce the side effects of 5 HTP, how do we reduce the negative effects? And we're going to talk about that in a minute because that's a really important conversation topic and I'm going to give you a really good solution to that. But one of the things we also want to keep an eye out for is, is if we start at the top of the pyramid. Remember I asked you earlier, do we want to give tryptophan or do we want to give 5 HTP? And the answer is dependent on what your body prefers. So remember we talked about tryptophan can go down the serotonin pathway, or tryptophan in 90% of cases will actually go down the chyurenin pathway. And so this is really important. So let's talk about this for just a moment. Kyureinin will go down a pathway that's really important. We need this pathway, but it's all about balance. Because this pathway, its job is to ultimately make nad. NAD is like a battery in your cell. It gives your cells energy so that they can do their job. If you don't have enough nad, the car won't start, you won't have energy, your cells won't work, and it will create issues from Head to toe. So we really want to be able to make that, but we want to have a balance because as we're going down the pathway to make that, we go through quinolinic acid. And quinolinic acid can be a real problem if levels are high. So if your body is starting at tryptophan and it's not going down the right pathway, if it's actually going down the chyurenin pathway and making quinolinic acid and it's causing problems by damaging the nerve cells in your brain, causing twitching, insomnia, seizures, palpitations, anxiety, depression, by giving yourself more tryptophan and your body prefers this pathway, it's going to get worse. And in that circumstance, you're going to want something more like 5 HTP, because that's already farther down the pathway towards making serotonin. Right? So tryptophan, if you eat a lot of food with tryptophan, if you take the supplement with tryptophan, some of it can cross into the blood brain barrier, it can go down the kyrenin pathway, it can make quinolinic acid, which is excitotoxic for your brain, it's excitotoxic for your body. And we want to know how to counteract that. And I actually have a whole free email handout that I'm going to get posted soon for which is going to teach you all about this. So 5htp is the name of the game and so we need to talk about the risks of taking 5 HTP. So number one is 5 HTP is metabolized by the expression of your genes. Each person's body has a slightly different set of genes and that's going to change the way that your body is making 5 HTP. And so when you are thinking about doing supplementation in order to get the best results is consider doing genetic testing. Your insurance will often cover a test by gene site. And examples of genes to look at are mthfr, which is involved in making serotonin. You see MAO here, which is involved in making serotonin. We also have comt the same. And so you want to make sure that you're doing really good diligent testing and then you want to look at epigenetic testing. Are you actually processing things process properly epigenetic testing. My favorite is an organic acid test, will actually look for quinolinic acid, it will look for dopamine HVA, it will look at Dopak, it will look at 5hiah so that we aren't guessing at which direction your brain is preferring and which direction your body is going, we actually know so that we can specifically correct whatever imbalances on that teeter totter are showing up. The next thing you want to make sure you keep in mind is to watch out for serotonin syndrome, which we talked about 5 HTP. We want to watch out for depletion of dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, because remember, they share that AAAD pathway. And so there is a solution to that. There is a way to properly dose 5 HTP, and I'm going to teach you about that in the five HTP supplement blueprint. And so that is going to be available over the next coming weeks. And before we finish up today, Talking all about 5 HTP, I'm actually going to read you and answer some of the most commonly asked questions that I get about 5 HTP. So let's hear them. So question that I got is 5 HTP safe to take if you're already on an antidepressant medication? And the answer you probably already know that you. That we talked about is that we want to be careful and watch out for serotonin syndrome, because 5 HTP is a precursor to serotonin. And if you're taking a medication that's already aiming to increase your serotonin, they will be additive. And if they go too high, you'll develop symptoms of serotonin syndrome, which could be very dangerous. So always talk to your doctor before adding a supplement if you're taking a medication. Okay, the second question is, can you use five HTP and tyrosine together? And the answer is absolutely yes. But it's all about finding that right teeter totter. And I actually have that drawn out for you. So we want to balance the blueprint. So how to properly dose 5 HTP? We want to do that genetic testing, the epigenetic testing, and we want to balance the blueprint. There are several things, things that you need to balance the blueprint. And I have stars in yellow next to them. So when you're supplementing with 5 HTP, you want to give 5 HTP. You also want to give tyrosine, just like this person asked, you want to also give L dopa to make sure that it's supporting both of these pathways nice and evenly. And then you need to give it with its minerals so that we're not getting overloads of serotonin, that we're breaking it down and supporting those, those genetic pathways. So, yeah, that was A really good question, and the answer is yes. A question that's often asked is, what is epigenetic testing? Epigenetic testing is when we test what are your genes actually doing? And I want you to think about this as a light switch. When you go into a room, you may have two light switches on the wall. And those light switches are going to represent your two chromosomes that make up a DNA coil. Each chromosome contains data, and that data is going to impact how your body is able to make proteins, what those proteins will do. But those light switches can be turned on or they can be turned off. And this is the expression of your genetics. This is epigenetics. So, for example, we know that an epigenetic test is methylation. So there's a gene, for example, called mthfr. And the job of that gene is to methylate. Methylation is kind of like adding an engine to a car on a conveyor belt. So you have a conveyor belt, you're building cars. And methylation is like adding the engine, car goes to the next set, adding the engine, car goes to the next set. If your gene is there but it's still working, no problem. We can see methylation is working by testing epigenetics. But that gene may be turned on so that that car shows up in the conveyor belt and then the arm to add the engine, it doesn't work. And we can actually measure that and test that and we can address it, which is really cool. And so if you have a genetic mutation in any of these neurotransmitter making genes, then don't worry about it. Oftentimes there are ways to support your genes so that you can be really healthy and feel good. Okay, so another question that I often get asked about 5 HTP is there was a research article that came out in 1989 that proposed a link between five HTP and heart issues. And specifically they were writing about eosinophilia myalgia syndrome. And what ended up happening is they did this giant investigation, and it turns out that all of the tryptophan in those cases came from tainted supplies. So it was actually a problem with the tryptophan, not tryptophan in and of itself. And so then we looked at another research article in 2011, reflecting on the past decade plus of supplementing with tryptophan. And there's no evidence that tryptophan or 5 HTP cause cardiac issues. That being said, remember, serotonin is impacts your heart rate, right? Because serotonin syndrome, your heart can palpitate, your blood pressure can go up. And so of course, if you do develop any symptoms, cardiac palpitations, feeling like you have any side effects from that, then just talk to your doctor before making any changes. Okay? I have been so delighted to get to talk with you today about 5 HTP. I love answering questions. This video came from your questions and and so keep them coming. The comments that have occurred during the Live today don't actually get exported when I download the video. And so if you can leave the comment when I get this video saved, just type it in there again or send us a dm. And I would love to answer all of your questions because I'm sure if you're having the question then other people do as well. And so please send us a dm. I have a team and we're collecting questions so that we can do our best to to make sure that you're getting answers that you need so that you can get your life back. And also, don't forget to check the link in the bio. In the next few weeks we will get this blog posted and we'll also make sure to have that email capture. So you'll give us your email and then we will send you exactly the protocol that I use to supplement 5 HTP for the best results. And so that will be available for you for free soon. So stay tuned for that. I am Dr. Nicole. It's been such an absolute honor to be on this live with you. So thank you for watching and I will see you next week. Take care.