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Medical Forum / General / Nutrition / September 2007Men and Women See Different Results from Serotonin Loss
A new study published in the September 15th issue of the journal "Biological Psychiatry" reports on important sex differences in the way that men and women react to reductions in serotonin function, specifically in terms of their mood and impulses. One of the most studied conditions in the medical world is Major Depressive Disorder, or MDD. In this new work, scientists found that women and men appear to respond differently to the same biochemical manipulation. These differences between the sexes are seen when serotonin levels in the brain are reduced. Using a technique in healthy participants called acute tryptophan depletion, which decreases serotonin levels in the brain, these scientists found that men became more impulsive, but did not experience any mood changes in response to the induced chemical changes. However, women in this study reported a worsening of their mood and they became more cautious, a response commonly associated with depression. One of the study's authors, Dr. Espen Walderhaug, explains, "We were surprised to find such a clear sex difference, as men and women normally experience the same effect when the brain chemistry is changed...it is possible that men and women utilize serotonin differently." Most of today's most popular antidepressants block the serotonin "uptake site", also known as the transporter, in the brain. This is done in order to keep adequate levels of serotonin in the brain. In another category of support for low serotonin levels, the classification of plants called adaptogens are thought to work by making serotonin's precursors, tryptophan and 5-HTP, more available to the brain, thus increasing the amount of serotonin in the brain. Many people have found that adaptogens can be taken instead of prescription antidepressants, or along with the pharmaceuticals at reduced levels. Dr. Walderhaug comments that their study's findings "might be relevant in understanding why women show a higher prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders compared to men, while men show a higher prevalence of alcoholism, ADHD and impulse control disorders." Dave Full text article above extracted from http://shamvswham.blogspot.com/ > Many people have found that adapatogens can be > taken instead of prescription antidepressants, > or along with the pharmaceuticals at > reduced levels. That's dangerous, irresponsible advice. The most famous adaptogen, ginseng, contains a powerful inhibitor of the main drug efflux transporter, P-glycoprotein. This will affect the titration of dose for people on antidepressant drugs. These people must not simultaneously self-medicate with an uncontrolled dose of an herb that affects drug clearance from the human body. But the spammer will never tell you that, because it would hurt supplement sales. The spammer won't say anything that might offend the supplement companies he wants to have as sponsors of his commercial blogspot web site. You'll never get complete information from the blogspot spammer. He will only tell you the parts which support supplement sales, not the whole picture. He just wants to get his share of the multibillion-dollar supplement business, and he doesn't care if anybody gets hurt by his advice. He is completely amoral. Biochem Pharmacol. 2003 Jan 1;65(1):75-82. Reversal of P-glycoprotein-mediated multidrug resistance by ginsenoside Rg(3). Kim SW, Kwon HY, Chi DW, Shim JH, Park JD, Lee YH, Pyo S, Rhee DK. College of Pharmacy, SungKyunKwan University, Su-Won 440-746, South Korea. Multidrug resistance has been a major problem in cancer chemotherapy. In this study, in vitro and in vivo modulations of MDR by ginsenoside Rg(3), a red ginseng saponin, were investigated. In flow cytometric analysis using rhodamine 123 as an artificial substrate, Rg(3) promoted accumulation of rhodamine 123 in drug-resistant KBV20C cells in a dose-dependent manner, but it had no effect on parental KB cells. Additionally Rg(3) inhibited [3H]vinblastine efflux and reversed MDR to doxorubicin, COL, VCR, and VP-16 in KBV20C cells. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and immuno-blot analysis after exposure of KBV20C cells to Rg(3) showed that inhibition of drug efflux by Rg(3) was due to neither repression of MDR1 gene expression nor Pgp level. Photo-affinity labeling study with [3H]azidopine, however, revealed that Rg(3) competed with [3H]azidopine for binding to the Pgp demonstrating that Rg(3) competed with anticancer drug for binding to Pgp thereby blocking drug efflux. Furthermore, Rg(3) increased life span in mice implanted with DOX-resistant murine leukemia P388 cells in vivo and inhibited body weight increase significantly. > > Many people have found that adapatogens can be > > taken instead of prescription antidepressants, [quoted text clipped - 58 lines] > DOX-resistant murine leukemia P388 cells in vivo > and inhibited body weight increase significantly. Hi Mark, up to your old tricks I see. The "troll" business a little slow for you? Let's stick to the topic in hand, serotonin loss, or perhaps use more current data in your troll work. As a chemist who supports the pharmceutical industry, you are very, very against anything that grows from the ground being used in a healthy manner. I understand that, and appreciate your viewpoint. However, you are wrong about a couple of things here. First off, the article wasn't about adaptogens, it was about serotonin loss, and the difference between men and women, how we react to these changes in our brain biochemicals, etc. Adaptogens were mentioned because I never allow an article to ONLY feature pharmaceutical chemicals; the fair and balanced approach lends itself to mention natural products as well. Anyone considering using adaptogens in place of or in addition to their antidepressants needs to consult their holistic MD, or Naturopath, etc. When doing this, they will not be given "Ginseng," as that is NOT an herb considered to be amongst the top adaptogens for this purpose by the key people doing adaptogen research. (You pulled out a stuffy old piece of research from 2003 -- good job, Mark). Had you dug a little harder, you would have found the work of Dr.'s Richard Brown and Patricia Gerbarg, of Columbia University, NYC, NY. These two well-known and prolific authors write about adaptogens like Rhodiola rosea as having the most powerful effect on precursers to serotonin. In fact, they've written about their clinical use of this herb in various biological phychiatry journals and regularly speak on the topic at meetings. Panax Ginseng is "old school adaptogenic" and still a valuable herb, but not one for this purpose. I think you could really do a lot of damage to people, Mark, by continuing to push the pharmaceutical chemicals as you do. This is a risky approach -- but one that you seem to love to take, as you have such a passion and drive to protect the interests of large pharmaceutical companies. Dave > Hi Mark, up to your old tricks I see. The "troll" business > a little slow for you? You call posting science-based rebuttals to your crap articles "trolling", because you can't think of any other way to deprecate them. You can't call them lies, because they are not lies. You can't call them inaccurate, because they are not inaccurate. So you have to come up with some kind of epithet to discourage people from reading the rebuttal and knowing the rest of the story. I fill in the missing information which you do not include, either out of ignorance or delibrate white-washing of the truth about supplements. Take the recent case of curcumin, for which you wrote an "article" extolling its virtues. Did you leave out the information that it is an inhibitor of the two most important drug-metabolizing and drug-transporting enzymes (CYP3A4 and P-gp) because you were ignorant of that, or did you leave it out because you didn't want to hurt sales of curcumin-based supplements? Curcumin can increase the potency of drugs by retarding their transport out of the body and destruction in the liver. For drugs with a low therapeutic index (small difference between an effective dose and a lethal dose), this could have disasterous consequences. When I provide this information, you call that "trolling". As another example, you recently posted an "article" on tocotrienols, which have the reverse effect. They activate the steroid and xenobiotic receptor (SXR) which increases the expression of CYP3A4, the main drug-metabolizing enzyme in the liver. Other SXR activators have been shown to cause diminished effectiveness of drugs, resulting in failure of contraceptive drugs to prevent pregnancy and failure of the anti-rejection drug cyclosporine to prevent organ rejection. Again, did you omit that information because you were ignorant of it, or did you omit that information because you were afraid it would hurt the sales of tocotrienols? Which is it, Dave? > Let's stick to the topic in hand, serotonin loss, or perhaps use > more current data in your troll work. As a chemist who supports > the pharmceutical industry, you are very, very against anything > that grows from the ground being used in a healthy manner. I'm not a chemist. I work in the semiconductor industry. When you can't back up your poorly written articles with facts, you turn to name-calling and LIES to attack the critic, rather than the criticism. Falsely accusing someone of being a "pharmaceutical chemist" in this newsgroup is exactly like accusing someone of being a Communist back in the 1950's. You have been practicing a form of neo-McCarthyism. > > Many people have found that adapatogens can be > > taken instead of prescription antidepressants, [quoted text clipped - 58 lines] > DOX-resistant murine leukemia P388 cells in vivo > and inhibited body weight increase significantly. Many drug reference works provide information on CYP enzyme are induced or inhibited by specific drugs. Moreover, some also provide like information on herbs. This is why one should tell their doctor and better still their pharmacist what herbs they are taking as well as what meds they are taking. Indeed, if one is smart one will have such reference works in their library to refer to. And true not everything is known about herbs but that is also true meds. Is more research needed, of course. If we reject all that we don't know the full story on, we logically would reject all meds and all herbs which is silly. If one takes an herb, one should be following the available lit on the topic. That many are unable or unwilling to do this, I say so what. I certainly don't what the "just say no crew" to be determining what I do or can't do. Nothing is risk free. Even children's toys have their dangers. On Sep 18, 7:49 pm, trigonometry1...@gmail.com wrote: > > > Many people have found that adapatogens can be > > > taken instead of prescription antidepressants, [quoted text clipped - 79 lines] > Nothing is risk free. Even children's toys have > their dangers. Thats good, sensible advice for anyone. With certain adaptogens, having hundreds of years of experience being consumed by humans, the literature is added to by tradition. In Sweden, as an example, they know that Rhodiola is a 900 year old "Swedish medicine." Dave Dave |
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