Question for anyone who is trying/has tried tryptophan depletion diet: what do you eat?
Seems like all protein rich foods contain tryptophan and then I read this and now I don’t know what to think
continue wrote:
the way to diminish tryptophan is NOT TO AVOID PROTEIN AT ALL! if you avoid protein at all, you're diminishing other neurotransmiters like dopamine also. by the way, eggs do good to most people, due to choline content, and I find this restrictive diet completely random.
if one wants to diminish serotonin, one should diminish carbohydrates (carbohydrates INCREASE tryptophan assimilation) and add gelatin+collagen+glicine to the diet. these aminoacids compete with tryptophan.
Octopus wrote:Question for anyone who is trying/has tried tryptophan depletion diet: what do you eat?
Seems like all protein rich foods contain tryptophan and then I read this and now I don’t know what to think
continue wrote:
the way to diminish tryptophan is NOT TO AVOID PROTEIN AT ALL! if you avoid protein at all, you're diminishing other neurotransmiters like dopamine also. by the way, eggs do good to most people, due to choline content, and I find this restrictive diet completely random.
if one wants to diminish serotonin, one should diminish carbohydrates (carbohydrates INCREASE tryptophan assimilation) and add gelatin+collagen+glicine to the diet. these aminoacids compete with tryptophan.
I used to eat jelly (gelatin) for protein, and some cereals and veggies. I only noticed that my symptoms worsened though
Sounds like trying the keto diet might be in order. I tried it before for weight loss but I have a lot of the depersonalization and the derealization and confusion from going off SSRIs and it made those worse along with the insomnia. But supposedly the reason you get insomnia is is because there is not enough serotonin in your brain to turn into melatonin because lack of carb intake. I wonder if pushing through and enduring will lead to a change. Probably not but maybe.
I made that list of foods when I was trying acute tryptophan depletion. Collagen is pure protein ans has zero tryptophan. If you eat a large serving of collagen powder, it will flood your bloodstream with amino acids that will compete with tryptophan to cross the blood-brain barrier. It will also stimulate protein synthesis in the liver which will soak up most of the remaining tryptophan in your bloodstream. The result is that tryptophan levels in the brain will fall dramatically 4-6 hours after the collagen meal. I dissolved the collagen powder in applesauce to make it palatable.
However, during these trials I got a splitting headache and had severe brain fog. Much more worrying, for about six weeks afterwards I found I was making lots of verbal mistakes - had difficulty pronouncing simple words. I also had a couple of weird experiences, sort of like a long brain zap but more of a feeling of extreme pressure/vertigo. The combination scared me enough that I decided not to continue the acute tryptophan depletion trials. I talked it over with my doctor and she thought it was probably just a transient electrical disturbance and I'd be ok to continue. Her main argument was, she couldn't think of a mechanism for serotonin depletion to cause permanent damage. I'm not so sure; no-one thought there was a mechanism for SSRIs to cause permanent damage either. I felt like I'd done damage equivalent to a concussion or two.
If you try tryptophan depletion, my advice is to start small, and keep track of any cognitive issues.
P.S. If you're curious how much tryptophan is in each food, look it up on https://nutritiondata.self.com/ . Scroll down to "Protein & Amino Acids" and click "see more" to see how much TRP is in it. Be careful to specify the right portion size.
