Posted by stjames on June 3, 2001, at 23:38:23
In reply to tryptophan depletion challenge » SLS, posted by Elizabeth on June 3, 2001, at 20:53:45
> > This is sort of a tangent, but some recent work into the effects of rapid tryptophan depletion has repeated older work that demonstrates that it can precipitate depression in some vulnerable individuals and reverse the therapeutic response to antidepressants.
>
> I remember reading about the older research. I wonder if that is an effective test for depression (or for a particular subtype of depression).
>
> -eJames here....
The depletion challenge that I know of was a military discovery and not just with trypto but all aminos. They were trying to find min. requirements for nutrition. They found that is 20-30 % of recuits, significant depression happened after this challange. At that time 20-30 % was the rate of clinical depression reported in the general population. However it is not a 2 way thing, giving depressives more aminos (provided they are not malnurished) does not make depression remit. I see it as depressives have a misregulation of these systems and are more sensitive to changes in these systems. It is not a simple question of "not enough" aminos.
James
poster:stjames
thread:59082
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010530/msgs/65311.html