Posted by Larry Hoover on July 10, 2004, at 8:10:36
In reply to Whey Protein Treating Depression, posted by Tooooja on July 9, 2004, at 4:30:18
> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been wrestling with feelings of depression for the last ten years, and I tried a lot of things during this time, non of which helped very much.
>
> Recently I embarked on fitness regime, as I had been reading a lot about the benefits of exercise to the way you feel. It has been helping. with my renewed interest in fitness I spent some time reading bodybuilding websites and heard about whey protein as a very good source of protein for building muscles. I decided to get some, and I noticed the very first time I took it about an hour after drinking it down that a felt a LOT calmer, more centred, relaxed and even a little jovial. Of all the experiences I've had with different meds and supplements, this is the one thing that stands out as the thing that has really helped. Once I was sure that it was the whey that was having this effect, I thought I'd cracked it at last, problems solved, supplement with a little whey each day. This is what I was doing, I took it every day for about a month, and I was training regularly and eating my normal diet too. After the month I started to come down with a cold, slightly unusual because it is summer at the moment and I always keep myself warm. I kept on taking the whey and my cold got worse, and I ended up with a very sore throat, sneezing all the time, and I noticed the skin on my feet started drying and cracking and my hands began doing the same.That sounds like an allergic reaction. There is whey protein and there is whey protein. Some are fully hydrolysed, and others contain many of the original proteins in the whey. You may have started to sensitize to an undigested protein in the whey powder. You might want to switch brands, and look especially for the word "hydrolysed" somewhere on the label.
You may also be able to keep taking the same brand if you also take some bromelain at the same time. Papaya enzyme might work, too.
> So sensibly I stopped the whey, for a week, and started to get better. My sore throat went and my cold got a lot better. I decided to try the whey again just to see if it was really that, after two days of supplementing my sore throat was back. What I am wondering is, has anyone else out there had any experience with whey, anything like this happened to them, and is there any way around it??
Your challenge/rechallenge process is a good one, as it tends to isolate the effect to the whey protein. If it is a true allergic response, only avoiding the triggering protein will prevent a recurrence. Alternatively, you may have triggered an upregulation in histamine formation, and I'd have to look into that before I could comment more fully.
> I have scoured the web to try and find more info. I did find some about whey helping depression on the Life Extension Foundation website and various other places, and they made no mention of the effects I experienced. They attribute the anti-depressant effect to the alpha-lactalbumin fraction of the whey which has a high l-tryptophan content.
Whey protein also has a good amount of cysteine. There are multiple benefits. Increased intake of l-tryptophan from a source which also includes other aminos does not necessarily increase brain uptake. You also have to induce an insulin release (via high-glycemic carbs), which drives the tryptophan into the brain.
> They also say it's good for your immune system because it is high in Glutamine, it seemed to weaken my immune system though!?
Your immune system appears to have become hyper-reactive, rather than unreactive. If the nasal secretions were watery, rather than opaque or coloured, that is over-stimulation of immune response. The sore throat is post-nasal drip.
> Please feel free to respond and ask me more questions if you like.
Ask me more question if you like.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:364293
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20040613/msgs/364651.html