TYROSINE: Antidepressant

Mainstream medicine teaches us that the best treatment for depression comes from psychopharmacology. But for my patients it comes from a bottle of tyrosine. The amino acid works better than the majority of antidepressant drugs, costs less and helps all of us think better when we’re under

Our reserves of the neurotransmitters that allow us to fend off stress, such as adrenaline and noradrenaline, depend to a great degree on tyrosine. The amino acid also supplies us with a message-relaying brain chemical, L-dopa, whose deficiency is associated with Parkinson’s disease.

TYROSINE AND ACETYL-TYROSINE: THE HAPPY MAKERS

The more tyrosine we have on hand, the better we handle stress and the better able we are to resist dips in mood. Despite what some old-time nutritionists might say, the amino acid does reach the brain once it gets into the bloodstream, although a form of it called acetyl L-tyrosine (ALT) travels there with more certainty and is the form I generally use.

I often suggest up to a gram of ALT whenever someone needs a short-term day brightener. Its impact on clinical depression, though, is a more significant contribution to nutritional medicine. The most pronounced effect is on depressive states characterized by apathy, lethargy and listlessness. For the agitated, overwrought type of depression, different amino acids, tryptophan and 5-hydroxy-tryptophan, work better. Both sets of symptoms often coexist in people who are depressed, which makes both nutrients, when taken together; valuable tools of healing.

Studies that verified tyrosine’s psychological lift, even against serious cases of depression, used doses of 600-2,000 mg per day. Some people showed signs of feeling better within a week. Dosages can be scaled down, to perhaps 300 mg once or twice a day, by using acetyl L-tyrosine.

In conjunction with tryptophan, tyrosine affects several other illnesses that stem from a brain chemistry imbalance, including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder Parkinson’s disease, hypothyroidism and withdrawal from cocaine addiction. Though doctors usually prescribe the drug L-dopa, an amino acid that the body makes from tyrosine, to help control the trembling, rigidity and other symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, some research suggests that tyrosine supplementation, along with other medications, could improve the therapy. A’doctor must supervise the treatment, however. Very large doses of tyrosine are necessary, and they should not be administered at the same rime L-dopa is taken.

Tyrosine also lends itself to the production of thyroid hormone, leading some to reason that supplements might increase the gland’s low output in cases of hypothyroidism. Though this is good reasoning, it would work only for the few cases in which hypothyroidism occurs because of an actual tyrosine deficiency.

SUPPLEMENT SUGGESTIONS

One of the most prevalent concomitants of depression is fatigue. But there are millions of people who are not clinical cases of depressive illness yet experience fatigue and melancholy as everyday symptoms. For such people, 1,000-2,000 mg of ALT is a most reliable treatment. Higher doses should be given under a doctor’s observation because it shares phenylalanine’s warnings about increasing high blood pressure or rapid pulse, or the caveats about MAO inhibitor drugs, migraines, melanoma or gliobastoma multiforme. The amino acid does not cause these forms of cancer, but their tumours feed on it.

This caveat does not apply to everyone else, but then most of us won’t need to take tyrosine unless seeking a mental boost or a lift out of depression. When you do call upon its help, remember that proper absorption depends on knowing how to take supplements. The presence of other amino acids interferes with its transport into the brain, so it’s best to take tyrosine on an empty stomach, along with some vitamin B6 and vitamin C.