LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Serotonin

PRENATAL ANXIETY CREATES HEALTH DIFFERENCES – (09-06-05)

by

Prenatal Anxiety Predicts Differences in Cortisol in Pre-Adolescent Children

The implications for this are staggering.  Consider a few scenarios:  pregnant mother told antidepressants are okay in the 3rd trimester, a pregnant mother under abnormal levels of stress, or an insulin resistant mother with abnormally high levels of cortisol.  All of these scenarios lead to differing levels of neurotransmitters in the bloodstream.  The developing fetus is bathed in these hormones.

So, take the antidepressants–the developing fetus becomes used to abnormally high effectiveness of serotonin.  Baby gets born, no more drugs and their brain now detects a serotonin deficiency, even though their is no true physiological deficit.  Run the same scenario for a stressed out mom with high cortisol levels.  Not a good situation for the child, and this is one of the reasons I am a little pessimistic about our future generations’ risk of chronic diseases.  I think we have yet to have scratched the surface of chronic diseases and shortened lifespans.

Read entire article here

SEROTONIN AFFECTS PLATELET FUNCTIONING – (10-20-05)

by

Association between SSRIs and upper gastrointestinal bleeding

I must admit that this interaction never occurred to me, but it makes sense since platelets use serotonin for proper functioning. With the inhibition of the transporter that platelets use to pick up serotonin, this would affect platelet function. By themselves, the risk is not great, but add aspirin or NSAIDs into the mix, and the risk skyrockets.

Read entire article here

A BETTER AND CHEAPER ALTERNATIVE : MELATONIN – (02-27-06)

by

Melatonin improves bowel symptoms in female patients with irritable bowel syndrome

While at first glance this may seem a little surprising, melatonin is created from serotonin, and serotonin plays a large role in regulation of GI motility. Some of the new “wonder” drugs for IBS affect this pathway. So, might the important factor not be serotonin, but rather the melatonin? And a serotonin deficiency in the gut would lead to less melatonin production? Seems like a logical thought process.

By the way, melatonin is a very inexpensive supplement and much cheaper than the new drugs for IBS affecting the same pathway.

Read entire article here

SEROTONIN HELPS INITIATE SLEEP – (06-06-05)

by

Evening intake of alpha-lactalbumin increases plasma tryptophan availability and improves morning alertness and brain measures of attention

While the Ambien ads may not give you this impression, there are several well known causes for problems falling asleep.  One can be a stress related increase in evening cortisol leading to increased arousal at night which can make sleep difficult.  Managing stress and nutritional approaches to lowering cortisol can help here.

Another reason is altered serotonin levels.  Serotonin has many functions, one of which is to sedate and help initiate sleep.  Tryptophan is a large neutral amino acid (LNAA) that gets converted to serotonin.  The problem with this is that, if there is a lot of competition from other LNAAs tryptophan loses and doesn’t cross to blood brain barrier to get converted to serotonin where we need it.

This study looks at this pathway by using alpha lactoalbumin to circumvent this competition.  The results are pretty good.

Read entire article here