Serotonin: Possibly Too LOW In Rheumatoid Arthritis?

griesburner

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Sep 29, 2017
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Hello,

i posted in a few other threads that i have rheumatoid arthritis.
I never have questioned that serotonin is very bad, and i still think its bad if its way too high.
But i often read that it is good to be even deficiently low in serotonin and i tryed to achieve this with many supplements but never got something positiv out of it sadly.

Last thing i tryed was to ingest BCAA's and as i read more studys on amino acids and specific the abnormalities that are present in diverse diseases, i strumbled across some studys that claimed patients with rheumatoid arthritis have LOW tryptophan levels and that could be a problem in cases of an overactive immune system.
Before i read that i was sure tryptophan is very bad and has to be limited.

The following studys made me wonder:
Tryptophan degradation increases with stage in patients with rheumatoid arthritis
Increased degradation of tryptophan in blood of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

In this cases it seems that the low tryptophan is not the cause of the inflammation, but the increased inflammation results in increases in tryptophan degradation. But in the end it causes low tryptophan plasma concentrations, and from a peat perspective this should be positive, right?

The following studys i found were specific to rheumatoid arthritis and serotonin levels:
Some observations on the blood serotonin levels in rheumatoid arthritis with a study of platelet serotonin absorption - ScienceDirect
"The platelets from patients with active rheumatoid arthritis were shown to be significantly lower in serotonin content than the normal platelets and to be circulating less than 20% “saturated”."

Decreased density of serotonin 5-HT2A receptors in rheumatoid arthritis

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160309140034.htm
"...experimentally-induced RA in serotonin-deficient mice is worse than disease reported in controls and that some effects of RA can be reduced by serotonin or its agonists (compounds that activate serotonin receptors)"

Sustained remission of rheumatoid arthritis with a specific serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant: a case report and review of the literature
"...whose arthritis symptoms surprisingly remitted when he was started on a specific serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant, three years ago, for co-morbid major depression"

So i dont wanna say SSRI's are good in any way. But i am thinking of trying some l-tryptophan or 5-htp to test out if my symptoms get better or worse. Even if they are not the healthiest things long term, at the moment i am on a TNF-alpha blocker. This medication works wonders for the symptoms, i only take it once every 4 weeks but im not sure about the long term safety of it. And maybe if something like tryptophan works well it is the lesser of the two evils?

I would be very thankful if someone could maybe help to interpret this conflicting results of this studys, maybe i understand it all wrong.
 

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