Tryptophan, Niacin Protect Against Alzheimer's

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Health

Niacin may protect against Alzheimer's disease, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, referenced in an article by Reuters News service.

Susan commented on this as follows:

Niacin works the same way as nicotine in that it protects the brain by stimulating the production of acetylcholine. The destruction of acetylcholine by such things as organophosphates, in fact, is the cause of BSE.

Niacin is also called nicotinic acid and like its cousin nicotine, which smokers get from tobacco, is a substance that promotes proper activity of the brain chemical acetylcholine. This would tend to explain why smokers are about 50 % less subject to Alzheimer's than non smokers.

It is also interesting to note that niacin and the aminoacid l-tryptophan are closely related. In fact in the absence of niacin, our bodies will use tryptophan to manufacture the vitamin, so the need for niacin is actually expressed in "niacin equivalents", which could be niacin itself or a certain amount of the aminoacid.

Tryptophan is another one of those substances that have been "taken off the market" just as cigarette smoking is being banned and as the availability of niacin itself is being drastically reduced for "safety reasons" by EU and coming US legislation. That's three natural substances that have been shown to be important for brain activity, all of them being greatly reduced in their availability.

It seems odd to say the least that important brain nutrients are taken off the market, while psychiatric drugs are pushed off on people as if they were candies.

Here is an archived copy of the Reuters article on niacin and Alzheimer's and a historical account of the prohibition of the aminoacid tryptophan which happened more than a decade ago - coinciding perfectly with the FDA's approval of prozac...

Niacin May Protect Against Alzheimer's
(original here)

By Anthony J. Brown, MD

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - High intake of the vitamin niacin, particularly from food sources, may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease and age-related mental decline, according to a new report.

The study in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry points out that severe niacin deficiency is known to cause dementia. However, the researchers note that it is unclear if more subtle variations in niacin intake influence the risk of mental deterioration.

"There have been no epidemiologic studies to look at the association between dietary niacin and Alzheimer's disease or cognitive decline," lead author Dr. Martha C. Morris, from the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging in Chicago, told Reuters Health.

Moreover, "animal studies and other studies have really focused on the effects of very high therapeutic dose levels of niacin," not amounts found in a standard diet.

To investigate, the researchers asked several thousand elderly people living in a Chicago community about the types and amounts of food they ate and tested their mental abilities.

The study focused on 815 randomly selected subjects who were free from Alzheimer's disease at the start of the study. After an average of nearly four years, 131 of the participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

A high level of total niacin intake seemed to protect against both Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. The association was stronger for niacin intake from foods than for niacin taken in vitamin supplements.

"We were surprised to see a fairly strong association between niacin intake from foods and Alzheimer's disease," Morris said. Compared with the lowest intake, the highest intake "was linked to an 80 percent reduction in risk."

In the overall study population, high niacin intake was also linked to a reduced risk of cognitive decline.

Although the finding are provocative, Morris concluded, they will require verification before any changes to current dietary guidelines can be recommended.

SOURCE: the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry; August 2004. 

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The FDA Ban of L-Tryptophan: Politics, Profits and Prozac
© All Rights Reserved

(original on LEF website)

By: Dean Wolfe Manders, Ph.D.

This article first appeared in "Social Policy", Vol. 26, No. 2 Winter 1995. Dr. Manders has lectured and done extensive research on the medical politics of L-Tryptophan. The article also appeared in "Blazing Tattles" June 1996.

In the fall of 1989, the FDA recalled L-Tryptophan, an amino acid nutritional supplement, stating that it caused a rare and deadly flu-like condition (Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome / EMS). On March 22, 1990, the FDA banned the public sale dietary of L-Tryptophan completely. This ban continues today. On March 26, 1990, "Newsweek" featured a lead article praising the virtues of the anti-depressant drug Prozac. Its multi-color cover displayed a floating, gigantic green and white capsule of Prozac with the caption: "Prozac: A Breakthrough drug for Depression."

The fact that the FDA ban of L-Tryptophan and the Newsweek Prozac cover story occurred within four days of each other went unnoticed by both the media and the public. Yet, to those who understand the effective properties of L- Tryptophan and Prozac, the concurrence seems "unbelievably coincidental." The link here is the brain neurotransmitter serotonin---a biochemical nerve signal conductor. The action of Prozac and L-Tryptophan are both involved with serotonin, but in totally different ways.

Elevated levels of serotonin in the body often result in the relief of depression, as well as substantial reduction in pain sensitivity, anxiety and stress. Prozac, as well as other new anti-depressant drugs such as Paxil and Zoloft, attempt to enhance levels of serotonin by working on whatever amounts of it already exists in the body (these drugs are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). None of these drugs, however produce serotonin. In contrast, ingested L-Tryptophan acts to produce serotonin, even in individuals who generate little serotonin of their own. The most effective way to elevate serotonin would be to use a serotonin producer rather than a serotonin enhancer.

The continuing FDA public ban of L-Tryptophan prevents popular access to this most effective serotonin producer. The millions of Americans who for decades safely have relied upon L-Tryptophan to relieve depression, anxiety and PMS, as well as to control pain and induce natural sleep, have been forced elsewhere for solutions.

Routinely, such solutions are pharmaceutical in nature: people are forced to use either often highly addictive, expensive, and sometimes dangerous drugs like Xanax, Valium, Halcion, Dalmane, Codeine, Anafranil, Prozac, and others, or simply suffer. Present FDA public policy maintains that L-Tryptophan is an untested, unapproved and hazardous drug. The analytical work done a few years ago by the Centers for Disease Control and the Mayo Clinic, research which traced the fall of the serious flu-like condition to contaminants found in batches of L-Tryptophan made by the Japanese company Showa Denko, has not convinced the FDA to allow L-Tryptophan back on the market. This decision is based primarily on the research of FDA and NIMH scientists who state that L- Tryptophan itself, irrespective of contaminants, is a dangerous substance. Other university-based research scientists disagree with these findings.

The public availability of L-Tryptophan is too important an issue only to be argued and shrouded within scientific debate that remains, ultimately, mystifying to the vast majority of Americans. There are many obvious facts worthy of public attention, and concern.

For example, consider the following: On February 9, 1993, a United States government patent (#5185157) was issued to use L-Tryptophan to treat, and cure EMS, the very same deadly flu-like condition which prompted the FDA to take L-Tryptophan off the market in 1989.

Notwithstanding its public ban and import alert on L-Tryptophan, the FDA today allows Ajinomoto U.S.A. the right to import from Japan human-use L- Tryptophan. Distributed from the Ajinomoto in Raleigh, North Carolina, the L- Tryptophan is then sold to, and through, a network of compounding pharmacies across the United States. Purchased by individuals only under a physician's order, L-Tryptophan emerges here as a new prescription drug in the serotonin marketplace; one hundred 500 mg. capsules cost about $75.00, approximately five times more than if they were sold as a dietary supplement.

Since the FDA holds the political mandate and power of a public regulatory agency established ostensibly, to protect people from raw corporate interests in drug production and distribution, the actions of the FDA in concert with Ajinomoto U.S.A. are illuminating. By publicly banning L-Tryptophan from its dietary supplement status and price, while allowing L-Tryptophan to be sold as a high-priced prescription drug, the naked duplicity of the FDA L-Tryptophan policy is revealed.

During and after the 1989 EMS outbreak, the FDA did not totally ban the use of L- Tryptophan in humans---then, as today, the FDA has granted the pharmaceutical industry the protected right to use L-Tryptophan in hospital settings. Manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, the amino acid injectable solutions Aminosyn and Aminosyn II contain as much as 200 mg. of L-Tryptophan. (Moreover, L-Tryptophan has never been removed from baby food produced and sold within the United States.) While the FDA has banned the public sale and use of safe, non-contaminated, dietary supplements L-Tryptophan for people, the United States Department of Agriculture still sanctions the legal sale and use of non-contaminated L-Tryptophan for animals. Today, as in the past, feed grade L-Tryptophan continues to be used as a nutritional and bulk feed additive by the commercial hog and chicken farming industry. Additionally, L- Tryptophan is now available for use by veterinarians in caring for horses and pets.

Outside of the United States, in countries such as Canada, the Netherlands, Germ