5HT and your bodybuilding supplements

Although many bodybuilding supplements are beneficial to your program, one such supplement combination to avoid is that of B6 and 5-HT. There are, however, other natural bodybuilding supplements you can ingest.

5-HT readily converts to serotonin, a neurotransmitter. It can be especially beneficial for bodybuilding, because it also helps reduce carbohydrate cravings. This, in turn, can help with your program.

However, you have to be careful when you take 5-HT in excess or with some supplements, including vitamin B6. This is because serotonin absorbed into the bloodstream does not easily cross the blood brain barrier. In addition, if something called "decarboxylation" occurs before the 5-HT reaches the brain, as can happen especially when 5-HT is taken with vitamin B6, serotonin blood levels will go up significantly, but almost no serotonin will actually enter the brain.

Europeans are lucky in that when they take 5-HT, they are also often given something called a dopa decarboxylase inhibitor called carbidopa. Carbidopa prevents 5-HT from being converted into serotonin until it enters the brain. Because Americans do not take carbidopa when they take 5-HT, it is possible that they could have a blood level overload of serotonin.

Another important fact to know, though, is that Europeans can often be vitamin deficient. By contrast, many Americans take vitamin B6 because they think it is a healthy supplement (one use is for depression, and it also helps with energy conversion as a natural bodybuilding supplement). However, large amounts of vitamin B6 rapidly convert the 5-HT taken into serotonin. Why is this dangerous ? Too much serotonin in the bloodstream can cause coronary artery spasm and/or abnormal platelet aggregation or clotting, especially in those with heart disease. This can cause a sudden death heart attack. Too much serotonin in the bloodstream is also correlated with cardiac fibrosis, another serious heart condition. If someone has what are called hind gut carcinoids, or serotonin secreting tumors, he also has problems with cardiac fibrosis, especially in valves of the heart. This, in turn, can cause heart failure.

In addition, if you take in several hundred milligrams a day of 5-HT with vitamin B6 without taking carbidopa (only available in America by prescription), you can expect to excrete serotonin metabolites to the same effect as someone who has a serotonin secreting tumor does.

Therefore, if you even want to take a 5-HT and boost serotonin levels in your brain, you must take 50 mg of carbidopa before you take 5-HT. Remember that carbidopa is a prescription drug.

If you choose also to take vitamin B6, you need to limit those levels to a small dose, and you need to take it at least six hours before or after you take 5-HT and carbidopa.

In addition, for your safety, it is recommended that you have a urinalysis done regularly so that you can measure your serotonin metabolite excretion; this metabolite is called 5-hydroxy indoleacetic acid, or 5-HIAA. If your 5-HIAA levels remain normal, you are fine to continue taking 5-HT and other supplementation. However, if they elevate, then of course you have to stop.

If you have existing cardiovascular disease, including coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation, cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, or valvular disease, it is recommended that you avoid 5-HT completely. Some experts feel that taking 500 mg a day of magnesium and 81 mg a day of aspirin would help reduce the risk of a heart attack, but it is up to each individual to take this risk. For that reason, it is perhaps best to avoid 5-HT.

Everyone is different, and those taking 5-HT will have different levels of serotonin in their bloodstreams. It's true that some people will not experience any blood serotonin increase, while others will suffer from what is called a "lethal peripheral serotonin overload."

It is still not known whether serotonin overload induced by taking too much 5-HT (with or without vitamin B6) would cause the destruction of the heart muscle or fibrosis of the aortic valve. However, since this particular danger is not known to be completely unfounded, those taking 5-HT should be duly warned.

You should also know that this warning applies to 5-HT, not the amino acid precursor tryptophan, one of the natural bodybuilding supplements. In contrast to 5-HT, tryptophan does not readily convert to serotonin in the bloodstream, but still increases serotonin levels, safely. Because tryptophan has to go through an extra conversion step, this protects one against a serotonin overload in the bloodstream. Even though you cannot buy tryptophan as a supplement anymore, it's a readily available in foods like turkey, bananas, or milk.

In short, even though it may sound like a good idea to take 5-HT and B6 as bodybuilding supplements, there are other more natural ways to boost serotonin levels. If you do choose to take 5-HT, in general, it is recommended that you take no more than 50 mg, and take your vitamin B supplements (including B6) separately, by several hours. This will help ensure that they do not synergistically elevate serotonin levels in the bloodstream and cause possible danger.