5-HTP + Tyrosine

[HorseBucket]

Have any of you tried implementing 5-HTP and Tyrosine supplements into their diet? I hear 5-HTP is the brains natural precursor for synthesizing serotonin and tyrosine for dopamine. Would taking supplements daily actually increase your overall serotonin/dopamine levels or would it just replenish depleted supplies?

Would greater supplies of dopamine and serotonin in your brain increase your mood or would you still need a catalyst to release it?

Sorry I haven't done my research on this yet I've been studying loads of different things and haven't got into dopamine and serotonin yet. Stupid on my part because they're some of the most important pharmacology related chemicals I can study.

[ShawnD]

I've taken huge amounts of 5-htp a few times, and all it did was make me very tired/relaxed. It was a nice effect; closer to drinking a beer than it was to taking a benedryl. I guess that would be a "yes" that it works. Also, there are several reference links on wiki's page that confirm the hypothesis that 5-htp isn't just a load of bullshit, wiki.

Although I've taken tyrosine and phenylalanine before, I have never noticed any effect. Not even a placebo effect. Wiki's page basically describes what I experienced:
"[tyrosine] increases plasma neurotransmitter levels [8] but has little if any effect on mood.[9][10][11] The effect on mood is more noticeable in humans subjected to stressful conditions (see below)." link

In my uneducated and nonfactual opinion, it seems like they don't do anything if your brain is already at homeostasis, or if your brain has too high a concentration of neurotransmitters. The brain doesn't automatically convert all amino acids from food into stuff; much of it is stored for later use. If your brain already has a bunch of stored tyrosine and tryptophan, the pills you're taking just add to the stockpile. It's not a material-limited reaction, so you won't see any mood changes. On the other hand, if your brain does run out of amino acids, then taking supplements can really help.

This might be a bit off topic, but I was reading a few journal articles where the method for lowering a certain neurotransmitter was to feed the test subject a cocktail of amino acids that exclude an essential amino acid needed for the neurotransmitter being knocked out. Simply put, the researchers could knockout dopamine by giving the subject everything except phenylalanine or tyrosine; it sort of follows Le Chatalier's Principle in a strange way.
What this means is that you can change a lot more than just 1 neurotransmitter when you start taking supplements. By taking a bunch of 5-htp, it could actually lower the amount of dopamine in your brain, as well as raise the amount of serotonin. It's probably not an issue, but it's something to keep in mind if you get strange results from taking a supplement.