Fibromyalgia And Serotonin 2

Serotonin Dominance?

Why could there be such a strong serotonin-like influence in fibromyalgia? Here are a few possibilities.

1. Early life stress. There is an enzyme in the brain that converts tryptophan into serotonin. This enzyme can be activated under prenatal or early life stress and not return to normal activity levels. [1] Activation of this enzyme means that there would be more serotonin in the brain. eg. Blood serotonin levels could look normal or even low, although the brain has plenty of serotonin.

2. Excess ammonia. Ammonia increases the amount of tryptophan entering the brain. Subsequently, this increases the amount of serotonin in the brain and enhances its use. [9]

3. Whiplash. This could set the stage for an infection in the brain stem. The infection would cause an immune response, and the cytokines from this immune response would create a strong serotonin-like influence in the brain’s hypothalamus. (The hypothalamus regulates hormones, and affects the autonomic nervous system.)

4. Poor intestinal flora. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a toxin found in the shell of gramnegative bacteria. This toxin makes a person feel sick. It also increases the release of serotonin in the brain’s hypothalamus and changes the way the body regulates hormones. [3, 10]

5. The leaking of serotonin from cells. There is some preliminary indication that serotonin is leaking out of cells in fibromyalgia. The cells appear to be releasing their serotonin into the blood’s plasma compartments. Testing showed that higher plasma to serum ratios of serotonin meant higher pain and anxiety. [11] In other words, the more the cells leak serotonin, the more pain and anxiety that is present. When serotonin is outside of cells, it can be very harmful.

Is Serotonin Leaking from Cells?

If the cells are leaking serotonin, what could be causing this? Are pesticides and chemicals to blame? Stress? Bacterial toxins? Here are some possible scenarios:

1. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This is a toxin that is found in the shell of gram-negative intestinal bacteria. LPS can release serotonin from mast cells. LPS can also increase platelet aggregation and this leads to increased release of serotonin from the platelets. [12] Hence LPS can increase free serotonin levels.

2. Intestinal Inflammation. This causes the intestinal enterochromaffin cells to dump serotonin. Some of this ends up in the general circulation.

3. Low Magnesium. This increases the likelihood that platelets and mast cells will release their serotonin and histamine.

4. Stress Plus Polyunsaturated Oils. Stress, combined with excess polyunsaturated oils in the diet, will cause serotonin to leak from cells.

This is Dr. Raymond Peat’s explanation of the relationship between stress, fats, and serotonin leaking from cells:

Stress also liberates free fatty acids from storage, and these fatty acids increase the uptake of tryptophan into the brain, increasing the formation of serotonin. … Serotonin liberates polyunsaturated fats, and these in turn liberate serotonin from cells such as the platelets, and liberates tryptophan from serum albumin, increasing its uptake and the formation of serotonin in the brain. Saturated fats don’t liberate serotonin …[5]

Therefore, it seems prudent to eliminate most of the polyunsaturated oils in the diet Corn, safflower, cottonseed, canola, soy, fish, flax and most oils from nuts are all high in polyunsaturated fatty acids. Notice that fish and flax oils are in this list of polyunsaturated oils. Even though there is some benefit to limited use of fish and flax oils, too much can be quite harmful. In my opinion, one should limit their fats/oils to mainly butter, olive and coconut.

Natural factors that will help keep serotonin levels under control are thyroid, protein, magnesium, carbon dioxide, decreased tryptophan consumption, vitamin B1, progesterone and exposure to light. [5, 13] Also, the amino acid glycine may counter some of the effects of excess serotonin. Compare this list of harmful effects of excess serotonin with this list of protective properties of glycine. Raymond Peat, PhD states:

“Serotonin excess produces a broad range of harmful effects: Cancer, inflammation, fibrosis, neurological damage, shock, broncho-constriction, and hypertension, for example. Increased serotonin impairs learning, serotonin antagonists improve it. The simplest, nonessential, amino acid, glycine, has been found to protect against carcinogenesis, inflammation, fibrosis, neurological damage, shock, asthma, and hypertension. Increased glycine improves learning (Handlemann, et al., 1989; File, et al., 1999), glycine antagonists usually impair it.” [5]

Although the benefits of a glycine supplement are impressive, please be careful. Oral glycine can feed some bacteria in preference to others. This shift in population may or may not be good. If you wish to purchase some glycine, a bottle of just glycine powder will be cheaper than encapsulated glycine. Glycine tastes sweet, so you probably won’t mind the taste of it.

To stop the leaking of serotonin, a person needs to increase magnesium, eliminate food allergies, eliminate stress, eliminate much of the gram-negative bacteria in the intestines, and eliminate most of the polyunsaturated oils from the diet.