I have BHMT variations and am COMT +/+ and I positively LOVE choline. When I take it, I feel like a curtain has been lifted in my brain and it glows as if it was rubbed with Vicks Vap-o-rub! I surmise this is from increased circulation due to lowered neural inflammation (choline lowers inflammation). Maybe it helps
supply more TMG to my wonky BHMT gene since it's a 4 methyl molecule and stripping off 1 methyl
leaves TMG. Anyway, I don't generally take it because I take too may pills already and it was only a "nice-to-have". But I am reevaluating that because there is an estrogen receptor on the enzyme that makes choline in the body and so, as you age, you make less and need to consume more. My family on my Dad's side has always eaten a certain way - we eat eggs each and every day, despite any fads. I speculate this is due to the choline content in eggs. Choline is also high in salmon. We don't eat alot of beef due to gout, although I never knew this was why until I moved in with a guy who won't eat poultry and started getting gout.
I am researching choline now and the studies say it LOWERS brain fog and helps memory. I started taking it in college when I read that you need choline for acetylcholine which is involved in memory. (I never found that it improved my memory, which was/is pretty good anyway. (However, I used to have a photgenic memory, and was hoping choline would restore it)). I consider it (and natto, for different reasons) an anti-headache pill. Also, choline lowers anxiety, which is of interest to me since I used DHEA for that and could, perhaps, lower my dose.
I have no doubt it influences different people differently. However COMT+/+ does not prove anyone has high dopamine. I had my levels tested 3 times and always tested low dopamine! (For which I say, thank God I have the gene to help me hang on to what I've got!).Dopamine is involved in motor control and I have always been clumsy. Despite extremely bad allergies, I cannot take allergy meds because they are cholinergic inhibitors (block the dopamine path) and my dopamine is low already. On hayfever pills, I cannot remember anything for 30 seconds and I drop things - my muscles just randomly stop working-!
I believe I read that if you do NOT have the BHMT mutations, then more of choline is used by the BHMT pathway to regenerate methionine from homocysteine. It sounds like a good thing to me , because homocysteine is a neurotoxin. But that would make more methyls and, theoretically, those with COMT +/+ can't tolerate more methyls (although it doesn't affect me as far as I know).
Choline makes TMAO. Well, so I recently tested high in TMAO, which my doctors says is a heart disease indicator. (I just read in fact that it raises risk of colon cancer, among other things!) . I told my doctor I would never stop choline ingestion because of that Vicks-Vap-O-Rub feelingbywhich my brain is telling me it LOVES it. I only randomly take TMG (a cholinergic), and even more randomly take choline. However I eat eggs each and every day! I also eat a lot of salmon. I told my doc I would not exclude healthy food that my body likes from my diet. However, online I now read 3 simple things to lower TMAO: fiber (timing is important - take it with/after big meal(s)), cruciferous vegetables (a very good way to stave off cancer anyway), and balsalmic vinegar (not other vinegars). I have never tried balsalmic vinegar but people say it tastes great.