South
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I'd like to state a warning about B2 aka Riboflavin, so people will be watchful for a nasty side effect. Elsewhere in this forum there's a long thread called "B2 I love you". I'm here today in this "methylation/B12 detox" forum because that is where the other thread, the "b2 I love you" thread also lives. I'd like to state a warning about B2, so people will be watchful for a nasty side effect.
Riboflavin (vitamin B2), taken in anything other than small, proportionate doses to other B vitamins seems to lower serotonin. It did in me.
I posted a study at the bottom of this post, that I found after a week of using riboflavin and experiencing sudden, low serotonin depression that I hadn't experienced in years. I did not make the connection for the whole week, then sorted through my supplements and researched the one that I'd started just before the problem started, thinking "this can't be it". Apparently it was.
After starting the riboflavin, and then getting the awful low serotonin issues, but before making the connection, I tried 5htp, tryptophan, eating lots of carbs for a couple of days (ie, a very large amount, trying to raise my mood), none of these helped.
Then I read enough to convince me to try avoiding the riboflavin, and stopped taking it. Ta da. In the 2 days since stopping it, no low serotonin depression - after a week of fairly relentless all day experience of the problem.
I've long been a canary in the coal mine when it comes to serotonin - in other words, I probably have less "reserve" serotonin and thus notice the effects of serotonin-lowering products more than the average member of the public does. But readers of Phoenix Rising may be more likely to have this in common with me than the average member of the public does. I'd like to help anyone avoid the experience I had.
For example, I've long known that the herb called feverfew, which has study evidence as causing lower serotonin, will quickly give me low serotonin depression within a day of starting it.
For what it's worth, my routine for the past year or so before the riboflavin experiment has been:
*healthy diet, limiting intake of fake folic acid even in foods
*low dose use of methylfolate and methyl B12, I have not raised the doses and don't notice much
*about 250 mg per day of niacinamide.
That's all for B vitamins for the past year or so. Perhaps that made me too low in the other B vitamins to balance out the riboflavin.
Still, with all the emphasis over in the "b2 I love you" thread about high dose riboflavin, I thought I should warn people.
A study: (last sentence of it is "This finding suggests that riboflavin deficiency renders MAO more susceptible to inhibition.", so a deficiency in riboflavin inhibits serotonin breakdown, and thus the presence of more riboflavin may speed up serotonin breakdown)
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/o63-008?journalCode=cjbp#.U9JgrbH5fSg
Riboflavin (vitamin B2), taken in anything other than small, proportionate doses to other B vitamins seems to lower serotonin. It did in me.
I posted a study at the bottom of this post, that I found after a week of using riboflavin and experiencing sudden, low serotonin depression that I hadn't experienced in years. I did not make the connection for the whole week, then sorted through my supplements and researched the one that I'd started just before the problem started, thinking "this can't be it". Apparently it was.
After starting the riboflavin, and then getting the awful low serotonin issues, but before making the connection, I tried 5htp, tryptophan, eating lots of carbs for a couple of days (ie, a very large amount, trying to raise my mood), none of these helped.
Then I read enough to convince me to try avoiding the riboflavin, and stopped taking it. Ta da. In the 2 days since stopping it, no low serotonin depression - after a week of fairly relentless all day experience of the problem.
I've long been a canary in the coal mine when it comes to serotonin - in other words, I probably have less "reserve" serotonin and thus notice the effects of serotonin-lowering products more than the average member of the public does. But readers of Phoenix Rising may be more likely to have this in common with me than the average member of the public does. I'd like to help anyone avoid the experience I had.
For example, I've long known that the herb called feverfew, which has study evidence as causing lower serotonin, will quickly give me low serotonin depression within a day of starting it.
For what it's worth, my routine for the past year or so before the riboflavin experiment has been:
*healthy diet, limiting intake of fake folic acid even in foods
*low dose use of methylfolate and methyl B12, I have not raised the doses and don't notice much
*about 250 mg per day of niacinamide.
That's all for B vitamins for the past year or so. Perhaps that made me too low in the other B vitamins to balance out the riboflavin.
Still, with all the emphasis over in the "b2 I love you" thread about high dose riboflavin, I thought I should warn people.
A study: (last sentence of it is "This finding suggests that riboflavin deficiency renders MAO more susceptible to inhibition.", so a deficiency in riboflavin inhibits serotonin breakdown, and thus the presence of more riboflavin may speed up serotonin breakdown)
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/o63-008?journalCode=cjbp#.U9JgrbH5fSg