Posted by Elizabeth on April 19, 2002, at 0:35:19
In reply to Nardil and tyramine foods » Elizabeth, posted by paulk on April 17, 2002, at 1:50:04
> I think there is more than what we know going on with MAOIs and the banned food list. Before I start here – please don’t take this as a suggestion to eat food on the list – my hunch is that the blood pressure crisis problem is very dependent to the individual.
No doubt. It's in part due to the baseline blood pressure, but some people are probably more sensitive to biogenic amines (such as tyramine) than others.
> I was having a lot of problems with low blood pressure (BTW Viagra used with Nardil caused me to have fainting spells for 3 days! – Something that is not in the PDR) so I decided to try to raise my blood pressure with sharp cheddar cheese. (Again don’t try this yourself). (I have never been able to find tyramine in health food stores or on line anywhere so I resorted to the cheese. If anyone knows of a source of tyramine supplements please let me know.)
Tyrosine, an amino acid, is the immediate metabolic precursor to tyramine, and is available at many health-food stores. The elevation in blood pressure happens about 20 or 30 minutes after you eat the food or take the pills, I think. (Disclaimer: I don't think you should be ****ing around with this stuff.)
> My diastolic pressure would get so low when I stood that my doc could not measure it. I started out by taking my blood pressure 4 times a day while lying down. My diastolic ranged 60 to 80.
That's not so bad. I've had much lower ones while lying down (and conscious). What was your systolic pressure?
> I started out with a very small slice of cheese three times a day and worked it up to 8 slices three times a day – with out getting any blood pressure help. I then tried Ramona cheese with the same result.
God, I haven't even *heard* of Ramona cheese. What is it?
> Seeing that I don’t know what the tyramine content was- this really doesn’t prove anything, but only suggests testing with purified tyramine.
Tyrosine is the closest you're going to get without resorting to ordering stuff from chemical supply companies or something. I think salt tablets are a *much* better idea, tho'.
> Tyramine content could vary drastically from one block of cheese to the next.
Or any food, yeah. There are a lot of factors that can cause you to get away with "cheating" once but then get "caught" another time. This is one reason why your strategy of using cheddar to combat orthostatic hypotension is really not a hot idea.
> If you are destined to cheat always start off with very, very small amounts of the food followed with a blood pressure check.
I really don't think that anyone is "destined" to cheat. There just aren't many things that need to be avoided, and many of the ones that do are rather obscure. (To tell the truth, I didn't bother cutting out soy sauce, which is in the "maybe" category anyway. Otherwise I didn't have a problem with the MAOI diet.)
> An automatic blood pressure cuff used 1, 2 and 3 hours after eating restricted foods that shows a rise of the diastolic pressure above 90 is a big hint that you better stick with the program.
I'd do it sooner. Also, the symptoms of a serious rise in BP (assuming normal or low baseline pressure) are *very* hard to miss. If anything significant is happening, you'll probably notice it.
> What really has my interest is that I have always craved sharp cheddar cheese and wonder if it is because it is a monoamine precursor. Perhaps tyramine could be used as a depression treatment?
Some health-food nuts use tyrosine, tryptophan, phenylalanine, and the like. I don't know if this has anything to do with your love of cheddar, though.
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:92572
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020416/msgs/103490.html