Posted by Ktemene on January 3, 2005, at 20:34:23
In reply to Looking for Benzo Alternatives that really work, posted by Jonah Hassan on January 2, 2005, at 20:34:27
> Hello,
>
> I am new here and would like some help...
>
> I am currently taking a benzodiazepene for severe anxiety and I would like to get off of it. I want to find a safe, perhaps natural, EFFECTIVE, substitute for this drug that I may be building a tolerance to. I also fear it's addictive qualities. I am also taking celexa for anxiety but have not beneffited from it, as far as I can tell.
>
> Has anyone successfully found alternatives to the benzos that really work just as well, or nearly as well for quelling anxiety? Even if you haven't been on benzos, but know of other natural/safe supplements that can help, please respond. I have tried gaba, l-theanine, scullcap, kava with no success. I eat well, meditate, exercise, and go to therapy. I am trying to heal this part of myself in a safe and gentle, effective manner.
>
> Thanks for any and all advice. Please specify the supplement dosage and manufacturer, and you success with it.
>
> Yours, JonahHi Jonah,
You might try taurine. There was a thread on it beginning last July. Here is the URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20040613/msgs/365023.html
Both Larry Hoover and Barbaracat recommended it highly as a calming agent that doesn't cause sleepiness. I tried it a few days ago and was amazed at how much better than a Benzo it was at soothing my anxiety. Larry mentioned that taurine had a gentle stimulating effect on him that he did not notice until he took a dose late in the day and went to bed and had more insomnia than usual. That was my experience as well, but I think Barbaracat can take doses late in the day and still get to sleep.
Anyway, I started three days ago with 500mg of taurine from the Vitamin Shoppe (each capsule also has 10 mg B6). I liked it so much that I took 1000mg the next day and spent 5 hours looking up taurine articles on Medline etc. The day after that I took 2000mg in divided doses, one late in the day, and that was a mistake because I didn't get much sleep last night. This morning I took 2000mg on waking, and I have felt calm but less energetic (probably on account of lack of sleep). I may cut back to 500mg tomorrow, or maybe skip a day.
Taurine is a very interesting amino acid. Larry mentions in his posts a lot that he found out about taurine when he was researching it, and he is a much more knowledgeable than I am, so I won't repeat what he said. But I will copy below a few article abstracts that I thought were interesting. The second day that I took taurine I was doing my morning aerobic exercise and I noticed that I was not getting as tired as I usually do. In fact, I did 40 minutes instead of the 30 minutes that I had planned to do, and I kept exceeding my target heart rate because the exercise felt so easy. When I got onto Medline later that day I found out that there is a fair amount of research that indicates that taurine does improve exercise performance. It also protects against free radical-mediated damage during exercise. In fact taurine is cytoprotective in general and in particular it protects neurons in the brain and cells in the heart.
Of course, as always, YMMV. And I should say that there is a very knowledgeable long-time poster here, Viridis, who has had great success using a combination of Klonopin and Adderall for a number of years without developing a tolerance for either drug. You might try searching the archives for his posts. But I must say taurine is the most effective supplement I have ever tried, and I have tried a lot because I strongly believe that vitamins and supplements and nutrition and exercise can be very helpful in fighting depression and anxiety.
Good luck!
Ktemene
Optimal and effective oral dose of taurine to prolong exercise performance in rat
T.Miyazaki1;2,Y.Matsuzaki2,T.Ikegami2,S.Miyakawa3,M.Doy1,N.Tanaka2 ,and B.Bouscarel4 Amino Acids Received June 8, 2004 Accepted August 20, 2004 Published online October 22, 2004; #Springer-Verlag 2004
Summary.The aim of this study was to determine the effective and optimum dose of taurine for exercise performance and to maintain tissue taurine concentration. Rats received a respective daily dose of 0, 20, 100, and 500 mg=kg body weight of taurine (EC and ET-1, -2, -3 groups, respectively) for two weeks, and then, were subjected to treadmill until exhaustion. The running time to exhaustion was significantly prolonged by 25% and 50% in the ET-2 and -3 groups, respectively, compared to that in the EC group accompanied with maintenance of taurine tissue concentrations. Furthermore, the oxidative glutathione per total glutathione ratio in tissues was inhibited in the ET-2 and -3 groups whereas it was higher in the EC group than in both the no exercise and taurine-administered groups. Therefore the effective and optimal doses of oral taurine administration for two weeks on a transient exercise performance were between 100 and 500 mg=kg=day.
Taurine prevents the neurotoxicity of ß-amyloid and glutamate receptor agonists: activation of GABA receptors and possible implications for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders
PAULO ROBERTO LOUZADA, ANDRÉA C. PAULA LIMA, DAYDE L. MENDONÇA-SILVA*, FRANÇOIS NOËL*, FERNANDO G. DE MELLO and SÉRGIO T. FERREIRA
(The FASEB Journal. 2004;18:511-518.)
Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and several other neurological disorders have been linked to the overactivation of glutamatergic transmission and excitotoxicity as a common pathway of neuronal injury. The ß-amyloid peptide (Aß) is centrally related to the pathogenesis of AD, and previous reports have demonstrated that the blockade of glutamate receptors prevents Aß–induced neuronal death. We show that taurine, a ß-amino acid found at high concentrations in the brain, protects chick retinal neurons in culture against the neurotoxicity of Aß and glutamate receptor agonists. The protective effect of taurine is not mediated by interaction with glutamate receptors, as demonstrated by binding studies using radiolabeled glutamate receptor ligands. The neuroprotective action of taurine is blocked by picrotoxin, an antagonist of GABAA receptors. GABA and the GABAA receptor agonists phenobarbital and melatonin also protect neurons against Aß-induced neurotoxicity. These results suggest that activation of GABA receptors decreases neuronal vulnerability to excitotoxic damage and that pharmacological manipulation of the excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitter tonus may protect neurons against a variety of insults. GABAergic transmission may represent a promising target for the treatment of AD and other neurological disorders in which excitotoxicity plays a relevant role.
ANTIOXIDANT EFFECTS OF TAURINE, VITAMIN C, AND VITAMIN E ON OXIDATIVE DAMAGE IN HIPPOCAMPUS CAUSED BY THE ADMINISTRATION OF 3-NITROPROPIONIC ACID IN RATS
ERIKA RODRÍGUEZ-MARTÍNEZ ,CONCEPCIÓN RUGERIO-VARGAS , ALBA I. RODRÍGUEZ , GABINO BORGONIO-PÉREZ,SELVA RIVAS-ARANCIBIA
Received 12 December 2003.
Abstract
The administration of 3-nitropropionic acid increases reactive oxygen species (ROS). Antioxidant defense mechanisms buffer these ROS con-verting them into non-damaging compounds. Taurine and vitamins C and E are antioxidants that play a role in the defense against cellular damage. This study examines the antioxidant effect of taurine, vitamin C, and vitamin E on acute hippocampal damage caused by 3-NP. Ani-mals treated with 3-NP increased lipid peroxidation levels and astro-cytic damage in the hippocampus. Administration of taurine, vitamin C, and vitamin E partially protected from oxidative damage, indicate that while all substances had antioxidant effects, only taurine showed mor-phological protection in surviving cells.Protective effect of taurine against free radicals damage in the rat myocardium
Hanna J, Chahine R, Aftimos G, Nader M, Mounayar A, Esseily F, Chamat S.
Exp Toxicol Pathol. 2004 Dec;56(3):189-94.
Free radicals are highly cytotoxic to the heart and are involved in ischemia/reperfusion injury. In this study, we tested the ability of taurine to neutralize the deleterious effects of free radicals generated ex vivo and in vitro. Taurine was added at a concentration of 0.1 mM to the drinking water of experimental rats during 6 months. The animal hearts were then isolated and submitted to regional ischemia and reperfusion; ventricular fibrillation was significantly reduced as compared to a control group of non-treated animals. Moreover, at a concentration of 1 mM, taurine provided significant cardio-protection against the deleterious effect of free radicals generated by the electrolysis of Krebs-Henseleit buffer. When isolated hearts were perfused with electrolysed buffer, extensive fiber necrosis occurred, as observed by staining with nitro blue tertrazolium, a soluble dye which yields a dark blue formazan stain in the presence of reducing agents This stain was barely detectable when taurine was added to the perfusing electrolysed buffer. To further understand the protecting mechanism of taurine, we used xanthine-xanthine-oxidase as a superoxide (O2-) generating system and monitored the O2- through yield O(2-)-dependent cytochrome c reduction. We demonstrated that taurine did not affect this system, which indicated that it did not scavenge O2- directly. On the other hand, taurine inhibited the auto-oxidation of adrenaline to adrenochrome at pH 7.8 where this auto-oxidation is O(2-)-independent and superoxide dismutase insensitive. We thus conclude that taurine acts as a potent, but non-specific, scavenger of free radicals that cause heart damage and protects against reperfusion-induced ventricular
poster:Ktemene
thread:436966
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050101/msgs/437378.html