Posted by Ktemene on September 22, 2005, at 19:14:30 [reposted on September 23, 2005, at 19:34:58 | original URL]
In reply to Re: 5 htp vs. sam-e, posted by med_empowered on September 22, 2005, at 17:09:09
I started taking SAM-e about 4 weeks ago, and I did a little research on it before I started. Two forms of SAM-e are available, sulfate-p-toluenesulfonate (also called tosylate) and butanedisulfonate. The oral bioavailability of the tosylate salt is 1%, and the oral bioavailability of the butanedisulfonate salt is 5%. (Stramentinoli G, Gualano M, Galli-Kienle M. Intestinal absorption of S-adenosyl-L-methionine. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 1979;209:323-6.) For this reason lots of people have recommended the butanedisulfonate form, and GNC and Nature Made both used to sell that form. But they have both switched to selling the tosylate form as far as I can tell. The only source I have been able to find for the butanedisulfonate salt is a site called Young Again, which sells it for arthritis (http://www.youngagain.com/same.html). It costs about 50 cents per 400mg pill. You can reduce the price a bit by buying two bottles at a time, for which they will give you a third bottle at no extra charge. Of course, that still works out to be quite a lot, since for many people the antidepressant effect does not kick in until the 1600 mg per day level. If you do start taking SAM-e, but sure to get enough B vitamins, especially folate, B6 and B12. There is some evidence that SAM-e does not work as well without enough B vitamins. And take SAM-e on an empty stomach about half an hour before a meal to increase absorption. You might also try supplementing with a gram or so of methionine. There was a recent animal study that indicated that taking methionine might increase the level of SAM-e in the brain. (http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=543840&rendertype=abstract)
There is a lot of information about SAM-e in a 2003 Current Psychiatric Report (http://www.current-reports.com/article.cfm?PubID=PR05-6-1-05&Type=Article&KeyWords=) and in a 2001 issue of Psychiatric Times (http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p010501b.html).
After a month of taking 1600 SAM-e a day, my impression is that the SAM-e is having a noticeable antidepressant effect. When I started the SAM-e a month ago, I had already been taking selegiline (5mg per day) and Wellbutrin (150mg per day) for many months. Of course, one month is not much time. But it has been a very stressful month and I feel better than I would have expected. I will post about it if I still feel an antidepressant effect after three months.
poster:Ktemene
thread:558676
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050812/msgs/558683.html