Glutamine: treatment of depression or schizophrenia

When I read that glutamine, a precursor of glutamate, can readily pass the blood-brain barrier, I bought some as a nutraceutical. The dosage I'm recommended is only 500 mg per day. However, the glutamine I bought was sold as a dietary supplement, not as an antidepressant.

I want to use glutamine for the treatment of what I think is schizophrenia (though it may also be schizoid personality disorder, or clinical depression). I'm suffering from complete emotional flattening, which could be said to be the opposite of bipolar disorder. Because lithium works as a glutamine antagonist, it seems obvious that glutamine could work for me.

Does anyone who is familiar with glutamine know which dose I am to use for depression or schizophrenia? Bodybuilders usually use 1-2 grams, and in cancer therapy it's used in doses of 3-4 grams, but I suppose that those doses have no sizable psychoactive effect.

EDIT: Before you ask, no, I can't ask my psychiatrist. He dismissed the efficacy of amino acids in general as nonsense.

I tried a supplement containing tryptophan + glutamine a few
months ago. I think the potency was 250/250 or 500/500 mg.
As you would expect, there were no impressive effects.

I could not find a single study of the use of glutamine for the
treatment of depression or schizophrenia. This appears to be
as close as it gets:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... h=17283286
"Reduced prefrontal glutamate/glutamine and gamma-aminobutyric acid levels in major depression determined using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy."

However, these suggests *increased* glutamatergic transmission in
schizophrenia:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... h=12411236
"Glutamate and glutamine measured with 4.0 T proton MRS in never-treated patients with schizophrenia and healthy volunteers."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... h=15820321
"Increased expression of glutaminase and glutamine synthetase mRNA in the thalamus in schizophrenia."

I tried a supplement containing tryptophan + glutamine a few
months ago. I think the potency was 250/250 or 500/500 mg.
As you would expect, there were no impressive effects.

How is that as you would expect? Dietary supplements can sometimes be as effective as pharmacueticals. Omega-3 really helped a lot for me, for instance.

5-hydroxytryptophan is converted into 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT, serotonin). If you'll look it up, you'll soon find sources confirming that. The dose of tryptophan for depression is around 4 grams, I'm aware.

I'd prefer not to argue much about whether or not schizophrenia is due to a lack of glutamatergic activity because we don't know. Sources so often contradict one another that it could even confuse a psychiatrist.

It seems obvious to me that a lack of glutamine could cause the negative symptomatology of schizophrenia: glutamate modulates serotonin activity and increases extracellular dopamine.

Do note that a decrease in glutamatergic activity isn't a decrease in glutamate. In schizophrenia, it's mostly the NMDA receptors which are affected. Both their number and distribution is abnormal. To make up for it, the brain will try to produce more glutamate. In this schizoid personality disorder is somewhat similar.

Anyway, I don't know if glutamine will work for me, but I've read (in several sources, of course - I won't trust just one random website) that it's already been successfully used in the treatment of depression and schizophrenia.

Supposing that it could work, how long would it take, and what dosage am I to use?

According to my sources, a typical dose of 5-HTP for depression ranges from 50-300mg per day. Go any higher than that and you will get unpleasant physical side-effects. 4 grams is way too much for daily use and may theoretically induce serotonin syndrome.

There is also L-tryptophan, which is a precursor to 5-HTP (and others) which does have a higher effective dose since not all of it is converted to the serotonin precursor 5-htp. The american FDA banned this supplement because of a contaminated batch. According to one website, a dosage of L-tryptophan ranges in the 500-6000mg range.
Rougly a 1:5 ratio between 5-htp and L-tryp effective dosage.

Just thought I'd clear up any possible confusion before someone gets a hurt real bad...

Sources:
Wikipedia
http://www.thewayup.com/newsletters/101599.htm

=rx7= wrote:According to my sources, a typical dose of 5-HTP for depression ranges from 50-300mg per day. Go any higher than that and you will get unpleasant physical side-effects. 4 grams is way too much for daily use and may theoretically induce serotonin syndrome.

I'm sorry for being ambiguous. I was referring to the dose of L-tryptophan, not that of 5H-tryptophan. I just assumed L-tryptophan was itself a precursor of 5H-tryptophan.

At first my post didn't include the L-tryp part. I added that part later and realized it was probably what you meant

I've been using glutamate for a three days now. It could be coincidental, but I seem to have more energy and willpower. I still feel emotionally blunted, though.

Edit: Day five - I can feel negative emotions again, and I consider this an immense improvement. The glutamine starts to make me feel anxious and depressed… how I've missed those feelings.

I also seem less distracted and unsociable. Everything appears to feel more real. The most indisputable effect is probably that I need less sleep.

Oblomov wrote:

I tried a supplement containing tryptophan + glutamine a few
months ago. I think the potency was 250/250 or 500/500 mg.
As you would expect, there were no impressive effects.

How is that as you would expect? Dietary supplements can sometimes be as effective as pharmacueticals.

I don't make much of a distinction between the two. However,
people have taken megadoses (severals grams) of glutamine and
tryptophan without impressive effects, so I wouldn't expect much
from 250-500 mg.

Omega-3 really helped a lot for me, for instance.

I didn't notice anything when I used it.

Regarding aromatic amino acid precursors of neurotransmitters,
they should really be taking with carbidopa for best effect and
least side effects. Also, while L-DOPA and 5-HTP are the most direct
precursors, phenylalanine and tryptophan are interesting in that
they are also the precursors of the trace amines phenylethylamine
(PEA) and tryptamine.

sum1 wrote:I don't make much of a distinction between the two. However, people have taken megadoses (severals grams) of glutamine and
tryptophan without impressive effects, so I wouldn't expect much
from 250-500 mg.

Well, I've sometimes used nearly ten times as much (2000 mg rather than 250). At first, I noticed an increase in willpower, anxiety, and negative emotions. But after a week, I also started to lose my creativity. I began to have repetitive intrusive thoughts and perseveration. It appears that glutamate increases latent inhibition, and an excess of glutamate is found in OCD and autism. This means that it impairs creative, imaginative and abstract thinking, as is also found in autism and especially savantism. Glutamine increased negative emotions for me (which I need), but decreased my creativity, so I decided to stop. I think the increase in emotionality was via a downstream of dopamine and a decrease of serotonin caused by glutamate, anyway.

sum1 wrote:

Omega-3 really helped a lot for me, for instance.

I didn't notice anything when I used it.

Omega-3 is a mood-stabilizer, having an effect similar to lithium (according to biopsychiatry.com) and increasing serotonin levels, so it's not very useful to reduce blunted affect. However, it gave me more motivation, and enabled me to concentrate better.

sum1 wrote:Also, while L-DOPA and 5-HTP are the most direct
precursors, phenylalanine and tryptophan are interesting in that
they are also the precursors of the trace amines phenylethylamine
(PEA) and tryptamine.

According to all sources I've read, L-phenylalanine blocks the absorption of L-tryptophan by competing with it, in this way reducing serotonin levels. This is the main reason why I prefer PhA over Ty: schizoids have an excess of serotonin.

If the PhA doesn't have sizable effects either, I'll combine it with bupropion again.

I believe that it can help both, I recently read up on this and I should post it, it may be interesting to you guys.

I'll have to remember to do that when I have more time.