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Amino
Acid May Be a Confidence Booster
Excerpt By Keith Mulvihill, Reuters Health
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - Consuming tryptophan, the essential amino
acid, may help people be more sure of themselves, according to
a report.
People who
consumed 3 grams of tryptophan daily were more confident and less
quarrelsome than they were when taking an inactive placebo, report
Dr. Debbie S. Moskowitz and colleagues from McGill University
in Montreal, Canada. The findings are published in the August
issue of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
Tryptophan
is an important precursor to the brain chemical serotonin, which
helps regulate mood, Moskowitz noted. For example, moderate dieting
is known to lower blood levels of tryptophan, which may alter
serotonin levels in the brain.
``Low serotonin
has been found to be related to depression, impulsivity and aggression,''
Moskowitz told Reuters Health.
Moskowitz
and her team recruited 98 healthy volunteers who were split into
two groups. One group took 1 gram of tryptophan with each meal
for 12 days, while the other group took a placebo pill. At the
end of 12 days, both groups received no treatment for 2 days and
then switched pill types for another 12 days. During the entire
study period, the men and women completed daily questionnaires
that assessed various mood states and behaviors.
``Tryptophan
had a more consistent effect on behavior than mood,'' Moskowitz
told Reuters Health. ``The absence of a consistent effect on mood
is consistent with other studies that have shown that tryptophan
may enhance mood in depressed individuals, but tryptophan does
not improve mood in individuals without a mood disorder,'' she
added.
Agreeable
and dominant behaviors are more common in most people's social
repertoire than quarrelsome or submissive behaviors, Moskowitz
explained.
``This pattern
continues even when people take tryptophan,'' she said.
``When taking
tryptophan dominant behaviors increase further in frequency and
quarrelsome behaviors decrease in frequency,'' the researcher
concluded. ``It is particularly interesting to note that daily
peaks of quarrelsome behaviors decreased.''
SOURCE:
Neuropsychopharmacology 2001;25:277-289.
Reference
Source 89
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