Talk:Tryptophan

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Tryptophan appears to be sort-of legal now. See the following for details:

http://www.erowid.org/smarts/tryptophan/tryptophan_law.shtml

According to this page, there is about 320 mg per 3.5 oz of turkey. It also says there is about the same amount in chicken and ground beef.

http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/feature_ent.html?DOC=enthusiasts%5Cent_tryptophan.html

Contents

[edit] tryptophan regulation pathways

Could someone put in information about the three modes of tryptophan regulation in prokaryotes? 71.162.36.220 13:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I would be able to write some stuff about the trpR repressor and the attenuation mechanism, but this is briefly covered in the article attenuator (genetics). This is from personal knowledge, so it would take me a while to find the references which I don't have time to do right now, but let me know. Tapeworm87 12:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] makes no sense?

This statement from the article, "It is especially plentiful in turkey but only in large amounts.", makes no sense. 24.16.19.181 02:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I edited something in the pop culture section. The turkey link was referring to the country of Turkey. Fixed.

The section about tryptophan and turkey previously said there was some tryptophan -> niacin -> serotonin pathway. This is wrong. The correct pathway is tryptophan -> 5-HTP -> serotonin. See the serotonin article. Simonster 05:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No treatment?

Because no patent is available for tryptophan, it is not likely to be used commonly as a treatment for Dysthymia and SAD despite its apparent effectiveness. Why should it be like this? Do only patented medicines get reputation for treatmentability? --Abdull 09:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

No not at all. many currently unpatented medicines are used in treatments. this strikes me as claptrap, and it think it should be removed. i will take it on myself to do so in 3 days time. Xcomradex 01:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

That either didn't happen or got reverted, so I've done it. Gareth McCaughan 23:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ban

How can tryptophan be banned when it is a essential amino acids? wouldn't this be like banning water? --Abdull 09:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not anything that contains tryptophan that is banned, just purified and concentrated tryptophan. Still, I agree, it's ridiculous. —Keenan Pepper 16:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes on Tryptophan article

[[1]] Article with references to back it up. Putting it here temporarily so we can check to see what info is missing from the article and determine if the link or info from the link is suitable to post. What mostly prompted this post is a quote from the article:

"At the same hearing, Dr. Wurtman stated: Tryptophan in a bottle is not a nutritional supplement. In protein, it comes with 21 other amino acids, and you need all of them in order to utilize them and make protein. Pure tryptophan in pills or in a bottle is not natural. . . . The body cannot use it to make its own protein. There is not a single person in America who is tryptophan-deficient. Isolated amino acid deficiencies do not occur. People who have low blood tryptophan levels also have low blood levels of other essential amino acids as well, because these people are protein-deficient. Giving one amino acid to a protein-deficient person can make matters worse [9]."--geekyßroad. meow? 08:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I noticed, believe it or not, that the statement has a really serious factual error in it. Proteins are fundamentally comprised of 20 amino acids, so the statement should have said that tryptophan comes with 19 other amino acids instead of 21.
WriterHound (talk) 06:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Without decent references this article is worthless

I think it would be necessary to use medical publications as a source for this article.

It looks like an ADVERTISEMENT at the moment! It is to me as credible as the paper I use to wipe my 'you know what'.

I think the author might have a health food store where they sell tryptophan? Or why would they otherwise put up an article with no references? C'mon!

Why even bother if you dont bother googling up med pub sources and then digging those for results. Its never been easier, so I would say the author couldn't have been lazier.

Show some effort or remove it.

Agreed. This article is in desperate need of cleanup. I'm trying some, but I'm no expert in the field. Per Olofsson 21:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No, no matter how badly an article is written or whether it lacks references completely, it does not make it worthless. One of the cornerstones of editing Wikipedia is that perfection is not required (see WP:EP). I ask anyone who finds a chapter or paragraph that is somehow wrong to improve it, rather than completely remove the work of others (see WP:BOLD). Find the references, move text and headings around, rewrite passages from a neutral point of view, find and add facts. What is lazy is destroying valuable content or whining about the lazyness of contributors.
Whether some fact has been verified is a different question than whether it can be verified at all. If it's a useful piece of information and has not been shown impossible to verify, please don't remove it. Wipe 02:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about meat, and comments on above comments.

It reads "meat, fish, turkey, chicken" in part of the artical. Should that be "red meat"? I mean, fish, turkey, and chicken are all meat.

And the FDA is very corrupt. They tried to get rid of tryptophan for years, and as soon as they had an excuse, they did so, just before Prozac came out. Some FDA workers also work for the companies they are suppose to be regulating.

You just have to google FDA and "revolving doors" to see examples of this. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=revolving+door+FDA&btnG=Google+Search

There is a lot of evidence about that, and on occassion a few convinctions, but rarely.

I'm going to go check out and update if necessary the wikipedia artical about the FDA now with some crediable referances.

Oh, and when it was illegal for humans, many people on health boards, myself included, just got it in the form of a powder designed for use by horses. user: Dream_Focus

[edit] Questionable text in two places Physiology section! (Marked below with [*** ***])

Physiology

Tryptophan is biologically inactive as its L isomer. This may account for the episodes of eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome. L-tryptophan cannot cross the blood brain barrier.

5-HTP readily crosses the blood barrier, aiding in depression. [***("Aiding in" seems ambiguous. Perhaps "aiding in the treatment of" is what is intended here?)***] Marketed in Europe for this purpose under brand names like Cincofarm and Tript-OH [***for penis enlargement***].

Supplements do not require a prescription in America thanks to the Dietary Supplement Act.


[edit] Layman's Question...

Is it true that consuming tryptophan reduces nervousness? I've heard it recommended as a remedy before a nerve-wracking performance. --Grant M 06:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cheese Dreams

It is commonly said that eating cheese before going to bed causes nightmares. I had vivid dreams last night after a cheese sandwich - not nightmares but unusually vivid - and got to wondering whether there was anything in this or whether it was just coincidence. This article about a 2005 study by the British Cheese Board mentions tryptophan but this is a second hand report of a small study intended more for advertising than science so I'm still not convinced. Is tryptophan, in the amounts present in cheese, capable of affecting dreams in that way? If it is then I think "cheese dreams" should be mentioned in the article as a commonly known phenomenon. --Spondoolicks 13:32, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Turkey meat and drowsiness: Original research?

The sentence "Alcoholic beverage consumption at holiday feasts is likely to compound the effect [of drowsiness]" is marked as possible original research. That's just silly. It's common knowledge that alcohol causes drowsiness. I removed the original research? claim.

See Wikipedia:Common knowledge, in particular "Claims that something is a scientific fact" and "Medical claims."67.158.78.159 04:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] anti GM propaganda

I deleted this. it should not be replaced until someone can find a supporting reference in a scientific / medical journal. Just because some vanity press publishes something it doesn't make it true!

In 1989, a large outbreak of a new, disabling, and in some cases deadly autoimmune illness called eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS) was traced to one source of L-tryptophan. The bacterial culture used to synthesize tryptophan by a major Japanese manufacturer, Showa Denko KK, had been genetically modified several times to increase tryptophan production during the 1980s.[1]--81.6.234.170 19:08, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to delete that, you should also delete the following paragraph, which relies heavily on that one:

Along with the higher tryptophan concentrations in the modified culture media, the purification process had also been streamlined to reduce costs, and a purification step that used charcoal absorption to remove some impurities had been omitted.[2] The manufacturer maintained that this process modification allowed another bacterial metabolite through the purification, resulting in the presence of an end-product contaminant responsible for the toxic effects. As of 1996, Showa Denko had destroyed all modified organisms without FDA receipt of culture samples.[3][4] The FDA was unable to publicly establish with certainty what contaminant was the cause of the outbreak.

I take no position on the validity of the information in those two paragraphs, but I note that they seem to be talking about the same incident of a bad batch leading to an FDA ban, that is also described with references you might like better in the next few paragraphs of the article.67.158.78.159 04:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, do something, because currently the article still carries two references to "EMS" without explaining what it is, or even listing the full name. Consequently, the information in that section of the article seems to come out of nowhere. 97.82.247.200 20:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the vanity press citation was biased and should be removed as well as some of the text which had a strong POV. I also agree that the EMS background needed to be re-insterted, however with more appropriate references. A quick search of PubMed yielded three citations in the refereed literature which linked Showa Denko Showa Denko to EMS as well as a more recent article with an alternative explanation. I have re-added a modified version along with these new references. Boghog2 21:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An advice column?

Articles on amino acids and various other biochemicals/nutritional supplements are vulnerable to becoming deluged with advice and "fringe biology" (IMHO) vs presenting broad encyclopedic overviews. For example, key biochemical processing of tryptophan is currently barely discussed whereas speculations on the effect of turkey meat on drowsiness finds space (not that I have anything against such theories). The tag {{howto}} might be applicable to this article. To quote: "1. Instruction manuals. While Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, Wikipedia articles should not include instructions, advice (legal, medical, or otherwise) or suggestions, or contain "how-to"s." --Smokefoot 16:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Which Genetic Code?

"Tryptophan is an essential amino acid involved in human nutrition. It is one of the 20 amino acids encoded by the genetic code (as codon UGG)."

Which genetic code? Banana? Human, dog, etc? It's probably common to most animals, but I this sentence really needs to be qualified better!!! I would change it, but I'm not quite sure what to put.

WriterHound 17:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The genetic code is unversal, so no qualification is indicated.--Smokefoot 17:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tryptophan Metabolism Image

There image showing tryptophan metabolism is slightly wrong. Serotonin is 5-hydroxytryptamine, not 5-hydroxytryptophan. Also the enzyme that catlyses the conversion of formylkynurenine to kynurenine is formamidase. Would change this myself, but I don't have a great deal of spare time these days! Alex 19:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the errors. You have sharp eyes and an impressive knowledge of tryptophan metabolism! I have replaced the figure with a new one correcting the errors noted above. Cheers. Boghog2 20:00, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem. If it's any help my employment is in tryptophan metabolism research, so I'm forever seeing these metabolic pathways! I personally would create a section covering just tryptophan metabolism (this could in fact be an article of its own), as there are many other important metabolites, especially in the kynurenine pathway, that are not mentioned here. Either way the article has improved significantly since I last really read it 8 months ago!! Alex 23:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why Supplementation?

If it's so plentiful in normal foods like eggs and meat why does supplementation with L-Tryptophan help with all of these different conditions. I don't know enough about chemistry so if someone could help me understand this I would love it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.102.163.132 (talk) 04:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Amino acids behave differently when they are ingested alone vs. when they are competing with other amino acids. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 05:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Citations on this page need updated or removed

especially reguarding the triptophan content grid (14, 15) one is a PDF doc from an unverified source and the other doesn't even pertain to such a listing of various foods that contain triptophan. the PDF link (citation 15) is about chocolate additives in cigarette smoking, not triptophan. i can see why wikipedia articles get mocked in the media. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Baayne (talk • contribs) 22:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the tryptophan content table, citation #14 is an exhaustive database of foods and the percentage by weight of nutrients that each food contains including the nutrient tryptophan. Hence this citation is a definitive, quantitative and, to the best of my knowledge, the most complete source of information regarding the percentage of tryptophan of various food stuffs. Most of the data in the dietary sources table came directly from this source, and if this citation were removed, the table would need to be deleted. Regarding citation # 15, while the main topic of this article as you correctly point out is cigarette smoking and not tryptophan, this article does contain background information about the levels of tryptophan in various foods. This second citation is a secondary source and contains a subset of the information contained in the first citation and therefore could be deleted. Cheers. Boghog2 (talk) 21:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Turkey meat and drowsiness

I unfortunately don't have a source for this, but I believe it is accurate physiologically speaking... (if you can say that...) What _does_ happen when you eat a large meal of turkey (or any other large meal), is that your stomach fills up (of course) and this decreases the amount of space left in your abdominal and chest cavities for where the lungs normally expand into. Therefore you're actually decreasing the amount of air actually getting to your brain-- not to any amount critical of worry, but your body decides to save some energy, activate components of your parasympathetic nervous system, (rest and digest) and get drowsy. It's basic physiology, any B.Sc knows that... Someone should add it to the article, I'd be happy to if someone can ensure me it's not going to get instantly deleted for lack of sources. Let the health science graduates who know the science have a say. purpleidea (talk) 17:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

If what you say is true (referenced or not), I still can't see a reason for it it to be added to this article. As there is no reason for turkey meat specifically as opposed to any other meat, or indeed any other food, to cause this effect. If this is the mechanism by which eating large amounts of food causes drowsiness or fatigue, it'll probably be mentioned somewhere else on wikipedia, and a simple sentence with a link, rather than the long-winded explanation should suffice! Alex (talk) 20:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)