Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Each type of neurotransmitter has a special shape that allows it to fit into a nearby receptor, like a key in a lock. When the neurotransmitter "key" fits into the matching receptor "lock," the cell fires and sends the message on its way.
Scientists point to serotonin, beta-endorphins, and dopamine as among the most important mood-related neurotransmitters responsible for telling your brain: "Relax!" "Calm down!" "Be happy!" When you have the right amount of these chemicals, you feel cheerful, calm, focused, and optimistic. |
Charles Barber
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 While no one knows exactly how many neurotransmitters there are in the human brain—indeed, even how a neurotransmitter is defined exactly can be a matter of debate—there are at least 100, perhaps 125.
So I asked Dr. Valenstein, "Why do all the drugs all deal with the same brain chemicals? Is it because those four neurotransmitters are the ones understood to be most implicated with mood and thought regulation—i.e., the stuff of psychiatric disorders?"
"It's entirely a historical accident," he said. "The first psychiatric drugs were stumbled upon in the dark, completely serendipitously. |
Paul D. Blanc, M.D.
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 Manganese is an ideal toxin for illustrating this effect: first, neurotransmitters overload, leading to madness; then, with time, the cells driven to overproduce the neurotransmitter die out, allowing Parkinsonism to become manifest. Indeed, the first labotatory primate study of manganese-induced neurological damage was published in 1924, establishing one of the earliest experimental models of Parkinsonism. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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| When the neurotransmitter "key" fits into the matching receptor "lock," the cell fires and sends the message on its way.
Scientists point to serotonin, beta-endorphins, and dopamine as among the most important mood-related neurotransmitters responsible for telling your brain: "Relax!" "Calm down!" "Be happy!" When you have the right amount of these chemicals, you feel cheerful, calm, focused, and optimistic. But when the level of these vital chemicals drops, messages can't get across the gaps, and brain communication slows down. |
| Basically, just like heroin-addicted animals going into withdrawal, acetylcholine (a neurotransmitter associated with aversion) was increased, and the release of the brain chemical dopamine (a neurotransmitter involved with motivation and reward) decreased.
Canadian Rodents Go Gonzo for Sugar and Get Gnarly When It's Removed
After Dr. Hoebel's rats were becoming dependent on sucrose in New Jersey, more rodents were clamoring for sugar in Canada. Interestingly, neither research team was aware of the other's work. Their results, however, bear remarkable similarities. |
Herbert Ross, DC with Keri Brenner, L.Ac.
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 This is because, in addition to managing glucose, insulin is used by the body to transport the amino acid tryptophan, a building block of the neurotransmitter serotonin, to the brain. (A neurotransmitter is a brain chemical that enables communications to happen between brain cells.) Serotonin is sometimes referred to as the "happiness" chemical due to its influence on mood. High levels of serotonin in the brain produce feelings of self-confidence, calm, satisfaction, and composure. However, when levels start to decline, we start to feel anxious, cannot concentrate, and become depressed. |
Dr. Steve Blake
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 Vitamin C is needed to make the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is created in response to physical stress. This is one reason why more vitamin C is needed for stress. Vitamin C also acts as a cofactor for the enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of the neurotransmitter dopamine to norepinephrine.
More vitamin C is needed in times of stress.
The adrenal glands contain more vitamin C than any other organ in the body. In response to stress, vitamin C is released along with stress hormones. Many different kinds of stress cause the release of vitamin C from the adrenals. |
Ann M. Coulston and Carol J. Boushey
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 Implications for gamma-aminobutyric acid and other neurotransmitter receptors. Biochem. Pharmacol. 40, 1179-1182.
57. Wurtman, R. J., and Growdon, J. H. (1978). Dietary enhancement of CNS neurotransmitters. Hasp. Pract. 13, 11-11.
58. da Costa, K. A., Badea, M., Fischer, L. M., and Zeisel, S. H. (2004). Elevated serum creatine phosphokinase in choline -deficient humans: mechanistic studies in C2C12 mouse myoblasts. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 80, 163-170.
59. da Costa, K. A., Gaffney, C. E., Fischer, L. M., and Zeisel, S. H. (2005). |
Brigitte Mars, A.H.G.
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 It works as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, thereby increasing the availability of dopamine, a neurotransmitter. It also appears to mimic the action of the neurotransmitter GABA (gamma amino butyric acid) in relaxing the body. It is known as a medharasayan remedy, "a promoter of memory and learning."
A poultice of the leaves can be applied topically to reduce tumors, treat wounds, expel worms and lice, lower fever, and soothe boils and sore hands and feet. An oil infusion prepared from the plant can be used to ease a sore back. |
Tori Hudson, N.D.
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 It is likely that ovarian hormones affect the neurotransmitter, neuroendocrine, and circadian systems that influence mood and behavior differently in each of us. As research continues, we are learning more about the role of neurotransmitters, neurophysiology, and electrical conduction in the brain in the development, severity, and treatment of PMS.
It is interesting to look at the work done on serotonin to appreciate the role our social environment may have on PMS. Anita Rapkin, M.D. |
John R. Smythies
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| The chemical that carries the message from one neuron to the next across this gap is called a neurotransmitter. Neurotransmitters can either be excitatory or inhibitory. Excitatory neurotransmitters, when released across the synapse, cause the second neuron to fire. Inhibitory neurotransmitters, when released, cause it to stop firing. In the brain in type II schizophrenia there is a 50 percent loss of excitatory synapses.
The main excitatory neurotransmitter in the human brain is a chemical called glutamate, more familiar as the monosodium glutamate used in much Asian cooking. |
KC Craichy
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 SEROTONIN
Serotonin is a type of neurotransmitter known as a monoamine. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that send messages from one nerve cell to another. In short, a neurotransmitter helps different parts of your brain "talk" to each other. The food you eat has the potential to raise or lower your serotonin levels. The protein in the food you eat is made up of "strands" of amino acids. Your body can't make serotonin without the help of the essential amino acid tryptophan, which is now available in the U.S. without a prescription. |
Kelly Patricia O'Meara
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 The FDA: "The mechanism of the antidepressant action of venlafaxine in humans is believed to be associated with its potentiation of neurotransmitter activity in the CNS..." Key words: believed, thought, and may.
GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of the antidepressant Wellbutrin: "Research suggests that depression may be caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. Scientists believe that Wellbutrin XL helps balance the levels of two of these neurotransmitters called dopamine and norepinepherine. |
Dr. Arthur Janov
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 Hollenbeck, another specialist in fetal life, documents how any drug given to a carrying mother will alter the neurotransmitter systems of the offspring, especially during the critical period when these neurotransmitter systems are forming in the womb. He states that administration of local anesthetics, such as lidocaine (to aid the birth process), during sensitive (critical) periods in gestation is capable of producing enduring changes in the offspring's behavior. |
Melody Petersen
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 Both bladder drugs have what doctors call anticholinergic effects, which means they block the action of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. Nerve cells release neurotransmitters to send signals to neighboring cells. The anticholinergic medicines block some of these signals. Many drugs, including some used to treat allergies, anxiety, blood pressure, convulsions, depression, Parkinson's disease, and psychosis, have been found to have anticholinergic effects. So many medicines have anticholinergic effects that some people may be taking two or more of these drugs at the same time. |
Gabriel Cousens
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 These endorphins activate the dopamine neurotransmitter system, which activates the pleasure centers of the brain. The opiate effect of sugar, according to the general research, may be triggered even by the mere taste of sugar, before the insulin-dopamine response occurs. Carbohydrate-rich foods boost another neurotransmitter, serotonin, which helps with mood and sleep.
Wheat, and particularly the gluten part of the wheat, is metabolized into at least eleven different opiates. |
Mark Sircus
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 Two of the principle conditions that allow glutamate to shift from neurotransmitter to excitotoxin are:
1) Inadequate neuronal ATP levels (whatever the cause)
2) Inadequate neuronal levels of magnesium
One of the most common food additives, MSG (monosodium glutamate), has expanded greatly in use, doubling every decade since 1948. Aspartic acid is one half of the now ubiquitous sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet?, which is the basis of diet desserts, low-calorie drinks, chewing gum, etc. Both of these food additives spell danger for our children.
Glutamate and aspartate are neurotransmitters. |
Charles Barber
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| No deficiencies in the serotonin system have consistendy been reported among depressed people; in fact, no simple one-to-one relationship between any psychiatric disorder and a single neurotransmitter has ever been proven.97 While the SSRIs do indeed act on serotonin regulation in the brain, allowing the neurotransmitter to linger a little longer in the synapses, the changes that the drug ultimately exerts on the brain are entirely unclear. |
Benjamin H. Natelson, M.D.
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 Whereas SSRIs work to increase the availability of the neurotransmitter serotonin, MAOIs work to increase the availability of the other brain-active neurotransmitter involved in regulating mood, norepinephrine. Drugs in either class may be effective in treating depression because the brain cells that release norepinephrine alter the function of the brain cells that release serotonin and vice versa. To say the brain is complicated is certainly an understatement. |
Bryan Hanson, PhD
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 The first example works by decreasing the amount of neurotransmitter released and thus available to the receptors on the downstream neuron. The second example works by locking the ion channel closed.
These two examples illustrate the major strategies one can employ to alter the workings of a synapse:
• Alter the amount of neurotransmitter
• Alter the behavior of the receptors
The second strategy is a bit less complicated.4 One who is lucky enough to find drugs that simply lock the ion channel either open or closed has indeed found something useful which allows controls of the nerve impulse. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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 In the brain, NO acts as a neurotransmitter to rapidly transmit messages. Much like the way that the brain chemicals serotonin and dopamine promote don't-worry-be-happy emotions, NO has a calming effect. Why? Nitric oxide turns on a chain reaction in our cells that allows our blood vessels to relax and dilate. People with atherosclerosis (clogging and hardening of the arteries) commonly don't make enough nitric oxide to keep their arteries open. The lack of NO helps to explain the detrimental effects we feel during periods of high stress as well as periods of low sleep. |
| The reason why we're concerned about it here: Our own melatonin loses some of its potency as we age—our receptors for that neurotransmitter (you knew we'd link it with a Major Ager, didn't you?) don't create the same power from the dose of melatonin they receive. As you get older, you also lose some of the oomph you get from melatonin, which may explain why so many of us suffer aging-related sleep and health problems. In fact, melatonin production peaks around age five and starts a downhill slide from there. |
| In fact, this gas—nitric oxide (NO)—was discovered to be the neurotransmitter in the nerve cells that control erections (this finding led to the development of Viagra and its friends).
And that makes the declining functioning of NO over time a key cause of erectile dysfunction and other age-related and artery-related problems. The bottom line when it comes to nitric oxide and aging is this: Nitric oxide plays a fundamental role in keeping a body healthy, and the reverse is also true. |
| Serving as your body's second brain because of similar body chemistry (your intestines house the majority of your body's feel-good neurotransmitter, serotonin), your gut is where swings in food lead to swings in mood.
And that's why getting a good handle on the area between your love handles is important. Understand the range of digestive issues, some of which actually start in the brain, and you'll take a major step in slowing down the aging process. |
| Huperzine A Maybe This ancient Chinese herb was used for memory loss even before we knew that it increases acetylcholine levels by blocking a chemical that devours this precious neurotransmitter. If you have mild cognitive impairment, we recommend 200 micrograms twice daily and suggest that your doctor help titrate the treatment if other pharmaceuticals with similar effects are being used.
Vinpocetine No There's not enough evidence that this supplement from a periwinkle plant helps, and it can reduce your blood pressure too much, so we would rather wait for more clinical trials. |
| Those causes of aging—everything from wear and tear to neurotransmitter imbalances—indicate the tools you'll need to get at what you really want: to help your body live younger and stronger, and to have more energy than a Labrador puppy.
Throughout the book, you'll encounter these causes of aging in special sections titled "Major Ager"; in the chapters between, you'll discover exactly how the Major Agers affect various parts of your body and find specific, practical suggestions about how you can counteract their effects. |
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