Where can I obtain 5htp?

It’s available on the net, in pharmacies and health food stores.

5-HTP, which is found in certain foods like turkey and cheese, is often sold as an over-the-counter therapeutic supplement. In this case, it is usually sourced from the seeds of the Griffonia Simplicifolia plant. Production of 5-HTP as a supplement increased when a similar serotonin-altering supplement, L-tryptophan, was banned in the United States because of a tainted batch which caused serious side-effects in users.

5-HTP has many advantages over L-tryptophan: besides being safer to produce and arguably more potent it can cross the blood-brain barrier more easily than L-tryptophan.

5-HTP in supplement form is usually sold in gelatin capsules. These capsules typically contain between 50mg and 100mg of 5-HTP.

5-HTP (5-Hydroxy L-Tryptophan) is a close precursor to serotonin (5-HT). The amino acid L-tryptophan (commonly referred to as tryptophan) is also a precursor to serotonin; your body breaks it down to produce 5-HTP before using it to produce serotonin. Your body can use 5-HTP more efficiently, because it does not have to first break it down as it needs to with L-tryptophan.

5-HTP can be purchased at compounding pharmacies in the US. It is also available from many regular pharmacies, so check with your local pharmacist. 5-HTP can be purchased over the counter in Canada; L-tryptophan requires a prescription.

Persons who are taking a SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), a family of drugs that includes Prozac, should be careful when taking 5-HTP to avoid developing an excess of serotonin in their bodies. If you are taking a SSRI, discuss the matter with the prescribing doctor first. 5-HTP should not be given to children with asthma. In fact, since 5-HTP has a few other contraindications, you should discuss its use with your doctor to ensure that it does not conflict with any other medications you are taking. Supplements are drugs, too.

Watch the price! As with many supplements, prices vary wildly. No one brand of 5-HTP is any safer or more 'natural' than any other, in spite of what some companies claim. Don't be gulled by extravagant claims (and prices).

As a final note, 5-HTP is not any 'safer' to manufacture than L-tryptophan. This fallacy has been spread by those who are trying to promote sales of their own 5-HTP products. L-tryptophan supplements were pulled off the market in the US in 1989, following problems with a single tainted batch. At the time, it was made by one company, Showa Denko in Japan. The contaminated batch was believed to have caused EMS (eosinophilia myalgia syndrome) in a few individuals.

There are a couple of peculiar twists to this story. The link between L-tryptophan and EMS has been challenged in the "Journal of Musculoskeletal Pain", because some of people who were believed to have developed EMS from tainted L-tryptophan already suffered from fibromyalgia, which has many similar symptons. A US patent was issued for the use of L-tryptophan to treat and cure EMS in 1993 - the same condition that prompted its removal from the market! L-tryptophan was also present in some commercial feeding formulas (tube-feeding), whose manufacturers were not required to remove it from their products. L-tryptophan supplements are available in the US, but only from compounding pharmacies and at a much higher cost than before. If you can figure your way past all of the contradictions in this story, you're smarter than me.