5-htp, tryptophan, serotonin, immune system, oh my...

In a post recently, getcuredordietrying helpfully posted a research study on the immune system and candida. I'm not scientific enough to fully understand that study (here's the link: //www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1890990#i
), but someone else here mentioned that it said that 5-htp can cause problems for the part of the immune system that fights candida...

5-htp, also called 5htp, is sold in vitamin stores as a supplement, and is made by the body from the amino acid tryptophan. Hmm, so avoiding 5htp is best, but is there a bigger issue? Could it be that tryptophan in our diet is being converted into enough 5htp in our bodies, that we may be wise to also limit tryptophan? ( someone mentioned that thought previously on this board, and I thought it deserves its own thread)

Thoughts? Some people with Depression problems may not want to avoid tryptophan, but I'd be willing to try a low tryptophan diet for awhile and report what happens.

Another site (link is below) says that tryptophan is absorbed best when taken withOUT other amino acids at that sitting. So I went to Nutritiondata.com and did an advanced search for high-tryptophan foods that are also low in other amino acids and got these:
dairy products, peas, potatoes, soy, adzuki beans, corn, buckwheat, coconut, oat bran, and millet.
(I filtered for reasonable serving sizes, and left out all the results that were fruit, since many of us don't eat much fruit anyway).

One way to experiment with cutting out tryptophan in our bodies may be to purposely eat other protein with any high-tryptophan, low protein foods, to allow the other aminos to prevent some of the absorption of the tryptophan.


http://www.springboard4health.com/notebook/proteins_tryptophan.html