Tyrosine vs N-Acetyl-Tyrosine

[Mr. White]

I've used L-Tyrosine in the past as a nootropic of sorts and its worked quite well, especially during exams/study time.

Recently i've seen N-Acetyl-Tyrosine pop up at the vendor i use for about x1.5 the price of Tyrosine. The problem is i haven't been able to find any literature on the different bioavailabilities, solubilities, effects, etc to actually differentiate the two.

Does anyone have any information or experience with the these? I'm basically trying to decide whether the increased price is worth it or whether its just a marketing ploy.

 

[Solipsis]

In what doses did you take it? I did not get anything but headaches from L-Tyrosine but the occasional stimulant bender has prompted me to take a modest dose if it (at that dose causing no headache) to 'resupply'.

I know of Acetyl Carnitine but do not know why it is better or only smart as the N-acetyl. That one I have taken as well in my regiment but I am not too sure about that one either.

 

[scoach]

I tried really hard to find credible scientific people comparing L-Tyrosine vs. N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine, but I couldn't find anything except one study that talked about nasal absorption rates of the two; I can't imagine why they would want to study that, but they did. They found that though they had different partition ratios (pretty much measurements of solubility; N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine is more soluble) they absorbed through the nose at the same rate.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jps.2600741210/abstract

The web sites of people trying to sell N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine insist that N-Acetyl works faster, better, and makes more of itself available than plain old L-Tyrosine, on account of its greater solubility in water as compared to plain L. This website is a pretty standard example of this.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...c18l95LqyqqfoFxYA&sig2=fBTMuFqP8Fk8Znj10_CCKg

All I can tell you is that at one point I liked the ups way too much. When I quit taking them and started sleeping again, I was fully expecting a month of lethargy and depression, but I took a chance and spent $10.00 or so on a bottle of 500 mg L-Tyrosine at GNC. The blah period lasted about 5 days and then I was back on my feet and myself again for the most part--in the past, when I've quit, it usually takes about a month or so before I experience anything remotely approaching contentedness.

So what I'm saying is it helped me. I'd say get them both once and take one one day and the other the next, before your brain has a chance to get used to the stuff, so you can really tell the difference. Tyrosine's good stuff, as far as I'm concerned.

I just realized this question is two years old....so if it doesn't help the original guy, hope somebody else is wondering about it.

 

[Solipsis]

When I quit taking them and started sleeping again

For how long were you awake before quitting?
I must be construing this the wrong way..

Can I assume 500 mg is also fine for N-acetyl-tyrosine? It has a higher molar mass so that is less than an equimolar amount of normal tyrosine. But if it has better bioavailability that should compensate for that.

Did you notice any tolerance? A month of lethargy doesn't sound too swell by the way...

 

[pofacedhoe]

what "ups" are you on about- i'm not following as there seems to be missing info

 

[ektamine]

what "ups" are you on about- i'm not following as there seems to be missing info

I'm also curios as to what you are referring to here. Do you mean you were taking the N-acetyl-tyrosine ordered off the 'net too much? Or a different chemical? Or what..

 

[Mr. White]

I'm assuming he mean "uppers" ie stimulants. Tyrosine is a precursor to dopamine, just like 5-HTP is a precursor to serotonin. It can help to replenish you're dopamine stores after a stimulant binge

If solubility is the only difference then i'll just go with tyrosine mixed into a bit more water

Solipsis: what i got from it was never anything overt but i felt like i could go longer (studying, working, etc) without feeling mentally 'drained'. I could get through a 3 hour Fluid Dynamics exam and still feel on the ball, usually i'd hit the wall about 2 hours in.
It seemed to help me with sport too, i'd be dead tired physically but still sharp mentally.
It could well be placebo but its hardly an expensive one

 

[Solipsis]

Hm I do think I can use some of it the coming days, acetylated or not...

What I am wondering, basically, is exactly which psychoactive compounds (drugs or medicine, whatever) are not more effective when esterified?
If the difference is in origin the BBB, maybe it's only limited to centrally acting psychotropics then?

I also keep wondering about the SE, DA, NE, opioid, GABA (and of course the other neurotransmitter) receptors, about how they are distributed through the body? I should probably research that myself, the picture would be complex indeed...
But the real underlying question is then, do these receptors cause the body high? To what extent is analgesia a local effect?
If an opiate painkiller cannot cross the BBB does it not affect opiate receptors throughout the body, which in return send a signal through nerves into the CNS circumventing the BBB?
Does that have to do with different kinds of pain, implying different levels and intensities (which of course there are, if I am not mistaken that is a part of medical school and some others)...
By that logic immodium would have some limited analgesic effects but it doesn't really because of the whole BBB thing right?

Sorry if it seems off-topic or at least more lateral thinking than you can appreciate.
I just reasoned acetyl, propionyl or even other ester groups are used to get a compound through the BBB better such as discussed here for tyrosine vs. acetyl-tyrosine. They could make propionyl-tyrosine, but I still don't know what the general differences are between the resulting esterified compounds...
Dipropionylmorphine was said to be a very good drug I've read. Longer working and smoother? Makes me wonder if that is a general effect of the operation: that propionyls take longer to cleave and necessarily have a more gradual longer time in doing that.

 

[Slapdragonx]

The opiate receptors are hardly spread out through the body, they are mainly in the brain. The other locations are the digestive tract, and the spinal cord.

 

[Solipsis]

Ah okey thats helpful

 

[pema]

And again - an older thread...
But no real answer... And I'm interessted in that. Maybe now somebody has an answer.

The acetyl-group makes the stuff better water soluble. And maybe it really can better cross the blood brain barrier.
When you compare carnitine to acetyl-carntine. or cysteine and acetyl-cysteine. than there is a difference.
And there is also a difference between morphine and heroin. heroin is diacetylmorphine. it can better cross the BBB and is a lot quicker so it gives a better kick when injected compared to morphine. A lot of stuffs work better with an acetyl group. but I don't know if this is the case with tyrosine, too.
when I read what the vendors write then it seems that they actually don't know it, too. they just write that it probably crosses the BBB better. there are no studies on that.
so it seems that it is just not known. producers/vendors just suppose that it can better cross the BBB and that it is more effective but actually nothing is really known.
so the best thing we can get are probably experience reports...

who tried it? who took l-tyrosine and n-acetyl-l-tyrosine and compared it? what was the difference? was it possible to feel a difference?
I never tried that stuff because I always thought, that it won't be possible to feel an effect. but now I bought l-tyrosine and I will try it.
I thought that it's impossible to feel an effect because there are some foods that are high in tyrosine. for example old, ripe cheese. Gruyere cheese shall contain more than 1750mg per 100g. that's a lot. usual l-tyrosine capsules contain 300-1000mg. some people claim to feel an effect after ingestion of 1-2 capsules. but then I should have felt an effect after eating more than 100g Gruyere cheese - and I never did.
And then I searched some bodybuilding internet forums because bodybuilders use l-tyrosine and acetyl-tyrosine as supplement. some bodybuilders use 3-5 grams of tyrosine per day. I never read that somebody reported any mental effects.
I think that a lot people who took 1-2 tyrosine capsules and wrote about the great effects actually just felt a placebo effect.
I am glad about every experience report. how much did you take? did you feel something that was really more than a possible placebo effect?

I will try l-tyrosine the next days. but I am not sure how I shall take it. I will take it on empty stomach because I believe that l-tyrosine competes with other amino acids (like tryptophan) for absorption. so ingestion with proteins are probably not good.
but what about vitamin c or vitamin b6 that are said to be cofactors in some metabolization processes? I don't know if they are good or bad. For example a lot of producers add vitamin b6 to their 5-htp products. b6 is needed for conversion of 5-htp to serotonin but in this combination it will result in conversion to serotonin in the body before it reaches the brain what results in too much serotonin in the body and not in the brain which actually renders the stuff nearly worthless and is bad for your health.
but I don't know nothing about tyrosine and b6 or vitamin c. shall I use it together or shall I avoid this?

when tyrosine has good effects for me than I will try acetyl-tyrosine after that and look if I need a less of that and if it's stronger or quicker.

please post experience reports.
I want to use tyrosine not as nootropic but as supplement for opiate withdrawal and/or PAWS time. any experience with that?

 

[pema]

I now found the following text on a vendor's website:

N-acetyl-L-tyrosine, which is converted in the body to L-tyrosine, is 20 times as soluble in water as tyrosine itself. For this reason, it serves as an efficient supplement for raising tyrosine levels in the body, since undissolved substances are not absorbed from the digestive tract.

In case of (acetyl)tyrosin is has probably nothing to do with crossing the blood brain border.
it just seems that it acetyltyrosine more efficient. you probably just need not so much of acetyltyrosin as tyrosine. maybe you can take nearly 20times less for to get the same effect as with tyrosine.

 

[Transform]

According to this paper, stomach acid will dissolve 3 moles of tyrosine per litre.

In a stomach containing 100mls of acid, this is 50g. I don't think an increase in digestibility is necessary.

 

[Coolwhip]

If you cap it up it probably isn't going to make much of a difference. But the acetyl definitely is easier to take mixed in a protein shake.

 

[paranoid android]

I don't know if L-tyrosine alone does much of anything but i know that taking l_tyrosine with 300mg's of bupropion does something. It basically drove me into a manic state in which 2mg's of risperidone and 300mg's of seroquel a day barely touched. I did get a little boost from it for a few days before i went way too hyper though so maybe at lower doses it wouldn't be so bad.

I don't eat any cheese at all (wee bit intolerant of lactose and that goes double for cheese) but apparently it is also in fish and chicken which i do eat quite abit of so i don't know if i get enough naturally as is. If it was not for the mania id try that experiment again just to make sure it was not a fluke. If anyone wants to pay for my zyprexa id maybe be a human guinea pig :D

 

[beef_bourito]

I've used L-tyrosine for a while but never acetyl-l-tyrosine. For those wondering here is my take on it:
When taken with a high carb-low protein snack (in order to induce an insulin spike and flush out other amino acids) I find it has a stimulating effect. When combined with caffeine (1-2g of matcha [powdered green tea consumed whole] with no caffeine tolerance was sufficient, 1-2c of coffee might be required for those with tolerance) it gave me a noticeable stimulating effect not attributable to the caffeine alone. The "buzz" felt like a mild dose of amphetamine (which I have extensive experience with, having taken dexedrine, as needed, for 4 years now), I'd say it was equivalent to about 3mg of amp, approximately a threshold dose. I also found it helps with amphetamine comedown if taken on an empty stomach or with carbs 2-3hrs after the amphetamine. It also significantly helps with pulling amphetamine-aided all-nighters. I find that I need increasing doses of amphetamine to achieve the same level of stimulation as the night goes on, but if I dose with tyrosine between amphetamine doses I don't need nearly as much total, the dose increases much more gradually.

I've never taken acetyl-l-tyrosine but I'm interested if it will have a different effect. I'll try it when my current supply of l-tyrosine runs dry.