Years before Peter Kramer began "listening to Prozac" (Kramer, 1993), a
Dutch psychiatrist named L. J. van Hiele was paying rapt attention to 5-HTP,
the intermediate compound between tryptophan and serotonin. "I have never
in 20 years," van Hiele (1980) glowingly recounted, "used an agent which:
(1) was effective so quickly; (2) restored the patients so completely to
the persons thay had been and their partners had known; (3) was so entirely
without side effects; (4) failed so completely in about 50 percent of depressions.
. ."
In roughly 15 clinical trials, 5-HTP has usually outperformed placebo
(and tryptophan) or equalled antidepressant drugs (Poldinger et al., 1991).
In the latest study involving 63 mostly severely depressed patients, it
even outclassed the SSRI Luvox (fluvoxamine), one of Prozac's hottest rivals.
