Question about phosphatidylserine in benzodiazepine withdrawal

[birchswing]

If I am guilty of asking for medical advice, I am wondering if you, dear reader, could point in the direction of a good resource.

As I've mentioned before, I've been on benzodiazepines since childhood and am currently doing a very slow taper. My psychiatrist has encouraged me on several occasions to take some form of phosphatidylserine saying that it helps repair the integrity of the cell walls in the brain and that she doesn't know why but that it helps with benzodiazepine withdrawal based on her experience with patients.

Given my previous experiences with psychiatry, I am what you would call extremely careful with anything I put in my body. Interestingly, when you start to Google search phophatidylserine and start typing ben, it will autosuggest:

phosphatidylserine benzodiazepine withdrawal
and
phosphatidylserine benzo withdrawal

So I guess this is something other people are talking about.

There are a lot of scientific articles that come up about how phosphatidylserine influences benzodiazepine receptors.

In short, I don't understand the articles.

My concern is that the effect of taking phosphatidylserine would simply be to potentiate the effect of the benzodiazepines, in which case I'm not withdrawing. If it enhances the function of benzodiazepine receptors, maybe it's better to take AFTER finishing tapering. If it's only enhancing the effect now, maybe it's akin to a person taking grapefruit juice with their medicine to get more effect.

Here is where I know you will say to ask my doctor. But I have. And she's a bright woman. But she doesn't have an answer to these questions.

In reality, I don't want medical advice. I want to be able to understand these scientific papers. There appear to be scores of them. Here is just one as an example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2538706

But you can find many more.

The fact that a lot comes up when you search for phosphatidylserine and benzodiazepine to me makes it seem like there is *some* connection. I just don't know if it's a good one for me.

I will let the powers that be decide whether I have crossed the boundaries of this forum.

If you cannot proffer any advice, who would be the type of person to ask questions like this to?

My psychiatrist received a paid vacation to Israel from the company that makes one particular brand of phosphatidylserine that she promotes, so I do question her bias a bit (it must be said though that for my area she is a very good psychiatrist). There are of course other sources of phosphatidylserine over the counter or even in everyday foods, so I am not concerned about having to buy into the brand she is promoting. My goal is to simply understand what it does that relates to benzodiazepine receptors and benzodiazepine drugs.

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[birchswing]

I'm going to try Ceke's technique, and give this a bump 🙂

Really don't want medical advice, just if a kind, caring soul would help me understand what these journal articles on phosphatidylserine and benzodiazepine receptors mean! Thank you!

 

[shan564]

That paper means very little. All it's really saying is that phosphatidylserine increases the sensitivity of GABA receptors to benzos in the cortex, and vice versa in the hippocampus. The clinical implications of that are not studied. From a quick PubMed search, I couldn't find any data on this.
Also, they don't specify in the abstract how they delivered the phosphatidylserine, and you can't access the full article online because it's too old. It's basically a phospholipid, so I'd imagine that taking it orally would cause it to be broken down like any other fat in stomach acid. Looking at another study of phosphatidylserine liposomes, it looks like they injected it directly into the peritoneum of rats, which seems like it would work. But for humans, I'd imagine that the potential complications of an intraperitoneal injection would outweigh the potential benefit.
Also, that study tested a 15mg/kg dose. Looking at phosphatidylserine supplements online, they are sold in 100mg doses. To give yourself a dose comparable to the rats in that study, you'd probably have to take 10-15 tablets at a time depending on your size. It doesn't look like there's much research on what happens if a human takes that big of a dose.
But this is all conjecture based on very little data. Maybe your psychiatrists knows something more if she's recommending this.

 

[birchswing]

That paper means very little. All it's really saying is that phosphatidylserine increases the sensitivity of GABA receptors to benzos in the cortex, and vice versa in the hippocampus. The clinical implications of that are not studied. From a quick PubMed search, I couldn't find any data on this.
Also, they don't specify in the abstract how they delivered the phosphatidylserine, and you can't access the full article online because it's too old. It's basically a phospholipid, so I'd imagine that taking it orally would cause it to be broken down like any other fat in stomach acid. Looking at another study of phosphatidylserine liposomes, it looks like they injected it directly into the peritoneum of rats, which seems like it would work. But for humans, I'd imagine that the potential complications of an intraperitoneal injection would outweigh the potential benefit.
Also, that study tested a 15mg/kg dose. Looking at phosphatidylserine supplements online, they are sold in 100mg doses. To give yourself a dose comparable to the rats in that study, you'd probably have to take 10-15 tablets at a time depending on your size. It doesn't look like there's much research on what happens if a human takes that big of a dose.
But this is all conjecture based on very little data. Maybe your psychiatrists knows something more if she's recommending this.

Thank you very much! Your laying out the complexities and limitations of the study is helpful in at least knowing that it's much more complicated than I thought--although I already knew it looked quite complicated.

The one my psychiatrist really likes is called Vayarin, which is phosphatidylserine somehow bonded to an omega-3 molecule. It's made by Vaya Pharma, which is the prescription marketing arm of Enzomytec, which also makes a lot of the phosphatidylserine you can buy over the counter (marketed as PS-Sharp) both in forms bonded to omega-3 and just regular phosphatidylserine (it appears they sell the same product that is prescription only as an over the counter supplement under a different name). The bonded type that is prescription-only (sold as Vayarin) is approved in the US to treat ADHD, but it has orphan drug status, which I believe means it doesn't have to meet a lot of requirements that drugs do. According to my psychiatrist, the type bonded to an omega-3 molecule more easily crosses the blood-brain barrier.

I'm seeing my psychiatrist soon and will talk to her more about this.

 

[whopper]

This is interesting territory but I don't know of any strong data supporting phosphatidylserine's use. I have seen some data (years ago) that it could help with memory.

I did a search and I am seeing this being used on and recommended on several forums though I also do not see any evidenced-based research backing it up. Even if it did work it could simply be placebo effect.

What we'll need here is a double-blinded placebo controlled trial. Anyone?

 

[birchswing]

This is interesting territory but I don't know of any strong data supporting phosphatidylserine's use. I have seen some data (years ago) that it could help with memory.

I did a search and I am seeing this being used on and recommended on several forums though I also do not see any evidenced-based research backing it up. Even if it did work it could simply be placebo effect.

What we'll need here is a double-blinded placebo controlled trial. Anyone?

I like your spirit!

Fortunately/unfortunately, there is a huge benzo population, so getting a sample would be no problem. And phosphatidylserine in its various forms is already recognized as safe.

I guess you would have two groups, each tapering benzodiazepines, and have one group receive phosphatidylserine while doing so, and the other a "sugar pill." And maybe a third group takes nothing.

Since I am chicken about everything, I had my dad try both the Vayarin and OTC phosphatidylserine. Even though it supposedly takes months for it to have an effect, both times he said it made him feel weird. I have an N of 1 and that 1 is more sensitive and paranoid than I am! I pointed out that he gets more phosphatidylserine when he eats chicken liver, and he responded by saying that he loves chicken liver (he really does happen to like it).

Anyway, does this actually seem like something that anyone would study? I bet that Enzomytec company would study it if they knew they could market it for benzodiazepine withdrawal. They had to do controlled studies to be able to market it for ADHD.

 

[hamstergang]

The one my psychiatrist really likes is called Vayarin, which is phosphatidylserine somehow bonded to an omega-3 molecule. It's made by Vaya Pharma

You seem to really like this drug:

Vayacog, Vayarin / Phosphotidylserine, EPA, DHA

Placebos for axis II

What else do you want us to say or know about it?

 

[birchswing]

You seem to really like this drug:

Vayacog, Vayarin / Phosphotidylserine, EPA, DHA

Placebos for axis II

What else do you want us to say or know about it?

I ask so much about it rather than just take it and find empirical evidence of its effects because I am careful. If carefulness were a clinical diagnosis, I would have it. I am careful to an extent that it causes problems.

While it wouldn’t seem that someone who takes benzodiazepines is careful, I am very wary of making more mistakes than I already have (or that I would point out were made on my behalf).

To that end, I still don’t understand how phosphatidylserine in any of its forms works. I don’t like doing things or taking things that I don’t understand. It obviously does something. And as I said in my post above, if it functions as a potentiator of benzodiazepines rather than healing damage in a lasting way, I would rather not take it.

 

[birchswing]

I was finally brave enough to try Vayarin (EPA-enriched phosphatidylserine). I've been taking it for about a week. I don't notice any effect at all so far, which is unusual for me because I normally get anxious about taking anything new. I can tell it's definitely made of fish—you can taste the fish taste even though it's in a capsule.

The people who make this say it takes 2 months to work. And if you look at the forums of moms who use it on their kids with ADHD a lot of them say it magically starts working at the 2 month mark. Of course, it's already been suggested to them that it will work at the 2 month mark, so hard to know the significance of that.

I guess I didn't really have anything valuable to add, but since I tested everyone's patience with asking about this stuff so much, I thought there might at least be some satisfaction in knowing that I finally tried it. I plan to keep taking it as it seems inert at the moment and doesn't seem to have hurt anyone who's tried it so far.