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Serotonin testing

Best way to test serotonin levels
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Not really that easy to test.  There are some tests, but none that would be that readily available and it's unlikely they would really be accurate other than for that one moment in which you took the test.  Levels will vary by the hour, day, week, month etc.  Also, it's unclear that it would be useful.  While it's certainly possible there are people whose bodies don't effectively process tryptophan, B6 and Vitamin C into serotonin, the problem is, for purposes of mental health you'd have to only test serotonin in the brain.  There is a blood test that tests indirectly for it, and there's a test that looks into your brain but it's not readily available -- probably have to go to the Mayo Clinic to get it done or maybe a top tier university hospital associated with a medical school.  But whether serotonin levels have anything at all to do with causing mental illness is unlikely, though some still cling to this.  If I recall, this theory came out of Eli Lilly when it came out with Prozac, and it was reinforced by a book by a psychiatrist paid by Eli Lilly that became a best seller when that drug was the first SSRI to come out.  They claimed, and the book claimed even more, that this was the end of mental illness, which of course was and is ridiculous and we now know that serotonin levels may have nothing to do with why a person starts to have mental problems.  What we do know is artificially playing with the system of breaking down used serotonin in the brain can make us feel a lot better, but it doesn't cure the disease.  I don't think anyone knows what biological process causes any type of mental illness conclusively.  It is still under study, and if I also recall this correctly, the current neurotransmitter being studied for depression is glutamate, not serotonin, and for anxiety it's trying to unlock how the amygdyla communicates with the adrenal gland.  In neither case has much useful come out yet.  So no matter what your levels turn out to be, your diagnosis and treatment will still depend on some type of professional talking to you and then using trial and error to treat it.  Peace.
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Sorry, I said only test in the brain because most of your serotonin isn't in the brain, it's in the digestive system and blood vessels and does other things than control mood.
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