Tetrahydrobiopterin

So you actually can get genetic abnormalities if you don't have folate available.

Folate is also important for making something called BH4 or tetrahydrobiopterin.

And that's really important for making neurotransmitters, serotonin, melatonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and for nitric oxide production.

so important.

Some people say it's good.

Well, you know, for the most part, it's a good molecule in our body.

But one of the things that happens is if you don't have BH4, when it's being made, instead of making nitric oxide, you actually make a toxic molecule called a p-oxynitrate.

So the same pathway that produces nitric oxide, when you don't have BH4, which it needs for nitric oxide production, it ends up, it doesn't stop.

And alreuteri itself as a microbe in your gut also creates other effects, okay, other than just increasing oxytocin.

It increases this BH4.

That's the cofactor for something called dopamine and serotonin, which are neurotransmitters, which also influence your social behavior and help you to be more social.

And alreuteri helps lower cholesterol.

so that blood can flow.

To make it, that enzyme needs a helper molecule called BH4 and active folate helps keep BH4 topped up.

So if you carry NOS variants and you're low on folate, the enzymes start making free radicals instead of nitric oxide.

You get cold hands, cold feet, poor circulation can be one of the clues.

So nutrients work as a team.

Nothing works in isolation.

Your mood, that BH4 helper I mentioned, is also needed to make serotonin and dopamine.

So you'll feel good and your motivation chemicals.

which rapidly reacts with nitric oxide remaining to produce the very potent oxidant, peroxynitrite.

Now, both oxidants, superoxide and peroxynitrite, will reduce levels of tetrahydrobiopterin, BH4.

And you know why that's significant? Because that's required for normal nitric oxide synthase activity.

So ultimately what happens? You get an elevated ornithine concentration, which of course is going to go to what? Polyamine and proline biosynthesis.

Essential nutrients gatekeeping neurotransmitter production from tyrosine to epinephrine.

Step 1, tyrosine L-DOCA, tyrosine hydroxylase, iron plus BH4.

Step 2, L-DOPE, dopamine, vitamin B6.

Step 3, dopamine norepinephrine, dopamine beta-hydroxylase, vitamin C plus copper.

Dobner et al., Arch Biochem Biophys, 2011.

Georgian Medical Journal News.

The rate-limiting step, iron and BH4, not tyrosine.

The initial conversion of tyrosine to L-DOPA, catalyzed by the enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase, is the metabolic bottleneck of the entire catecholamine pathway.

Chronic stress is going to drive neuroinflammation, which is inflammation in your brain.

And the pro-inflammatory chemicals that your body produces called cytokines are going to deplete something called BH4.

And they are basically a cofactor, something that your body needs to help convert that tyrosine into dopamine in the first place.

Without enough of it, you're not going to be creating enough dopamine from the tyrosine that you do have.

In kind of a bluish color, I've put the nutrients involved in this.

So for tryptophan to convert to 5-hydroxy tryptophan requires BH4, which is basically derived from folate or vitamin B9.

Now, this process here, this chemical reaction also requires iron, which is what Fe is.

It requires vitamin D and it requires vitamin C.