Treating Depression with Glycine and Amino Acids

Clinical depression is a very serious condition, which could intensely affect one’s course of life because it can bring down peoples’ moods to depths that could make them quite incapable of doing a lot of daily functions. While most people already have a working idea of what depression is and how to treat it with psychoactive drugs, counseling and coaching, people are also looking for alternative ways to treat depression without. One of the treatments that are now gaining popularity is the use of glycine or other amino acids to help improve the condition of depressive patients.

What Depression Is Exactly...

Clinical depression is basically the emotional state, which is characterized by an abnormal degree of guilt, sadness, feelings of worthlessness, withdrawal from social relations, and the lack of sleep, appetite, sleep, sexual desires, or interest and enjoyment of usual activities. While practically all people have experienced their own episodes of sadness in the course of one, the level of sadness faced by individuals with depression is different. The sadness in depression is more frequent, could happen for prolonged periods, and may greatly ruin life’s daily function.

What Could Cause Depression?

There have been several factors discovered to cause depression, and at times, these causes go in together with others. In the psychoanalytic perspective of depression, it is asserted that depression could be caused by extreme anger that is directed inward, to one’s self, instead of outward, which results into self-blame, self-abuse, and ultimately, depression.

The cognitive perspective of depression, meanwhile, asserts that depression can caused by pessimistic views of the self, of the future and the world in general. These negativistic views form some negative beliefs which in turn form negative biases about one’s self, causing excessive sadness.

Biological factors may also cause clinical depression. Inherited dispositions may also make one predisposed to get depressed – people who have blood relatives that have or had depression could be more likely to have depression as well, compared to those who not. Some hormones or the lack of them may also cause clinical depression, which is why it is rather common for some women who gave birth to have a certain bout of sadness known to many as post-partum depression.

Nutritional Deficiencies and Depression

Another biological cause for clinical depression is the abnormal level, either the presence or deficiency of certain nutrients in the body. Among the important nutrients are amino acids, particularly glycine, which perform important roles in the proper regulation of neurological functions. When the body is deficient of glcyine and other amino acids, depression may happen.

Glycine, or L-Glycine is a type of non-essential amino acid that is used by people’s bodies to make proteins. Glycine also acts as a type of neurotransmitter that is important for the proper function of the central nervous system. For proper mental and psychological health, proper levels of glycine should be present, otherwise, certain brain receptors such as the n-methyl D-aspartate receptor complex may not work well, causing problems like Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and depression.

Glycine as Treatment for Depression

Fortunately if depression caused by deficiencies in amino acids may be treated by normalizing the body’s amino acid levels. Glycine can be used to treat neurological disorders such as depression. To know more about the use of glycine to treat depression, consult with a licensed psychiatrist.

Depression need no longer be treated with narcotics, with glycine and amino acid replacement therapy, depression and its symptoms may be relieved.