The article is not intended to criticize people who might use oxytocin carefully as responsibly in lieu of a painkiller or antidepressant.

My concerns about widespread use of oxytocin stem from comments that the hormone could be sprayed on naive restaurant customers or be used by marketers to to attract people to a certain product.

Since oxytocin is a hormone, and hormonal systems are delicately balanced by numerous feedback pathways, I am just offering warning that use of the drug be approached with caution. While oxytocin may make people feel good there is simply not enough research yet to confirm that if taken at high levels, carefully regulated hormonal pathways might not become impaired.

Vitamin D is also a hormone/secosteroid and I believe that wanton supplementation of the substance is greatly hindering individuals with chronic disease. It would be nice to see those companies that promote oxytocin exercise more caution than the vitamin D community when it comes to allowing the public to make decisions about how to alter their hormone levels. It seems like oxytocin might be best prescribed by a physicians rather than being directly marketed to consumers.

Best,

Amy

While the depression and rise in symptoms often seen postpartum may be due to in part oxytocin withdrawl, women also generally experience an increase in disease symptoms after a pregnancy due to the fact that the Th1 pathogens are able to spread with greater ease during gestation.

A woman’s level of 1,25-D is naturally up-regulated during pregnancy, and since 1,25-D is already high in patients with inflammatory disease due to VDR blockage, combined high levels of 1,25-D proceed to block antimicrobial peptide production via the nuclear receptors. This means that during pregnancy, women are more increasingly immunocompromised and can more easily pick up the Th1 pathogens.

So after giving birth, women often start to display more signs of the mental and physical diseases caused by the Th1 pathogens. You’ve probably noted that women often seem to become increasingly ill with each subsequent pregnancy.

This article discusses 1,25-D, immunosuppression, and pregnancy in greater depth:

http://bacteriality.com/2008/03/09/cognitive-dysfunction/

Best

Amy

No woman (or at least I’ve never met or heard of them) escapes the “baby blues” and many experience mental illnesses that can last from weeks to years. Illnesses that run the gamut from moderate depression to florid psychosis complete with homicidal tendencies(anybody else remember Andrea Yates?).

A big part of my practice consisted of providing social support through this time. I really don’t want to have to open a clinic for “oxy-addicts”

Well, there you go..it appears you’ve already witnessed some of the murky implications I envision from oxytocin supplementation. Thanks for sharing your experience. I would expect that people might “crash” if they tried to immediately stop a substance that was artificially enhancing their mood.

I can definitely see oxytocin being abused in order to make people more suggestible. The idea of spraying it on restaurant patrons is, in my opinion, already in that league. “Honey, do you want dessert?” “Yes, I think I”ll have five of those huge chocolate cakes…this place is great!” Then later on “Wait a second, I just gained five pounds..what the &#@#!”

Best,

Amy

So we have a drug with that causes docility and suggestibility, followed by possibly severe withdrawl. Yeah, I want to be part of that.

While it could be possible, I’m not sure there is a correlation between your high cholesterol levels and your possible oxytocin-related symptoms. The cholesterol pathways are so complex and cholesterol is the precursor for so many of the bodies substances that, in my opinion, it would be pushing it to say that there is any direct relationship between cholesterol levels and oxytocin levels.

Best,

Amy

Thanks for pointing out the cholesterol connect. Maybe that’s why I feel so good, my cholesterol has been extremely high (it has dropped 60 points on the MP in 18 months), with great good to bad cholesterol ratio. Given what has been written about cholesterol drugs–certain statins (lipitor, I think)–making women (and not men) stupid, perhaps it also has the affect of depressing both women and men. Maybe that is why so many people are on anti-depressants–that is, they are on cholesterol lowering drugs.

According to the article about oxytocin on Wikipedia, “The oxytocin receptor is a G-protein-coupled receptor which requires magnesium and cholesterol.” I’m not sure exactly what they mean by “requires” but it seems that magnesium might be involved in the formation or stability of the oxytocin receptor.

So the substances do seem somewhat connected although I cannot say for sure that I fully understand their relationship.

I’m glad magnesium helps with your symptoms of shyness social interaction etc. I wasn’t aware that it could have such an effect.

Thanks for sharing,

Amy