With all the hormones and whatnot inside. Dopamine, adrenaline, melatonin, whatever. Also, there’s this Hunter S. Thompson bit on the… pineal gland?
If it had an effect on you, wouldn’t it be a really messed up high, all over the place? With uppers, downers etc mixed? (Not including the emotional implications of eating raw human brains.)
To answer the first one:
My understanding is that it’s basically impossible to get these hormones through oral pathways.
Mostly because they break down in stomach acid or can’t cross the blood brain barrier.
And finally, if all that were solved, these hormones are typically short lived and are quickly lost.
Which is why, say you are low on dopamine. We don’t give people dopamine pills, but instead some other medicine that promotes higher levels of dopamine.
We don’t actually promote higher levels of dopamine as far as I know. Dopamine agonists work by mimicing what dopamine does to your nervous system. It doesn’t actually produce any more. Also you can be given dopamine intravenously. It is mostly used to raise blood pressure in newborns. But you are right. For other uses, its smarter to mimic it, because of how short it lasts.
We do, however, promote a higher concentration of serotonin with SSRIs. We do that by blocking natural inhibitors that destroy serotonin after being used. This way we can use them more before they die off.
I used to think that these hormones might break down in stomach acid as well, but then I discovered melatonin fruit gummies, which supposedly help you sleep. These gummies are what really inspired this question. (The ones I have are mango flavored, not brains flavored, btw, in case you were wondering)
Melatonin also breaks down in your stomach. It’s absorbed through the mouth and tongue while chewing. After that, most of the rest is lost. That’s why Melatonin pills require higher doses to do anything. The medical science world is still split if any of the fancy melatonin you gobble up in all those gummies can cross the blood brain barrier at all.
So the same rules apply.
Overall its very inconsistent due to the first pass effect of the liver as well. Anything absorbed from the alimentary canal goes through the liver first and the liver is very effective at breaking down lost hormones.
I think melatonin is more the exception than the rule.
Testosterone needs to be injected and has a very short half life.
A quick Google shows Dopamine also needs to be injected and has a half life of one minute, so is only used as an IV drip.
I was wondering, thanks for the flavor drop!