Dopamine

[Daisy]

I have just bought a cookbook called The Dopamine Diet. It claims that you can boost the ‘feel good’ factor by increasing dopamine production. The question is - can it? Can eating more tyrosine foods increase the production of dopamine or (as I have seen suggested somewhere on google) does it simply prep your body to be able to produce dopamine effectively when it is required?

Everything I have found so far is of the “make yourself feel great by eating these dopamine foods” type. I want to get down to the nitty gritty level and see whether this is hype or has some grounding. Although I am building my science knowledge, it is also not necessarily adequate yet to go too nitty gritty so maybe a half way house!

Just reading a bit more about what he is saying and it struck me also… is there a link between dopamine production and being in ketosis? IS that maybe part of the feel-good factor?

[BillJay]

I have just bought a cookbook called The Dopamine Diet. It claims that you can boost the ‘feel good’ factor by increasing dopamine production. The question is - can it? Can eating more tyrosine foods increase the production of dopamine or (as I have seen suggested somewhere on google) does it simply prep your body to be able to produce dopamine effectively when it is required?

Caffeine raises dopamine levels, so they can definitely be manipulated by diet, but unfortunately it’s more complicated than that. For many people it’s not about the amount of dopamine, but more about the time it exists in the synapses of the brain so there’s a class of drugs called dopamine reuptake inhibitors.

@Donna, any thoughts on raising dopamine levels?

Does Caffeine Affect Dopamine Levels? | Livestrong.com

https://www.quora.com/What-can-I-do-to-produce-dopamine-in-my-brain

There are some foods which increase Dopamine levels, but by and large this has the same effect as using several keyboards at your computer to type faster.
For most healthy humans, there is enough Dopamine made that a mind blowing ecstatic high would ensue, if it was all released at once.

Dopamine reuptake inhibitor

[Daisy]

Thanks for all that. I had a feeling it couldn’t be quite as simple as that. I can see the logic in making your body as well prepared to release it as possible and facilitating that by keeping stores topped up etc. But simply saying eating dopamine producing foods makes you feel good? Hmmmmm. Smells a bit off. But then keto can make you feel that way so… also why I wondered if there might be a tie in.