We're going to discuss low dopamine symptoms in today's video.
I'll also teach you about how dopamine is made in the body, so that you can more easily
understand what causes a dopamine deficiency.
If you haven't met me before, I'm Dr Janelle Sinclair and on this YouTube channel we discuss
natural remedies for depression and anxiety.
So subscribe and hit that bell button so that you're notified about our new weekly videos.
So let's start with what dopamine is and dopamine deficiency symptoms.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger in the brain, a little bit like
serotonin.
I call dopamine the "feel-good" or reward giving neurotransmitter, as it's thought to
be released in response to pleasurable situations and also stimulates us to seek out that pleasurable
activity.
Dopamine is associated with feelings of euphoria, bliss, motivation, and concentration, and
is also involved in movement, sleep, learning, mood, and attention.
So common Low dopamine symptoms include lack of interest in life and decreased motivation
and drive.
You may feel bored easily.
Also depression, an inability to feel pleasure and feelings of hopelessness.
Fatigue, an inability to focus or impaired concentration, are other low dopamine symptoms.
Poor memory, altered sleep patterns, Restless leg syndrome, resting tremor and Parkinson's
disease, are all symptoms of a dopamine deficiency.
Low dopamine is often found in people with impulsive behaviours and addictions.
Because of the low dopamine levels that they normally have, and the low mood and lack of
interest in life that they'll feel, a person may seek out behaviours that gives a reward,
and consequently a release in dopamine, which then gives them a temporary feeling of pleasure.
This can have benefits if the behaviours they seek is positive such as sports, social, or
maybe working, but be detrimental if the addiction is to food, social media, computer games,
drugs, sex or gambling.
Unfortunately as a person seeks more and more rewarding giving activities, it can deplete
their body of dopamine or they can become less sensitive to it.
This leads to a vicious cycle of someone seeking that release of dopamine, further depleting
their body of dopamine, which leads them to need more and greater intensity of that reward
to give them some pleasure.
Other than these addictive behaviours, there's other causes of low dopamine.
So let's discuss what causes low dopamine levels
To help you understand further causes of dopamine deficiency, I want to first explain how dopamine
is made in the body.
If you understand how dopamine is made, it's very easy to see what some of the common causes
are for a dopamine deficiency, and how to treat it.
So let's have a look at how dopamine is produced.
Dopamine is made from Tyrosine & phenylalanine.
Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid, which means that it's essential that you get
the phenylalanine from your diet.
Phenylalanine is converted into the amino acid Tyrosine in the liver and then tyrosine
must be transported into the brain.
The body needs to have a healthy insulin response to do this.
Once tyrosine is in the brain it is made into Dopa by the enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase and
the cofactors for this are folate and oxygen (which is supplied by iron).
Dopa is then converted into dopamine by DOPA dehydroxylase and vitamin B6 is needed for
this step.
What a lot of people don't realise is that dopamine can be further converted into noradrenaline
and adrenaline, that is norepinephrine and epinephrine, both in the brain and in the
adrenal glands.
Remember noradrenaline and adrenaline are involved in the fight and flight response,
and if someone has long-term stress, they produce a lot of these stress hormones.
With this long-term stress and the adrenal dysfunction that occurs, it can lead to a
dopamine deficiency.
So now if we look at the dopamine production pathway, we can easily identify common causes
of a dopamine deficiency.
Firstly, not having enough of the phenylalanine and tyrosine amino acids, and this may come
from a poor diet or bad digestion.
Secondly having a poor insulin response, which means that tyrosine cannot be transported
into the brain.
Nutritional deficiencies such as low levels of iron, folate and vitamin B6 are also other
causes of low dopamine.
And finally long-term stress causing adrenal dysfunction, as I said can lead to a dopamine
deficiency.
Next week I'll be discussing 8 natural ways to increase low dopamine levels, so check
that out when it becomes available.
And if you're struggling with low mood, watch my video on the 5 biological causes of depression.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.