The sadder side of serotonin
1) Serotonin is highly involved in hibernation, lowering body temperature and more. It rises as daylight shortens and helps to trigger many of the metabolic changes that occur with hibernating animals – all of which are synonymous with a reduced metabolic rate, reduced respiratory rate, increased insulin resistance, reduced carbon dioxide levels, reduced energy level, reduced body temperature, increased histamine, reduced peristalsis, and so forth – just to name a few. If those things were good, we would get progressively healthier with advancing age. But they aren’t, and we don’t. Those are all biomarkers of poorer health, lower vitality levels, and increasing risk of degenerative disease. 2) Serotonin is fattening and triggers insulin resistance. Knowing serotonin’s role in hibernation, it should come as no surprise that “antidepressant” drugs like Prozac, which increase serotonin levels through sort of a recycling process, are very fattening and known to dramatically increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Wow. Real shocker there. Increase the levels of a substance that makes you tired and want to sleep all the time and induces weight gain and insulin resistance and watch it cause weight gain and insulin resistance! 3) Serotonin plays a primary role in seasonal affective disorder (SAD). There is a great deal of shocking bull$#@^ when it comes to seasonal affective disorder, as the bass ackwards rumor that seasonal affective disorder has something to do with decreasing levels of serotonin is pervasive, yet increasing darkness and shortened day length causes INCREASES in serotonin, and increases in laying around all day, lifeless, sad, and wanting to shoot your Alaskan self in the face in early January. Oh yeah, “sunlight raises serotonin” says the brainwashed serotonin lovers. That must be why serotonin peaks at midnight when the sun is really shining bright! 4) Serotonin causes depression. I was perusing through a pro-serotonin article and found this contradictory gem lying there, plucked from a book on controlling asthma (more on that in a sec). It says a lot, and is probably part of the reason why I have always found failure to make it outdoors by about 10am to be extremely depressing (modern dwellings are notoriously high in positive ions, which raise serotonin)… 5) Serotonin exacerbates and may even cause asthma. That should be no surprise seeing that serotonin is synonymous with reduced carbon dioxide levels, constricts bronchioles, plays a role in the general inflammatory response (stimulating the pituitary gland), and so forth. It would also make sense that if negative ions decrease seasonal affective disorder that they would also reduce asthma symptoms if the cause (high serotonin) was the same, which they of course do (negative ions reducing asthma symptoms, that is). 6) Serotonin may play a causal role in schizophrenia, autism, and countless other neurological disorders.
