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Decreased Urinary Output of Tyramine and its Metabolites in Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Susan Bonham Carter ,
M. Sandler ,
B. L. Goodwin ,
P. Sepping  and
P. K. Bridges
Susan Bonham Carter
Affiliation:
Bernhard Baron Memorial Research Laboratories and Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, London W6 0XG
M. Sandler
Affiliation:
Bernhard Baron Memorial Research Laboratories and Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, London W6 0XG
B. L. Goodwin
Affiliation:
Bernhard Baron Memorial Research Laboratories and Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, London W6 0XG
P. Sepping
Affiliation:
The Geoffrey Knight Psychosurgical Unit, Brook General Hospital, London SE18 4LW
P. K. Bridges
Affiliation:
The Geoffrey Knight Psychosurgical Unit, Brook General Hospital, London SE18 4LW
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Summary

Despite dramatic clinical improvement in about one-third of a group of severely depressed, medication-resistant patients one year after modified leucotomy, their relative decrease in conjugated and free tyramine output after an oral tyramine load remained unchanged and abnormal. Whilst a direct deficit in intestinal tyramine-conjugating ability still needs to be finally ruled out, this appears most compatible with a deficit due to bodily metabolic failure, perhaps a deficit in membrane transport which could be an essential aspect of the depressive illness syndrome. Attention is drawn to a similar defect in migraine. The two illnesses may represent a common predisposition which an appropriate triggering mechanism may transform to the florid disease. Biochemical detection of such vulnerability may have important diagnostic and predictive significance.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 132 , Issue 2 , February 1978 , pp. 125 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1978 

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