It’s also ready sold OTC.
Instead people just sit around and do meta studies on meta studies on correlation and publishing whatever statistical anomalies they can find.
Choline a key component in Acetylcholine is the primary neurotransmitter used in your hippocampus. Its an excitatory neurotransmitter meaning it turns neurons on. The hippocampus is a massive parallel feedback circuit that when over stimulated can and will begin to seize. In fact many people who suffer from seizures have over active hippocampal circuitry. Simply "flooding" the brain with more choline could have very very bad effects.
Likewise, taking choline might not work as the brain actively controls and regulates the contents of the cerebral spinal fluid. Unlike the rest of your body, the capillaries in the brain are not leaky, but instead are enshrouded in the blood-brain barrier and there are active transport proteins for anything that isn't lipid soluble.
Choline is actively transported into the brain and the brain has additional internal mechanisms to regulate the levels of choline.
Lastly, neurotransmitters aren't just floating around in the soup of your brain. They are released by specific neurons which are integrated into specific circuits. Parkinson's disease is a perfect example here. There is tiny region of the brain involved in regulating voluntary movements that is rich in dopamine neurons. For Parkinson's these neurons die off while the rest of the brain remains relatively strong. Simply putting dopamine into the brain doesn't fix the issue you need to up the dopamine released by these specific neurons.
The treatment here is l-dopa which is a precursor to dopamine which does this, but once those neurons are gone they're gone and there is little we can do to stop the disease.
So if this works for l-dopa why won't it work for choline? My guess is because of the tight regulation the brain has around choline levels as its needed to prevent the hippocampus from seizing up.
Trials cost millions and in this case would require a number of different expertise, meta studies on the other hand is just reading and statistical analysis with knowledge of the biases of papers and assessing them critically and they don't cost millions.
"Dietary Choline Supplements, but Not Eggs, Raise Fasting TMAO Levels in Participants with Normal Renal Function: A Randomized Clinical Trial"
> Choline is a dietary precursor to the gut microbial generation of the pro-thrombotic and pro-atherogenic metabolite trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO).
You can get diagnosed with ‘anxiety’ when you’ve been in a hard circumstance for a while, since it’s simply a self-reporting questionnaire on levels of concern. That’s not a way to determine pathology - how do they tell when it’s appropriate behavior, eg when you’re actually in a dangerous situation.
This economy, since the financial crisis, has had weak employment (when you factor in not-in-workforce trends over the last 50 years), being under-employed for a long time is a threat to life. You can be in a location or situation where you’re blind to a loss of economic opportunity because there is so much misinformation. Anxiety is not maladaptive then.
This happened to me, and when my situation finally began to improve after a change in direction, my anxiety went down. Before I made that change, I found anti-anxiety meds put me in a dysfunctional ‘happy’ state, that made it harder to course correct or care about my reality. So I quickly stopped taking them last year, shortly after receiving them. And yet a diagnosis was made then, and looking at my medical report, this so called disease remains on my medical record. Ridiculous. All that self-reporting showed was normal human behavior.
Luckily, at the worst time, I also hedged by seeing separately a psychologist who helped me understand through a series of interviews that all my behavior was appropriate to my situation.
Uh.
I went to another doc who diagnosed me with and started treating me for ADHD. Boom. Anxiety gone. Turns out I was just super anxious about having a hard time working on the un-shiny things I needed to be working on.
However, I'm glad things are working out for you :)
If you think a doctor is wrong, they very well might be, particularly if you have already done your homework. This is not the old days, where medical knowledge is exclusively available to doctors. In fact, it is a huge risk to go in unprepared and ignorant of the possibilities, because misdiagnoses are not uncommon if critical symptoms get overlooked due to the patient not presenting them.
Ask yourself not how many doctors graduated with honors. Ask yourself how many barely graduated after cheating their way through the program and are now faking their way through life.
Choline gives me a severe stiff neck and makes me unable to sleep. I have experimented with many supplements and it was one of the most consistent and unfortunate effects I ever got from one.
I feel like a lot of the studies coming out lately are trying really hard to corelate information and join the meta-studies wagon.
Mindfulness meditation also helps with consistent action to understand where my mind and body are at each day.
Research - Functional properties of bioactive compounds from Spirulina spp.: Current status and future trends (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9513730/)
I like to take it with Psyllium Husk Fiber / Metamucil to help increase the fiber in my diet since the higher dosage is like eating a lot of kale at one time, it can move through you super quickly.
Here are some studies that I commented before that I have read that has helped with learning more about the supplements and the dosages depending on what you are experiencing:
- High-dose supplementation of Chlorella and Spirulina increases beneficial gut Bacteria in healthy ICR mice: A 90-day feeding study (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2025.106796)
- Spirulina in Clinical Practice: Evidence-Based Human Applications (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3136577/)
- Effect of spirulina and chlorella alone and combined on the healing process of diabetic wounds: an experimental model of diabetic rats (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8212205/)
- Beneficial Effects of Spirulina Consumption on Brain Health ( https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14030676) This is a new study that I found, that I'm going to read, but it shows the impact on neuroinflammation, and from experience the supplement has helped me with inflammation, and why I think it has helped with my ADHD/Anxiety.
On a meta note, I have a deep love and appreciation for people like yourself who share this kind of info. It's been quite helpful for me on my own health journey.
The studies listed as part of this thread show people taking 3-4 grams per day for 8 weeks... that's less than 1% of choline RDI. Not very relevant to our conversation.
It's something that should be watched as you take it and/or discussed with a doctor if you are dealing with other health conditions.
Neither spirulina nor chlorella are good sources of choline. For example if you had to take spirulina you'd need about 6 cups per day to reach RDI. Way to risk getting elevated uric acid, vitamin A overload or a slew of other intestinal issues.
Compare with 3-4 eggs... or 90g of beef liver I know what I would take.
I thought vegatables = good? You can never eat too many greens I think youll find is the prevailing wisdom
Like 120 eggs a month, 1400 eggs a years. That is what you envision as the healthier alternative?
However if you don't like the idea of trying new things, and just want something in pill form, honestly lecithin or even better citicoline is the way to go in my opinion
that's how most people never experience anxiety in most parts of the world.
no need for drugs, medicines etc.
Citation needed? And how much is 'most'?
But yeah, our ancestors lived in constant danger of getting eaten by sabre tooth tigers, freezing in the snow, catching maalria, and, in general, watching terrible things happen to their tribe.
They had no therapy, no supplements, no self help section on the cave wall art.
They were forced into a continual outward focus with no time for navel-gazing.
They carried on through all exigencies, and succeeded mightily.
ulbu•2h ago
Proofread0592•1h ago
> This suggests that chronically elevated arousal in AnxDs may increase neurometabolic demand for choline compounds without a proportionate increase in brain uptake, leading to reduced tCho levels. Reduced cortical NAA suggests compromised neuronal function in AnxDs. Future studies may clarify the clinical significance of reduced cortical tCho and the possibility that appropriate choline supplementation could have therapeutic benefit in anxiety disorders.