Hello,
I just recently bought some 5-HTP powder, >99,5% purity, for use as a sublingual sleep/mood aid in dosages around 10-20mg.
Ofcourse I never want to take anything before getting all and any information I can find on the substance. This resulted in me finding out that people at some time in the 90's contracted a very serious and potentially fatal condition called Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome, after consuming therapeutic doses of L-Tryptophan which contained some impurity dubbed Peak-X.
Further reading shows this impurity is the result of an error in the newly developed production proccess for L-Tryptophan at Showa-Denko.
Now I also read that some samples of 5-HTP contain the same Peak-X impurity... This is one thing I don't understand, Nearly all availlable 5-HTP is claimed to be extracted from Griffonia simplicifolia seeds, which would make the production proccess completely different from the fermentative proccess used to produce L-Tryptophan at Showa-Denko. So how can they find traces of this impurity in a seed extract from an entirely different production proccess???
Is it ever proven that Peak-X (of which the structure has just recently been revealed) has been the cause of the cases of EMS?? Maybe there where other less obvious impurities which caused the desease?
My little search gave me more questions than when I started looking. Any ideas and/or input are very welcome!
Sincere regards,
Steve
