Dear nexus,

I'm now approaching the graduation in Herbalism, a university degree here in Italy, so I'm starting to write my thesis.

It will be about serotonin precursor 5-htp, the Griffonia Simplicifolia etract, as antidepressant and for weight loss.

I would like to make a nice job, as many can understand here I'm in love for serotonin, and would like to homage my favorite and most enlightening neurotrasmittor with this thesis.

So I thought that maybe you guys have some nice ethnobotanical datas, link, ebooks, I'd like to make a good chapter about it, or if you know something interesting about this plant, please post it.

Thanks,

Ari

Sorry for bump, I would like to know how would you approach an extraction of 5-htp from Griffonia seeds... since is not an alcaloid, and I've never extracted an aminoacid, I'd really appreciate some help.
Thanks!

chiedi a benzyme!

buona fortuna

Aminoacids are zwitterionic molecules; as their name indicates, they are both bases and acids. Extracting an amino acid is easy, just make an aqueous extract, or tincture etc...Isolating an aminoacid to relative purity requires mastery of separation techniques - you'll most definitely need a chromatographic separation in the beginning followed by a isoelectric focusing of your amino acid of interest in a pH gradient - all of which tough stuff to do at home!

Benzyme could definitely offer more insight on the technical side but still the consensus will be that it'll be tough business to undertake such a task.

You're right, Infundibulum, I ment isolating, not extracting.
Unfortunatly, I can do a TLC, but I don't have the tools to do an HPLC... hope it's not strictly needed. I could start with a defat, an idroalcolic extraction but then...

I don't want to disturb Benzyme with a pm, hope he'll get to see the topic.

If I get to some results I'll post.