Nuerotransmitter urine tests - don't bother

This isn’t “news”, but I thought, given I’ve been talking about Blood Brain Barrier permeability a bit lately and there is some discussion circulating concerning the relevance of neurotransmitter function in mental health, it might be worth bringing this following study to light:

This is just the relevant part of the outcome:

Validity of urinary monoamine assay sales under the “spot baseline urinary neurotransmitter testing marketing model”

Conclusion
The “spot baseline urinary neurotransmitter testing marketing model” used
to promote sales of urinary monoamine assays is not valid and has no
scientific foundation. For the claims of the marketing model to be
valid, monoamines would need to cross the blood–brain barrier and be in
constant equilibrium with the peripheral nervous system and final urine.
As demonstrated by at least 100 citations, these monoamines do not
cross the blood–brain barrier. While one version of the marketing model
seems to recognize this and asserts that the monoamines are transported
out of the central nervous system, the very literature cited in making
these transporter assertions specifically illustrates that monoamines
are not transported out of the central nervous system to the peripheral
nervous system. For the marketing model to be valid, monoamines found in
the final urine need to be composed primarily of the monoamines from
the peripheral system that are merely filtered and placed in the final
urine as claimed. A significant amount of monoamines found in the final
urine are synthesized by the kidneys. These monoamines perform other
major functions in the body. Therefore, identifying and calling these
monoamine assays of the final urine, “neurotransmitter testing” is not
appropriate.

Save your money, folks.

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“Pee on the cup!”

“No sir, my brain doesn’t reach that far”

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Shouldn’t there be a law that prevents this? Does this even have any backing whatsoever?

I really don’t know enough about law to answer with any authority, but I tend to agree that it should be outlawed. This particular test is just skimming the surface though: there are thousands of similar quasi or psuedo science websites out there they prey on the vulnerable. “Adrenal Fatigue”. Just Google that and you will find a whole host of psuedo-scientists. I think that even half of these MDs actually believe their nonsense too.

BTW: Debunking the Myth of Adrenal Fatigue

I mentioned adrenal fatigue because there are a whole host of expensive (bs) tests offered by websites that peddle this “condition” as click-bait.

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