As far as I know, scientific literature has overwhelmingly found benefits to regular theanine consumption, rather than no benefit. Where have you read the opposite?
Personally I take ~400mg/day, in conjunction with 200mg of caffeine. I’m not looking for benefits though so I haven’t got data; all I can say is I haven’t noticed negative effects.
That first study appears to be non-blinded, so I tend to discount it. I wasn’t aware of that second review. I’ll take a look. At a glance, most of the studies seem to be included in the 2020 review I did cite previously and I don’t seem to see much claim that it helps for stress–in fact, the opposite. It looks like the claim is that it helps with sleep and/or ADHD.
That said, as far as I know, theanine is very likely to be completely safe. And I think it’s totally possible given all the evidence that it does have a small effect on stress/anxiety and maybe some other things. So I don’t think there’s really any reason not to take it. I’m just 95% convinced that the people who claim it’s lifechanging for stress/anxiety are delusional.
Ah, fair enough - blinded is preferable of course, no argument here. It’s not enough for me to discount it entirely by itself is all.
I’m just 95% convinced that the people who claim it’s lifechanging for stress/anxiety are delusional.
I hadn’t heard about this but it totally makes sense that people would hype it like that.
I think the proposal for your it helps with stress is that the same mechanisms which provide benefits for sleep also work to reduce production of stress-induced hormones like cortisol. That does make sense to me; I’d need a biochemist to tell me if it’s right or wrong and why, though.
This study was twenty times larger than yours, had a higher bar to clear for academic rigor, and found benefits: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27396868/
And this meta-study finds consistent long-term benefits when reviewing the methodology and results of other studies: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11616108/
As far as I know, scientific literature has overwhelmingly found benefits to regular theanine consumption, rather than no benefit. Where have you read the opposite?
Personally I take ~400mg/day, in conjunction with 200mg of caffeine. I’m not looking for benefits though so I haven’t got data; all I can say is I haven’t noticed negative effects.
That first study appears to be non-blinded, so I tend to discount it. I wasn’t aware of that second review. I’ll take a look. At a glance, most of the studies seem to be included in the 2020 review I did cite previously and I don’t seem to see much claim that it helps for stress–in fact, the opposite. It looks like the claim is that it helps with sleep and/or ADHD.
That said, as far as I know, theanine is very likely to be completely safe. And I think it’s totally possible given all the evidence that it does have a small effect on stress/anxiety and maybe some other things. So I don’t think there’s really any reason not to take it. I’m just 95% convinced that the people who claim it’s lifechanging for stress/anxiety are delusional.
Ah, fair enough - blinded is preferable of course, no argument here. It’s not enough for me to discount it entirely by itself is all.
I hadn’t heard about this but it totally makes sense that people would hype it like that.
I think the proposal for your it helps with stress is that the same mechanisms which provide benefits for sleep also work to reduce production of stress-induced hormones like cortisol. That does make sense to me; I’d need a biochemist to tell me if it’s right or wrong and why, though.