Has anyone tried this combination? In an article it states that Sarcosine is not effective when taken with Clozapine. Read that some sz patients have had some success. Any advise or knowledge about this issue would be greatly appreciated.
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Hi,
The reason the researchers say that sarcosine does not work with clozapine is because of this one study that was done where no additional benefit was shown for people taking sarcosine and clozapine (whereas with other medications it has shown a substantial benefit for many people).
NOTE: At the bottom of this post I’ve attached the full research paper in case you want to read more about the study.
RESULTS:
Sarcosine produced no greater improvement when co-administered with clozapine than placebo plus clozapine at weeks 2, 4, and 6. Sarcosine was well tolerated and no significant side-effect was noted.
CONCLUSIONS:
Unlike patients treated with other antipsychotics, patients who received clozapine treatment exhibit no improvement by adding sarcosine or agonists at the NMDA-glycine site. Clozapine possesses particular efficacy, possibly related to potentiation of NMDA-mediated neurotransmission. This may contribute to the clozapine’s unique clinical efficacy and refractoriness to the addition of NMDA-enhancing agents.
The size of the sample was 20 patients - so it could have been simply because the sample size was small, or that fewer people are helped by sarcosine who are also on clozapine (clozapine in the USA tends to be a medication of last resort - largely due to the blood draw need to watch for agranulocytosis).
Thats not to say that you couldn’t try it and see how it works.
There seems to be a wide variation in terms of responses on sarcosine as people have reported in the forums here. Some people find it hugely helpful, others not helpful at all.
Sarcosine_lane2006.pdf (124.3 KB)
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Thank you SzAdmin. I will posts my husbands experience to share with everyone. We are waiting for our order.
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My daughter is taking sarcosine with her clozapine and seen tremendous result. Her mood and cognitive functions have improved distinctly.
I would certainly recommend sarcosine as you have nothing to lose since it’s only an amino acid.
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This a year later…is your daughter still taking clozapine and sarcosine and what are the doses, if you don’t mind sharing…thank you.