My 16-month theanine self-experiment

”I’ve long found that tea makes me much less nervous than coffee, even with equal caffeine.”

Well, of course you are less nervous when you avoid taking coffee: it contains a LOT of beta-carbolines which act as MAO-A inhibitors. MAO-A inhibition directly prevents adrenalines from being inactivated by oxidation.

Or maybe it doesn't actually make him less nervous, in which case the beta-carbolines are irrelevant.

In spite of the confidence you're stating this with, it sounds like a serious over-simplification of a very complex dynamic.

How do you define "a LOT"? the only estimate I can find says there's 210mcg/L of beta-carbolines. Mainly harman and norharman, which have a binding affinity for MAO-A of 220nM and 2200nM respectively(lower is more potent). Not earth-shatteringly potent. These compounds have a fairly short half-life and they're reversible.

Doesn't seem to be anywhere close to the potency of MAO inhibition used in psychiatric or entheogenic contexts. I'd be reluctant to attribute too many noticable effects to them.

If by short you mean multiple weeks?

It is known they have a significant effect when consumed together with a weak stimulant, like caffeine or nicotine. Tobacco smoke is another significant source in the human diet.

Occam’s razor. These compounds do exactly what I’ve described, which directly increases feelings of anxiety.

Of course. MAO A/B producing gene variants (including high- and low-activity VNTRs and even complete deletion) are some of the most varied in humans.

Where do you get multiple weeks? From what I can find, harman and norharman both have elimination half-lives shorter than half an hour.

If it was weeks, they would accumulate to very toxic levels in anyone who smokes or has a few cups of coffee a day.

That’s in blood. Both are fat soluble and will get stored in brain fatty tissue where the half-life is multiple weeks.

Your second point is spot on.

Occam's razor helps identify which hypothesis to test first, it doesn't state some truth.

Yes. And it recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements.

Note that 210 mcg/L is 210 ng/milliliter. The molecular weight of norharman is 168.2 g/mol, so the concentration is about 1250 nM/L.

Coupled with frequency of coffee intake and accounting for storage in adipose tissue, levels in vivo could easily exceed binding affinities after just days or weeks of coffee use.

Interesting. Do you have a source on this? I can't seem to find any detailed data on this. Only some suggestions that since they're lipophilic, and are found in higher concentrations in brain tissue, they might accumulate there. I can't find any research analyzing whether they do accumulate in brain tissue and how long they stay there.