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DRUG TEST
Mood swing
BY NINA WILLDORF

1:15 p.m. I’m stressed. I have to file three stories by the end of the day. My phone keeps ringing. E-mails come in faster than I can delete them. And if I don’t pick up my dry cleaning tonight after work, I won’t have anything to wear tomorrow. Making matters worse, I’ve had only a bowl of cereal and two cups of coffee today.

I feel like crap.

My plan? Drink some Adara. If all goes as promised, I should be a silly-happy, goo-goo-eyed mass of chill within 30 minutes. Bring it on.

A "stress relief" beverage formulated by MIT scientists a few years ago, Adara supposedly boosts levels of serotonin in the brain — which is also, as it happens, what Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Paxil, and other antidepressants do. Until now, the powdery drink has been available as a weight-loss tool only at the Triad Weight Management Center at McLean Hospital. More recently, Dr. Judith Wurtman teamed up with two other doctors to form a stress-relief program — called, oddly enough, Adara. Part of their regimen includes sipping a cocktail of Adara twice a day — and they’ve just it made available to the rest of us.

The fruity drink, which comes in a powder that is then dissolved in water, basically contains a concentrated mix of carbohydrates, explains Wurtman. "When you eat carbohydrates — and the drink is only carbos — within about 30 minutes, your brain makes more serotonin, and serotonin is a chemical naturally found in the brain involved with regulating our mood." She adds, "Serotonin calms you down, makes you feel focused, allows you to do things in sequence, and decreases your appetite."

1:40 p.m. Already, I must admit, my mind is getting foggy. I feel sort of, ahhh, groggy, a little head-heavy. I pass a few sips off to my co-worker with a silly grin. "I think I feel something," I slur. He looks at me oddly, takes a few sips, and then passes it back, shaking his head and turning back to his computer screen. Ever the skeptic, I blame my toothy grin on the placebo effect. Maybe I just think I should feel better, so I do ... Still, there’s no denying I’m smiling.

These days, it’s hard to find a beverage that doesn’t promise peace, love, and happiness — thanks to power boosts of medicinal herbs and the like. In the Phoenix a few years back, Stephen Heuser wrote about SoBe Zen Blend. Drinks like that, and all the promises on their labels, are bunk, says Wurtman. "We developed this drink at MIT, which has a patent on it. When we developed it, it took us months of monitoring blood changes," she explains. "We put together a combination of carbohydrates in a particular concentration to increase serotonin levels as fast as possible. I don’t know what’s in the other drinks, but I’m sure they don’t have enough, and they don’t have the right kinds of carbohydrates."

2 p.m. Hmmm. Maybe Wurtman could use a little Adara ...

2:15 p.m. I spill some Adara on my pants — my last pair of clean pants. The pink beverage seeps in quickly, leaving splotches on my inner quads. Whatever.

Pants, shmants. It must be working.

Adara can be purchased for $2.50 a packet at the Adara Center, 69 Newbury Street, or by calling (866) ADARA-88 or (617) 375-0500.

Issue Date: May 9 - 16, 2002
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