S-adenosyl-L-methionine, or SAM-e, is not actually an herb, dietary nutrient, vitamin or a hormone. It is actually a synthetic chemical that can be produced by the body. It is found in your cells and is essential to a variety of biochemical processes. This includes cell maintenance and nerve function which makes up its primary responsibility. It works well with and is considered to be part of L-methionine which is an essential amino acid. SAM-e got the researchers attention when they looked at how the body made it and how some have more SAM-e than others. The people that produced a large amount of SAM-e had significant health benefits over those who didn’t. Now SAM-e has been made into a supplement that can be used for a variety of health conditions such as depression, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia as well as liver disease. In people who show a lot of pain it was noticed that they were deficient in SAM-e which is a known pain reliever without the stomach irritation found in many aspirins. It has been used in Europe for a long time and is even sold as a prescription for arthritis, liver disease as well as depression. Thought to be more powerful than many anti-depressants without the side effects, many doctors in Europe and America are recommended their patients to try this before the more powerful anti-depressant drugs. SAM-e is produced in the liver and uses both vitamin B12 and folic acid in the synthesis of SAM-e. If you do not have enough of either of those nutrients then it can cause you to be deficient, especially in the area of the central nervous system. This happens in the case of liver cirrhosis, heart disease, depression and Alzheimer’s disease which means that the more you have of SAM-e in your body; the less likely you are to be at risk for these diseases.