Originally Posted by soccertese

think about it, dopamine agonists have a similar structure to dopamine - otherwise they wouldn't bind to dopamine receptors in the brain - and a maximum dosage is 32 MILLIGRAMS per day! that's indicative of how little dopamine is needed in the brain.

a healthy person can eat a 2lb steak with loads of dopamine amino acid precursors and not develop dyskinesias feedback mechanisms in a healthy brain prevents you from producing more dopamine than you need. i'm pretty sure a healthy person taking l-dopa does not get dyskinesias, the systems are still in place to keep dopamine at certain concentrations.

in pd, the cells producing dopamine are damaged or dead, you aren't going to produce any more dopamine by ingesting dopamine precursors, a normal diet has more than enough dopamine precursors in it. what does seem to remain are the enzyme systems which break down dopamine which requires a constant supply of l-dopa.

and, healthy people on a hunger strike or fasting do not develop pd symptoms. think about it.

maybe some non-pd individuals may benefit from a diet but if it had any sig. benefit for pd'ers we'd be using it. everything under the moon was tried prior to l-dopa being approved in the 1970's.

advanced pd'ers have to limit their protein intake.