I originally posted this in Forum Feedback because the subject came up there. I was asked to re-post it here. Please understand the possibility of new medicaitons from the clinical studies I found is sheer speculation on my part, and anyone who thinks this applies to them should ask a neurologist. Or take a neurologist some printout and ask what it means.

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Hi Ellie,

I just thought of something you might want to ask your doc about. You mentioned seizures connected with the withdrawal of caffeine. Surprisingly, researchers have found that people who drink coffee are somewhat less likely to develop Parkinson's Disease (PD), and that caffeine works on one kind of "A" receptor cells in the brain. They set about finding a drug for PD that would work on similar receptor cells, and sure enough, if you block the A2A receptors (name of the brain chemical or neurotransmitter is adenisone), the overall level of dopamine (which we lack) in the brain goes up. There's an experimental drug called istradefylline (or KW-6002 as its experimental name) which is an A2A receptor antagonist (blocker, sort of). I have been on istradefylline for about 2 years as a participanat in the clinical studies, and at least in my case, it has a moderately beneficial effect on my ability to move. I was thinking your doc might have a clue as to whether something like this would help you, and if not, maybe ask another neurologist.

Hmmm... I just searched PubMed ( www.pubmed.org ) on "A2A receptor antagonist and seizure" (without the quotes) and found several articles showing that they're trying out this type of drug on rats at NIH (National Institutes of Health). Also just googling on the same phrase yields some very interesting results.

Hope this is of interest.

Jaye
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You can learn to use the public medical library (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/) with simple tutorials they have there for free. You can look up words in a medical dictionary at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html.
Don't be medically in the dark. Learn and be in charge of your life (no one else is that into it, LOL).

Jaye

Oh! What a brilliant post!

Thank you for making this post.

So many of us are bombarded with how we'd feel better if only we gave up coffee... Thank you so much!!!!!! (for taking away the guilt!)

(((((((Jaye))))))))

Also, I love the info about PubMed... I didn't know that. that's Useful!

I know coffee helps automomic dysfunction like orthostatic hypertension.

headache cure

Interesting about adenisone. I recently had a nuclear stress test and thought my chest was going to crush from the rush of that stuff. I guess my black coffee habit keeps natural levels of it in check.

Do they inject adenisone for a stress test, or what do you mean?

Jaye

yes jaye, adenisone. It was AWFUL! I just got detailed billing for the procedure and it said per 30mg, so I assume that's what they pumped in my vein. I could actually feel the severe crushing chest pain in waves like clockwork. it must have been when it cycled back to my heart each time.

I meant to say orthostatic hypotension in my previous post, not hyper.

ps- I had a nuclear stress test where they used adenisone to speed up my heart, because I can't walk on the treadmill at all.

of the system posted by Jaye...

http://www.adenrx.com/about-adenosine.html

receptor stuff is hard to imagine, so a graphic really helps.

and here is the status of the drug pipeline:
http://www.adenrx.com/pipe.html