Yesterday quite by chance my husband was offered and accepted one of those 5-hour energy drinks. I think it's actually called "5 Hour Energy Drink"!
At any rate, he said he felt the best he had felt in a loooong time, giving his symptoms an improvement rating of 20-30%, which is huge (and he is very analytical, so I think his is a pretty fair assessment). It also alleviated, pretty much immediately, his constipation problem, which we had been grappling with for about a week, within 15 minutes (yes) of drinking the drink. Placebo? We don't think so either.

So I dutifully got online and looked up what's in this thing. TONS of B3, B6,
B9, and B12, citicholine, some other stuff....but what caught my eye was this: "L-phenylanaline". I know this is a big component of aspartame which we avoid at our house like the plague, so I was worried, but then realized that this substance by itself, when not combined with the other ingredients in aspartame/nutrisweet, may not be the neurotoxin I thought. In other words, standing alone, l-phenylanaline is not neurotoxic.

What's more....soccertease has a post today under the fava bean thread which discusses how fava beans contain, yes, l-phenylanaline, precursor to dopamine! We were wondering what made the energy drink so effective-was it the B vitamins? the caffeine (they say it has only one coffee cup worth of caffeine, so probably not), what? My bet is on the phenylanaline.

Has anyone had one of these things and experienced a similar effect? We went out and bought a case of the things today, you can get them everywhere, we got ours at CVS.

PS-Had horrible sleep, though, so I don't know if that's related to the energy drink or not...our sleep is pretty lousy most nights anyway. I'll report back as we consume more energy drinks. Love to hear anyone's experiences or thoughts about these drinks.

never tried one. get a little boost from ginseng.

Therapeutic action of D-phenylalanine in Parkinson's disease.

Arzneimittel-Forschung (Aulendorf) 26(4):577-579, 1976

An open field trial of D-phenylalanine was made in 15 patients with Parkinson's disease of 6 months' to 13 years' duration. All medication was suspended 10 days before the trial, and the patients received only 200mg-500mg D-phenylalanine daily, divided into 2 doses, for 4 weeks. Positive results were highly significant in relation to rigidity, walking disabilities, speech difficulties, and mental depression, but no significant therapeutic results were obtained in regard to tremor. The therapeutic action on the total development of the disease may be considered highly significant. The results suggest a special cholinergic origin of tremor in Parkinson's disease, and in these cases a combination of the amino acid with anticholinergic agents should be tried.


A patent was issued for its use in PD in 1984
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4431670.html

Thanks Rick....combine this with all of Paula's comments about acetylcholine and I am very quickly in over my head!

As a matter of fact, I've had pretty much the same kind of positive results. It's interesting. I have a son who is severely ADHD and the drs used to give him various forms of speed to slow him down. I find that the energy drinks have a curious calming effect on me. I time their use very carefully... certainly don't want to drink one after mid afternoon. I've also tried mixing them with an acai smoothie and drinking it slowly over a couple of hours with good results.
I mentioned this result to my md who really didn't take me seriously at all... oh well.

I have found this form to be really great. It's called Livewire and it is a package of individually wrapped chews. Impossible to find in stores but can order online. I love these as they seem to not last quite so long as the liquids and therefore you can control the level and result. I've ordered them online through http://www.cvs.com

My dad avoids caffeine because it seems to increase his shakiness.

Have any of you found that to make a difference?

tried 4 tsp in water this morning ...this stuff has me shaking like a dry leaf in gone with the wiind..... mdd

I tried one bottle last week. Half of it, then a quarter twice through the afternoon. No shaking problems. No miracles either, but enough positives to keep it on the "test urther list.

Hi,

How exactly does this work for you? Does it boost metabolism of levodopa?
Lessen dyskinesia?

Thanks!

Laura