dopamine isn't in foods, we manufacture it in our cells from other amino acids, primarily tyrosine. if it were that simple that taking tyrosine will automatically give us the dopamine we needed in our brains we wouldn't have pd.. pd is caused by the death/damage/inhibition to those few cells in our brains that produce dopamine from tyrosine.

there's like enough tyrosine in an egg or a serving of meat or cheese to supply one's dopamine needs for a week, IF the cells specialized for dopamine production were still working.

i suggest you search the board for tyrosine, this topic has often been discussed.
wish it was just that simple.

Banana, especially the skin, contains dopamine, see:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread152993.html

The problem from the PD point of view is that in normal circumstances dopamine doesn't go through the BBB.

I'm surprised that more work hasn't been done to get around this problem.

John

i stand corrected. do you eat those bananas to get dopamine?

another reason you don't want a lot of dopamine in your bloodstream is it would make you very naseaus, take too much sinemet and see how you feel. so independent of needing l-dopa to pass thru the BBB, you don't want high concentrations of dopamine stimulating your cells.

Once levodopa has entered the central nervous system (CNS), it is metabolized to dopamine by aromatic-L-amino-acid decarboxylase. However, conversion to dopamine also occurs in the peripheral tissues, causing adverse effects and decreasing the available dopamine to the CNS, so it is standard practice to co-administer a peripheral DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor.
http://perspectivesinmedicine.org/co...1/a008862.full