Some more info about Gou Teng on rats: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19703534

I did some researches that the only Gou Teng granules currently available is the one called "Tianma Gouteng Granules". It is a TCM combination and has the following ingredients with a little plus & minus to the one used at HK Baptist Univ. -
Tianma 9g, Uncaria 12g, abalone 18g, mountain gardenia 9g, the skullcap 9g, Cyathula 12g, Eucommia 9g, the motherwort 9g, Loranthaceae 9g, night Kodo 9g, Poria 9g.

This TCM comb. has been also clinically used in the mainland and has the similar results as from Hong Kong Baptist Univ.

I am really confused at the moment. I don't know why but I just felt the urge to read more about the latest news of lewy body dementia. I found the following article:

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/pos...095600256.html

They tested rapamycin on a mouse model and they concluded it slows down the progression of neuron loss and improved motor function, even in the late stage of the disease. What confuses me about this is that in the PD community, if I am not wrong, this is not considered a valid treatment because it weakens your immune system. However, in this article they don't talk about it. So it is considered a valid treatment for LD but not for PD ??? This is very similar to the ganglioside story. For PD it is not considered a valid therapy because of a huge amount of supposed difficulties, but for HD it is valid treatment.

What even strikes me more is this article:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiw.../28/2003543867

It says rapamycin is used for cancer and Alzheimer. So it is already in use for treatment of other diseases ? So why can't this be used for PD ? And indeed, it is used in other diseases as stated in the following article:

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/91/35...mal-study.html

Anyway, I don't post to complain only, but also to pass information. As you can see from the first article rapacymin is supposed to work because of increased autophagy. So it's effect is supposed to be similar to gou teng. Besides this, there are many other autopaghy inducers they discovered:

spermidine, carbamazepine, and tamoxifen

What strikes me is this:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2377/10/23

Tamoxifen treatment is linked with increased PD in women. I found similar reports for carbamazepine. This is really strange. On the other hand, I do remember that autophagy is good, but if there is too much autophagy it could attack your neurons, which could explain why people with no PD get PD after this treatment. So I guess you have to be carefull and be sure to stay in balance.

I also came across the following article:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/0...ins/index.html

First of all, reading the article really broke my heart. I feel sorry for children having this disease. What is interesting for people with PD is that rapamycin indeed seems difficult to be used as a cure, but in this study they will use RAD001, a safer modified version of rapamycin. So to the PD community ... where are you waiting for to test this on PD patients ???

Which formula do you take ? The centipedes or gou teng ? Wouw, the centipede treatment really surprises me. The youtube video also claims it stopped PD in 85 % of PD patients. That's a real strong claim. But I don't find any clinical trial about it.

The mixture she makes contains both as well as a lot of other things based upon my symptoms and the traditional TCM diagnostic markers of pulse and tongue. I know it also contains scorpion and leech. Oddly, it is a brown, almost tasteless powder. I don't know if western style studies have been done on centipede itself as the Chinese TCM docs rely on centuries of observation and experience. They also mix ingredients and rarely give only one. It is really a system that cannot be compared to western pharmacology. My diagnosis is damp heat coupled with chi deficiency. Unlike western medicine, the treatment is very individualized, hence the need for mixtures.

Very interesting. Do you have the feeling that your PD is stopped or drastically slowed down ?

Right now I am almost normal and don't seemed to have progressed for a few months. I am attributing the symptom relief to the Hinz amino acid protocol, though it could be the mouth appliance or a combination of them. Prior to trying them I used, and still use, the TCM method as well. It seemed to lessen the tremors and eliminated some other problems like dystonia or gagging but didn't seem to have a dramatic effect on movement. My girlfriend says I don't pay enough attention to important things like the right diet. It's probably too early to evaluate the rate of progression but I don't seem to be progressing as fast at this point compared to when I was first diagnosed in June 2011.

Hi - I just got the Gou Teng granules from China on Friday and I already started to take it yesterday. The Gou Teng I got is the one in combination with other several TCMs as I reported on this thread previously. It is a traditional formulation & classic recipe.

I will report on this thread again my big changes - good or bad, in two months from today. Stay tuned...

just an FYI not playing my practitioner is better than your practitioner. I received my 20 day supply of herbs (in liquid form) consisting of 30 or so herbs but NOT guo teng. I am no expert on this stuff, but what i understand is what gets compounded is highly individual based on practitioners observation.

So I pose this in a question manner to those who are more attune to TCM than I. Wouldnt it be very WESTERN like to cherry pick individual ingredients off the shelf and give-em-a-try? Doesn't that defeat the fundamentals of TCM??