I seem to recall reading that manganese parkinsonism does not respond to levodopa so that is one diagnostic criterion.

I came across that also but apparently in some cases manganese poisoned people do respond to L-DOPA so that is not a hard rule. I was diagnosed 3.5 years ago and don't take any meds yet but may need to now as the tremors have increased the past few months. Maybe I should try to get a datscan but don't' know where to get it. Any suggestions

Also, how is the Hinz protocol going? How long have you been doing that? Does it help?

The Hinz protocol works great. I have been doing it for a couple of years and it abolishes my symptoms. Nor do I seem to have progressed despite having mostly the PIGD version of PD that progresses faster. My only complaints are the cost because I require so much ( 9 tsp of macuna, 5 tbl of tyrosine, 6 capsules of cysteine, 1 capsule of 5-HTP daily) and the inconvenience of having to mix the powders every 3 hours.

If you do a search for Hinz it will bring up my past comments.

Thanks. Actually, I did the Hinz protocol for a few months too and the last time the doc bumped up the quantities it became cost prohibitive too. At least it seemed to be safer than the sinemet routine which appears to be not so good to the brain after a few years. The use of cysteine, folate and 5-http suggested by Hinz seems to protect the brain from excessive homocystene buildup which sinemet (l-dopa) causes. I recently had my dna genomes sequenced by 23andme and found out that I don't metabolize folic acid too well (the MTHFR gene with the C677T mutation). So that means I need to take L-methyl folalte (not synthetic folate) or eat plenty of folate rich foods to account for that. This mutation (or the 1298 one) also means I have lowered glutithione as well which explains alot. Glad the Hinz protocol works for you. You can buy all ingredients for that from multiple sources now so that should bring the costs down alot. Best regards!

just curious gary, is all the l-dopa in the mucana and in powder form, none in capsules? just seems like they could concentrate it a little more and get it into capsules. or just take a sinemet, l-dopa is l-dopa.

L-dopa from Mucuna may be more effective than the isolate and require less for the same results. See section 5.1 of http://examine.com/supplements/Mucun...ns/#summary5-0. "A rat study investigating the same question found that low dose Mucuna paired with benserazide (peripheral dopa-decarboxylase inhibitor) was able to suppress symptoms associated with Parkinsons while low dose Levodopa + Benserazide was not; additionally, long-term usage of Mucuna Pruriens was more effective than long-term usage of Levodopa in isolation, when both were contributing the same dose of Levodopa.[22] The differences seen were suggested to be due to a possible Dopa-decarboxylase inhibitor in Mucuna Pruriens. Other studies comparing Levodopa to Mucuna also note this difference, and suggest that one needs thrice as much Levodopa in isolation to match Levodopa from Mucuna.[15]"

Another study showed it to worked better than Sinemet. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1738871/.

Hinz's mucuna is 40% levodopa vs the 4% founf naturally so perhaps it is spiked. In any case it takes a lot of capsules to get an equivalent dose. Each tsp is equivalent to 8 capsules.

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gary, that article means nothing to me. sorry. it's in rats and in 1 part of the experiment they compare mucana against l-dopa by itself, that proves nothing. plus you can just modify your dose/timing with sinemet, you can't just look at 1 or 2 factors. there's price, convienence, purity, etc.

as far as 40% l-dopa, your're taking 9tsps every 3 hrs? if 40% that would mean that you are taking more than 3tsps of l-dopa in every dose. the normal dose of l-dopa is 100mg every 3 hrs in admittedly a compressed pill.

here's my calculation, i picked whole wheat to estimate the weight/cup of a grain as a starting point.
1lb=3.3cups
48tsps in 1 cup
474grams in 1lb
1lb/3.3cups = .30lbs/cup x 48tsp/cup = .0063 lb/tsp x 473gram/lb = 3grams/tsp x .40grams l-dopa/gram = 1.2grams of l-dopa/tsp of mucana

so you are taking 3.6grams of l-dopa per dose? the normal dose for sinemet is 100mg l-dopa.

maybe my calculations are off but common sense would tell you that 40% l-dopa in mucana makes no sense. as far as evolution goes, that makes no sense for a plant, the reason the plant has l-dopa i assume is as a defense mechanism, animals avoid it because they get dizzy when they eat it but 40% would be overkill, natural selection would have selected against it.

i apologize if my calculations are off.

My understanding is that sinemet allows the L-dopa to get past the gut by using carbodopa. That's why the sinemet dose (which contains 100% L-dopa, plus carbodopa) is only 100mg and the plain 40% l-dopa amount is so much higher

you need to do a little more research. carbidopa slows down the conversion of l-dopa to dopamine, l-dopa will pass thru the gut without carbidopa as will any similar amino acid. without the carbidopa almost all of the l-dopa would convert to dopamine outside the brain and dopamine doesn't pass the blood brain barrier.

before carbidopa was mixed with l-dopa as a treament and patients were given only L-DOPA, doses over 10grams were common since you had to overwhelm the enzymes that broke down the l-dopa so some would get to the brain. patients suffered severe nausea.

i was questioning how you create 40% mucana, 4% or 10% would make more sense. you'd just have too much dopamine getting created in your peripheral tissues.

http://parkinsons.about.com/od/treat...amine_meds.htm

Yes, sinemet (which uses pure 100% L-Dopa) allows more dopamine to be put to work in the brain due to carbodopa. The Hinz protocol is absent the carbodopa so again large quantities are required. In the protocol,Tyrosine is also used to apparently allow less L-dopa to be required. Folic acid, cysteine, vitamin C are also added to the mix to do the job of alleviating symptoms. L-dopa over time increases homocysteine and apparently kills even more dopamineric neurons which is why the above additional ingredients are required. Taking raw macuna puren beans which contain less than 10% L-dopa would require huge quantities to have the same effect as 40% L-dopa. That's my understanding anyway. I suggest you talk to a Hinz protocol Dr for more accurate info.