you had tons of dopamine in your urine? before or after you took mucana?
if before, where in the world did that dopamine come from? your're saying glutathione is a precursor to dopamine? btw, dopamine can't pass thru the BBB.

i take sinemet, carbidopa/l-dopa, and i get very nauseated if i take more than 200mg in 1 dose, i took A 25/250 TABLET once and was sick to my stomach which i assume was from the l-dopa getting converted into dopa in the blood stream.

I had alot of dopamine in my urine before I took the mucuna and about a third more after taking it. I don't understand why my body would produce excess dopamine and then dump it. I Guess it was being converted in the body/blood to dopamine but not in the brain. I understand dopamine doesn't pass thru the BBB, but L-dopa does. I never got nauseous at all. L-dopa andTyrosine are precursors to dopamine. Glutatione apparently allows dopamine to be more effective and is a master antioxidant, so if it's in short supply more damage can be done to mitrochondria and brain dopamine neurons.

The video below from Dr Rostenburg discusses the role of glutathione, dopamine and the methylation cycle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eq28PCvfsg

I have only anecdotal evidence on this question and in time I'm sure the hardcore research will catch up. Yes, I think that correcting methylation is a worthy pursuit in efforts to heal from pd. But you need to have a sophisticated knowledge of biochemistry to fine tune methylation pathways. The folks who have that knowledge plus the clinical expertise are docs who work under the rubric of functional medicine, integrative medicine or Bioindividualised medicine.

Rather than throwing b12 or SAMe or glutathione at the problem in a random fashion they first run functional tests to see how u are performing as a methylator, not just looking at serum levels. Then they know what precursors to introduce, when and where and how to avoid triggering feedback inhibition. They also investigate underlying causes. Leaky gut seems to be extremely common. Triggers for that are common allergens like gluten, dairy or soy.

Folks are very focused on gluten as an issue but I suggest that you consider parasites and fungal overgrowth equally as they are just as implicated in dysbiosis. My functional med doc says that 80 percent of stool samples she submits are coming back positive for parasites (including my own and an acquaintance with pd). The problem is there if you look for it. This creates two problems. Toxins getting thru and malnutrition. I have shown up some major nutritional deficiencies which are now being corrected. I am also being treated for fungal overgrowth in gut as well as parasite. There's a long road ahead. Parasites are not easy to eliminate.

One such doc I spoke to said that when you treat such underlying conditions in pwps, their symptoms either abate or vanish completely. Worth a try. Pd aside, we'd all benefit from cleaning up our gut.

sorry, i can't take a video from a chiropractor seriously. you can believe what you want.
tyrosine is converted to dopamine in the brain and i believe also the adrenal glands, the eyes - i think forms melanin? and this is tightly regulated, how do you explain how eating ounces of tyrosine in an egg or piece of meat doesn't cause you to die by massive production of dopamine and every other enzyme in your system and on the flip side, why don't you exhibit pd symptoms if you fast for a week or don't eat protein? in addition, selegiline, a non-reversible mao-b inhibitor, was shown years ago not to slow pd progression, same with vitamin C and vitamin E.

people taking dopamine agonists have been shown to progress at the same rate as those taking l-dopa. NO DOPAMINE.

i guess my point is post whatever you want but i object to your constant claim that dopamine is harmful. before sinemet, what kind of life do you think pd'ers could look forward to? please think about the affect of what you post here on the less informed.

one double blinded trial with IV glutathione did not improve pd symptoms.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19230029
there's 1 study on nasal glutathione tested on pd'ers but no results published yet

Very informative link. Synthetic L-Dopa has definitely been shown to be damaging.

Soccertease, That study on iv glutathione in pwps is meaningless. It does not address individual genomes or idiosyncratic methylation defects or attempt to correct methylation so that the body produces its own glutathione. This would take months of trial and error on a case by case basis.

Excellent point. The below study seems to show the importance of incorporation of methylation factors (B12, Hcy etc.) when taking L-Dopa to prevent L-Dopa caused neuropathy:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24099722

Neuropathy and levodopa in Parkinson's disease: evidence from a multicenter study!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23836370

i strongly disagree it is meaningless. it was a small study with just 10 patients getting the glutathione but they got A LOT OF GLUTATHIONE over 4 weeks. neither the control group nor the treatment group showed a significant change so placebo affect was not occurring and there were no adverse affects. i don't think you read the study. i point out this study whenever someone asks about IV glutathione when they stumble across the PERLMUTTER videos on youtube which costs thousands of dollars, i see some value in letting pd'er know about this study. so you think it was a total waste of time because the results were negative? that's what science is about.

sure maybe they didn't test for a METHYLATION mutation, maybe everyone was making enough of their own glutathione but the study was not worthless. it also shows that you don't have to have millions of dollars to run a study on a supplement nor the support from a drug company.

i doubt BASTYR did any gene testing for their nasal glutathione trial.

personally, i don't think anyone on this board is qualified to discuss methylation in a meaningful way. it just gets down to posting links that look good, that's not a discussion.

it is a study, not some anecdotal 3rd hand account. murieanne, you think that study is meaningless, what kind of study would you like to see? remember that the placebo affect is very strong in pd patients, they really want the treatment to work.

congrats zanpar, both very useful links IMHO. I do take 1000micrograms of B-12 daily. i tried daily B-12 injections for a month, a friend who is a compounding pharmacist asked me to try them, felt no benefit.

Soccertease, exactly where in the terms of use on this forum does it say I have to be 'qualified' to contribute to a discussion here? Are you trying to imply a right to moderate posts now?

I think other contributors to this thread understand the points I'm making. At least they're not coming back at me in SHOUTY block capitals