Has anybody had any good experiences with coconut water? It seems to reduce my symptoms and prolong my "on" time. I had an appt. w/ my neurologist a few months ago and intentionally missed my dose of Sinemet to demonstrate how I am during my "off" time. I drank Coconut water (CW) 4 hrs before my appt. When the doc started his tests, my "off" time never occurred and he was amazed how well I did. I started to research CW and found that it contained a plant hormone called Kinetin, which is used in skin creams to minimize photoaging. I found a clinical trial where kinetin was administered orally up to 1500 mg for a month w/o adverse effects. So I have been taking 3/8 tsp of kinetin for over a week w/ no noticeable improvement. The amt of kinetin in CW is minute compared with the dose I was taking, so I don't believe that kinetin is the active ingredient. Anyway I am curious about CW and wonder if anyone has had any positive experiences w/ it?

MJFF have an article on kinetin [1] linked to PINK. See also the paper by Hertz et al.[2] where they write:

"we show that application of the KTP precursor kinetin to cells results in biologically significant increases in PINK1 activity, manifest as higher levels of Parkin recruitment to depolarized mitochondria, reduced mitochondrial motility in axons, and lower levels of apoptosis."

This would become hugely exciting if kinetin was shown to be a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, like nilotinib, the anti-cancer drug, which in lower doses is thought to have a potentially therapeutic effect on PD.

The effects described above would, in my opinion, only become visible after a few months, at best. So, although very welcome, I don't think that this explains the short-term benefits described.

Where do you get your oral kinetin from?

References:

[1] https://www.michaeljfox.org/foundati...kinson-disease

[2] "A neo-substrate that amplifies catalytic activity of Parkinson’s disease related kinase PINK1"
Nicholas T. Hertz,1,2,7 Amandine Berthet,3 Martin L. Sos,1 Kurt S. Thorn,6 Al L. Burlingame,5 Ken Nakamura,3,4 and Kevan M. Shokat
Cell. 2013 Aug 15; 154(4): 737–747
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3950538/

John

I wonder if it is simply better at hydration or better at making sure the meds work optimally.

Nigel

Just had a thought,doesn't it contain high levels of potassium which some Pwps rate high as a supplement

Agree that it fails to explain short term effects. I suspect any short term effects only masks the symptoms anyway. I wonder why no one has started any clinical trials of kinetin on PD? I could not find any oral kinetin (which made me suspicious as to why it's not available), so I settled on the 99% pure kinetin used as a plant stimulator that I found on Amazon. Although it is not for human consumption, I'm willing to take the risk.

Yes, CW contains a high amount of potassium, but potassium supplements did not seem to help. Maybe there's a synergistic effect of the combination of potassium, kinetin, and other factors. I tried powdered CW, but no noticeable effect.

Deangreen, up to you of course, but not sure I'd recommend taking a plant hormone not intended for human consumption. If you're serious about kinetin, I think it's available by prescription. Otherwise, I think Nigel called it: coconut water has the highest concentration of electrolytes of anything found in nature. This may explain your results. I personally drink it every day as a shake with organic grass fed whey powder (high in glutathione).