A recent paper by Cassani et al. [1] has a lot of interesting information on mucuna pruriens (MP). Highlights:

- median levodopa concentration in dried mucuna seeds was 5.29%

- given the lack of a DDCI (e.g carbidopa) in MP, for a given amount of levodopa, the area under the curve of plasma levels against time is 3.5 times higher for C/L than for MP.

Reference

[1] "Mucuna pruriens for Parkinson's disease: Low-cost preparation method, laboratory measures and pharmacokinetics profile"
Erica Cassani et al.
Journal of the Neurological Sciences, June 15, 2016
http://www.jns-journal.com/article/S...183-6/fulltext

John

thanks johnt, very interesting article. much more readable if you download it.

4 patients, longest duration of disease was 2 years, L-DOPA daily intake was 300-475mg. all 4 patients had already been taking mucana, 3 using a prep from an italian pharmacy and i 1 using just mucana they personally obtained.
MUCANA is being investigated as an alternative to C/L in countries where C/L is unaffordable. What i noticed is mucana L-DOPA concentration is very variable if you just buy the unprepared "flour".

i think there already is evidence that MUCANA can alleviate pd symptoms, i wonder how much is actually being grown in 3rd world countries because there are more productive crops for animal feed which i assume that is the primary use of the plant, i doubt much is grown for human consumption primarily because of the L-DOPA content.

just guessing here. i apologize if i'm wrong.

I use Zandopa..I knew very little about it when I decided to try it..There was a red spoon in the container..I filled it up to the top level..I was almost symptom less for 6 hours..Then it wore off It was so fast that it felt like turning off a light switch..Now you're on..Now you're off