Manganese poisoning resembles Parkinson's and apparently may be curable
 

Manganese poisoning (which resembles Parkinsons) which affects miners and welders apparently is very treatable using para-aminosalicylic acid. see link below:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16766929

See also the discussion below:

Purdue University recently reported that one cause of Parkinson's disease is too much manganese. Manganese is an essential mineral. However, like any good thing, too much can be toxic.

http://www.secondopinionnewsletter.c...ns-disease.htm

A recent study finds that Medicare recipients who live in urban areas with high levels of manganese emissions are about 75 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's disease compared to those in urban areas with lower manganese emissions. Though the causes of Parkinson's disease are not established with certainty, prior studies suggest exposure to environmental toxicants – particularly metals and pesticides – may play a role in the development of the disease.

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.o...son-disease://

Manganese is also found in gas or jet fuel. I was exposed to lots of jet fuel and jet exhaust when I worked in the Navy on an aircraft carrier. I wonder if I have this and also how many Parkinson's patients have manganese poisoning instead of PD!

Does anyone have any experience with this? How do you find out if you have manganese poisoning?

testing for Manganese poisoning -
https://www.google.com/search?q=Mang...en-US:official

http://digitalfire.com/4sight/hazard...tkins_406.html

your're going to waste a lot of time imho trying to find a quick "cure" for your pd, assuming you have pd. keep in mind you're posting information that has been known for years, not just manganese but excessive iron has been researched as a possible cause of PD and iron chelation tested to see if pd can be reversed - didn't work - you can find this info very easily if you did a little more research, read a general history on pd. i tried chelation therapy soon after my diagnosis, went to a MD who gave expensive IV's, then switched to a do it yourself method which involved taking chelating drugs orally every 4 hours, one was a prescription drug for which my neuro wrote me a RX. i had urine and hair mineral analyses done and the only metal i was high in was titanium, i had titanium crowns, allergic to gold and broke composite crowns.
stopped after a month, i was exhausted. 12 years after diagnosis, i have pd.

best of luck in your "search" but keep in mind that the obvious causes and treatments for pd were tested years ago. welders have sued manufacturers of getting pd from manganese poisoning but if it were a major cause of pd that would have been noticed years ago by there being clusters of pd by profession.

I've tried chelation for a few years too using dmsa and alpha lipoic acid. I still have PD symptoms. Yep, I've been aware of the iron as a possible cause for years also. I'm looking for any solution, quick or slow that works. So far no luck. The manganese possibility is worth pursuing I believe, especially since I have no loss of smell which is a distinction between PD and manganese poisoning. PD seems to be a multi-headed critter with multiple causes and possible solutions. Good luck on your search as well.

just curious, what were your doses of DMSA and ALA and dosing schedule over your years of chelating? my chelation therapy used pretty high doses. the worry of course in chelation therapy is you'll just move the metals from your tissues into your brain and you should have any amalgams removed before hand.

Good advice on removing the amalgams first. I had 11 amalgams removed within four months of diagnosis back in 2011. Then I started Andy Cutler's DMSA and ALA protocol with 12.5 mg of DMSA then added 25mg ALA which I did every 4 hours as best I could. I gradually increased the dmsa to 100mg every 4 hours. Now I take 600 mg of ALA daily. From what I read it is not a good idea AT ALL to take DMSA or ALA while you have even 1 filing! I probably should have used DMPS from what I've been finding in my research lately.

Very true, remove all amalgams beforehand. Your doctor can order the test for you. Have you had a Datscan?

what test?
never had a DATSCAN

sorry was responding to Zanpar

No I haven't. How can I get a Datscan done?

manganese and levodopa
 

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?

Hinz protocol
 

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. :)

Hinz again
 

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.

l-dopa kills neurons? where are you getting that from?
i'd be glad to contact the HINZ doctor that you used to find out about the 40% mucana.

Your doctor orders one for you.

The computer with my data on the Hintz doctor crashed a few months back so I can't retrieve his name. I believe he was in Florida. Need to get some work done before I can look further.

Here are several links on L-Dopa and damage. I read a better reference a few days ago but can't find it now. I hope this helps. Supplementing B-12, folates seems to be important.

Parkinson disease: Long-term levodopa exposure may increase risk of neuropathy in patients with PD

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23917846

Levodopa, vitamins, ageing and the neuropathy of Parkinson's disease

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23989342

Hmm, interesting.......

The Hinz protocol Doc was Alvin Stein. Very interesting protcol and Doc and staff were great.

http://www.steinorthopedic.com/pdf/aminoacidtherapy.pdf

I doubt if he would as they don't do that where we live. Thanks

Sorry I wasn't clear. 9 tsp is my daily total dose not my divided dose.

Dr.s Hinz and Stein have a web site with an explanation of their methods at www.neurosciencemyths.com