High dopamine diet
 

This diet raises dopamine so dramatically, continuously, that I believe it would cause in many Parkinsons sufferers total elimination of symptoms.

You can do this same test, although perhaps I am better at perceiving subtle brain changes than most if I focus my attention on it, which is necessary to assess accurately, I ate each food I could find, one at a time, waited until it hit my blood stream , in me it took only a couple of minutes, 5minutes for fats, for perhaps a slight part of the food to begin to give me a reaction telling me it was to some degree in my bloodstream, and then if it gave me a pleasureable feeling (increased dopamine) I noted that, or if it neither raised nor lowered my dopamine I noted that or if it lowered my dopamine (dulled my brain in a tell tale way, reduced how good it felt) I noted that. I figured that if the food was something we evolved eating or close enough to that, it would not make us lower our dopamine output and if it was good for us because we evolved eating it we would be encouraged to eat it again by our dopamine reward system increasing our dopamine.

So if it made me feel worse I didnt eat it any more. At the end of my tests , I did these tests for months, I found that only fruits and vegetables increased my dopamine pleasure , but not all of them), and most grains were close to neutral, and all animal products suppressed dopamine(except some birds, like chicken , game hen, (and turkey wasnt too bad) were close to neutral, ) , meat being the worst, Skim milk may have been ok, I dont recall.

What I found is that the key to having the highest possible dopamine was in the fats I ate, that is the part of the food that ends up in the brain I read. And if I followed a super strict diet avoiding all things that lowered my dopamine, my dopamine got so high (I do not have Parkinsons, ) that I felt like I was almost on a pleasure high all day, and my brain felt pleasuably light around the clock. My restless leg syndrome reduced almost to zero symptoms too as a result of this diet, that syndrome being caused by too little dopamine in some parts of the brain. The feeling I get from this diet throughout the day is so pleasureable that it makes life so worthwhile that this diet is worth it to me even though I dont have Parkinsons. I can just sit there doing nothing and super enjoy life merely due to the feeling.

So here is the diet and it raises dopamine around the clock to such a degree that i believe that many people with Parkinsons would not experience Parkinsons symptoms at all, and that everyone with Parkinsons would be significantly betterr, if they ate this strict diet, which unfortunately isnt easy.

Avoid all animal food to start, you could add the birds later to see if that reduced the effect. That includes dairy.

Avoid completely the following oils. This is crucial, not a drop, Safflower, sunflower, canola, some grapeseed oils, however Salute brand is good, available at health food stores or from the manufacturer, can be cooked with. Most but not all brands of olive oils are ok in small amounts because beyond a small amount , omega 9 oil in olives and nuts suppresses dopamine. Also completely avoid, not even a tiny drop, of anythng soy, it will suppress your dopamine (and serotonin) for about six hours. Soy actually was shown to have caused brain loss on MRI in the most tofu eaters in a large medical study. You can prove to yourself about soy. SOme morning when you feel tip top after awakening, with our dopamine high, take even a tiny amount of soy and all
that pleasurable feeling disappears. Safflower oil suppresses doppaminie the most. Corn oil is ok although not as ideal as Salute grapeseed oil. However a caution, I let my omega 9 get too low at first before I supplemented a tablespoon of red palm oil which is half omega 9 and this deficiency of omega 9 , although I didnt need mmuch, set off a bout of chronic fatigue syndrome or a dead ringer for it, totally relieved by a tablespoon of olive oil. My satuated fat got so low in this diet my cholesterol become so low as to be unmeasuable, which is not good, you need to have it over 110, so I had to add the red palm oil , to get enough saturated fat. So with this diet my total cholesterol went from 190 to 110, my blood pressure went from 150 over 100 to 110 over 70. No one with a total cholesterol of 150 or below in the huge two generation of an entire town of 25000 Framingham Heart Study ever had a heart attack I heard one of the Drs in the study say on the radio once.

I add a tablespoon and a half of SPectrum flax oil for omega 3, that does wonders for dopamine elevation, quite necessary to keep up the blood level of this substance, and my saturated fat is so low ini this diet I have to add a tablespoon of red palm oil , the African variety available in a lot of health food stores now and on line, when you first eat it you will get a dopamine rise due to the body rewarding the tocotrienols form of vitamine E , this version of them unavailable in any other food and they are healful, and this oil does not suppress dopamine, note we evolved eating it in the jungles of Africa, most likely.

Almost all seeds one can buy by themselves, like pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, etc suppress dopamine to some degree,---- and all nuts do IF one eats them beyond a few so as to get too much omega 9 in the blood

I also add a tablespoon of Salute grapeseed oil to supplement my omega six because with this diet it too is too low. So the only added oils I eat are one tablespoon of Salute grapeseed oil, one tablespoon for every hundred pounds of body weight of Spectrum refredgerated flax oil in health food stores, which is 57 percent (read the label ingredients to make sure it is not their version that adds other ingredients like olive oil) and one tablespoon of African red palm oil.

Sweet potatoes (also called yams) crush dopamine

The spices thyme and tumeric and cinnamon suppress dopamine_______ and all spice and nutmeg crush it for a week or more.

Vitamin B 12 must be supplemented in this vegan diet, and I learned the hard way the vegetarian form of vitamin b 12 is useless, as one can also read.

I eat lentils and beans to fill out my protein, it is a myth that one needs animal foods to get enough protein, its very easy to get enough..only 55 grams are needed. and protein is in almost all foods to some degree.

I get a rush of too much unneeded insluin ( I learned what that felt like) which is unhealthy, and makes me feel a little woozy iif I eat fruit b itself, so I alternate bites between fruit, and any grain or any vegetable, without delay, and that near simultaneous mixing avoids this problem. Doing this and doing the rest of my diet, creates so little insulin that I have to eat almost fifty percent more calories than otherwise to keep from losing weight. Same with white rice or white bread, white pasta, only whole grains avoid this insulin effect.Cucumbers, squash , pumpkin and bell peppers are fruits..

If I eat anything, like lycopene in a tomato , or omega 3 in flax oil, or lutein in Kale, or one of the lesser known carotenenoids in yellow squash or carrots, and I am deficient in it, there will be a rush of dopamine encouraging me to eat more of this , and when I get a sufficient supply of the needed substance that reaction does not occur, except in four items, which gives me that rush no matter how many times or how much I eat of them, blackberries, blueberries, black grapes and concord grape juice which does not also contain white grapes like Welches does, the lable must say only ingredient concord grape juice, available in health food stores. I glow with dopamine for an hour or however long it takes to digest all of the deficient substance, I have found with any deficieint substance. With the big four fruits, I just mentoned, it appears that the body can always benefit by more and more, the are the healthiest foods in the world therefore I believe, and the degree of dopamine release they cause is higher than any other food. You can buy frozen blueberries at costco for two dolars a pound, 3 dollars a frozen pound at Ralphs for blackberries, and I eat a pound a day from a blender for quick ease, with a spoonfull of beans or lentils to avoid the big insulin rush, and a recent medical journal article posed the theory that eating purple fruits like blueberries woulld halt Parkinsons by neutralizing the causative free iron in the bloodstream, meet by the way allows all the iron in the meat to get into the bloodstream, whereas vegetarian food has a form of iron that stops going into the body when a sufficient amount of iron is absorbed... I eat strawberries at least once a week too, organic since conventional strawberries are high in pesticides.

I add salsa to a lot of foods for flavor, check the labels for forbidden ingredients. if a label ingredient list says "spices" without saying which ones I call the manufacturer to make sure it doesnt have one of the dopamine suppressors.

So thats it, and if I forgot something, Ill add it in a later post. This is what I found, you may want to do your own tests, but I believe this die will work universally, note t matches what we would have eaten in the African jungle over millions of ears of evolution before we recently ventured out onto the African plains where we started eating meat which evidently hasnt had time to evolve to be healthy and thus is still a dopamine suppressor. Note we would have eaten some birds at least in the form of their eggs in the jungle and snails and frogs perhaps and all of them are ok to eat, close to neutral. however apparently due to so much breeding chicken eggs do suppress dopamine, although chicken itself is close enough to neutral.

Steve Lord

what a super interesting post !!!
thanks a lot for this,
but please could you make a list of the foods which raises dopamine,as your message states very clearly what is to avoid but i could not really understand what are the "good " food

Thanks VilliersThe foods to eat are anything I didnt say not to eat. Some of hem raise dopamine, some of them are neutral in their effect. I only ovoid the ones that suppress dopamine and I posted all of them, either by category or by name . But it is actually not anyway near as important to be eating foods that raise dopamine , which only occurs anyway for an hour, except the omega 3 flax oil which keeps it higher around the clock, rather the key to high continuous dopamine comes from the avoidnce of the fat , oils, that suppress dopamine when inserted into the brain after eating them and are not fats we evolved eating when our brains were evolving in that African jungle.

To do this accurately, one must also look at each ingredient on the lable to see that they didnt sneak any soy product in there, or safflower oil or canola oil, etc. , and some supplements are put in soy oil, it will say on the label, like vitamin e is often put in soy oil, Grace company vitamin Erefuses to do that and is soy free. But it still reduces dopamine a bit because it uses glycerine, a fatty substance, and I avoid propylene glycol also. But the flax oil and grapeseed oil coniain vitamin E, as does Red palm oil, and covers he daly requirement by themselves, and you get more of course in a vegetarian diet so there would be no need to supplement.

After someone observes the maximum effect of this diet on dopamine, one might want to cheat on an item here or there, and see if it makes their symptoms worse. I know that now that my brain is free of all dopamine suppressing foods, and my friend who basically follows this diet too agrees, that when we eat any of the dopamine reducing foods, like meet or tumeric, they in the very few minutes it takes for thte first molecules to hit the bloodstream, at that exact moment, or rather the fraction of a second it takes to get them to insert theiir fat into brain, it hits us with what we both call an uncomfortable thud, or some foods even a sharper whacking feeling. Lol. And even on a normal diiet, ever eat some meat and feel like taking a nap, that tired low energy feeling?

Steve Lord,

Can you please elaborate on some of the foods you should not eat. I got kind of confused when you mentioned that too much insulin made you feel woozy. "Doing this and doing the rest of my diet, creates so little insulin that I have to eat almost fifty percent more calories than otherwise to keep from losing weight. Same with white rice or white bread, white pasta, only whole grains avoid this insulin effect.Cucumbers, squash , pumpkin and bell peppers are fruits.." Is this quote stating that it is ok to eat these foods or not. It would be so much easier if you made a list of the foods you should never eat or visa versa. Very interesting article.

Steve
 

I have checked online for scientific nutrition information. They all have one thing in common. Tyrasine is found in protein rich foods and improves the bodies ability to use dopamine. Iron, Vitamine B6, Folic acid and Vitamin E are key to maintaining healthy levels of dopamine and dopamine receptors in the brain.

A diet high in eggs, chicken, is recommended for better body response to dopsmine receptors. Eating several small meals is also better for the digestive tract. Fava Beans are the only known food that contains dopamine.

Dianna

dopamine isn't in foods, we manufacture it in our cells from other amino acids, primarily tyrosine. if it were that simple that taking tyrosine will automatically give us the dopamine we needed in our brains we wouldn't have pd.. pd is caused by the death/damage/inhibition to those few cells in our brains that produce dopamine from tyrosine.

there's like enough tyrosine in an egg or a serving of meat or cheese to supply one's dopamine needs for a week, IF the cells specialized for dopamine production were still working.

i suggest you search the board for tyrosine, this topic has often been discussed.
wish it was just that simple.

Banana, especially the skin, contains dopamine, see:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread152993.html

The problem from the PD point of view is that in normal circumstances dopamine doesn't go through the BBB.

I'm surprised that more work hasn't been done to get around this problem.

John

i stand corrected. do you eat those bananas to get dopamine?

another reason you don't want a lot of dopamine in your bloodstream is it would make you very naseaus, take too much sinemet and see how you feel. so independent of needing l-dopa to pass thru the BBB, you don't want high concentrations of dopamine stimulating your cells.

Once levodopa has entered the central nervous system (CNS), it is metabolized to dopamine by aromatic-L-amino-acid decarboxylase. However, conversion to dopamine also occurs in the peripheral tissues, causing adverse effects and decreasing the available dopamine to the CNS, so it is standard practice to co-administer a peripheral DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor.
http://perspectivesinmedicine.org/co...1/a008862.full

Foods that increase dopamine
 

I was just researching foods that increase dopamine last night. We are intrigued by the banana and will try it, among
other foods listed, as a daily supplement, to see if it has an effect.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/34...ne-production/

FOODS THAT INCREASE DOPAMINE PRODUCTION


Low dopamine levels can cause depression, food cravings, loss of satisfaction and motor control as well as poor attention and focus. The brain produces dopamine from an essential amino acid called phenylalanine that it converts into tyrosine in order to synthesize dopamine. Foods that contain phenylalanine or tyrosine and increase dopamine naturally include bananas and high-protein foods such as cottage cheese and meat.
HIGH-PROTEIN FOODS
Dopamine is important for motivation, sexual arousal, healthy assertiveness and the proper functioning of the immune and autonomic nervous system. The University of Maryland Medical Center reports that research indicates stress may diminish the body's capacity to make enough dopamine-producing tyrosine from phenylalanine. Eating foods high in protein is important because the body makes amino acids from protein, which raises the levels of tyrosine in the blood. Foods high in protein include chicken, turkey, soy products, fish, yogurt, cheese and cottage cheese.]

*edit per copyright*

LEMON, just trying to be helpful.

for a patient just starting on sinemet, the normal dosage is 300-400mg/day. i'm not saying take sinemet, just trying to impress upon you how little dopamine the brain needs daily.

that's 300-400mg of levodopa which gets converted to dopamine in the brain. of that amount, it is estimated less than 10% gets into the brain, the other 90% gets converted to dopamine outside the brain so can't get into the brain. so 30-40mg getting into the brain is all that is needed to treat an early pd'er. obviously there are checks and balances on not letting too much amino acids getting into cells, too much would kill them. plus in early pd dopamine is stored in the cells, you have a buffer.

i just don't understand how anyone eating a balanced diet can have a dopamine precursor deficiency.

Dopamine
 

Thanks for the heads up Soccertese! I was curious about the normal dopamine depletion in the average person and ran across one of your post, from a while ago, that said 1% per year is normal. I haven't been able to find any other detailed information. Do you remember a source or link for that info?

i assume you are referring to the normal loss of dopamine producing cells in the brain?

this article doesn't give an exact number but does a good job describing the loss of neuron function and PD
http://www.parkinsonswny.com/Parkinson-Handbook.pdf

Use of Dialectical Therapy to lose weight
 

I prefer answers to be less scientific to understand what they mean. I would recommend the following article from a magazine written for "Nutrition Wonderland." It describes in a easily understood way how to apply Dialectal Therapy to change to a mindful way to eat.

http://nutritionwonderland.com/2009/...amine-rewards/

This article was written in 2009. Not much research has been done on nutrition and dopamine. It will improve your food choices.

Dianna

Lemonlime...your research is closer to the list of foods I have found. Many on the original post did not correspond with my findings and the way I have chosen to eat.

Did you ever do research on the dopamine raising ability of foods?
Some of the reactions you had to foods may just be a very sensitive reaction to what your body considers not good for you individually, Steve Lord. We all probably have food sensitivities and allergies (I sure do). This does not mean a certain food has anything to do for or against dopamine levels.

Brewers yeast and nutritional yeast
 

Do you have any experience with brewers yeast, and or nutritional yeast?

Any idea how they might effect dopamine?

Brewers yeast is abundant in vitamins and minerals sometimes lacking in
vegetarian diets.

Thanks for any insight. I've always wondered if these products can cause more dopamine harm than good.

This diet has dramatic dopamine increasing effect
 

Hi The following diet followed religiously, every detail, causes an astounding effect on increasing my dopamine thoughout the day and night, such that I feel a light, almost high or actual high feeling of dopamine pleasure, well being, throughout the day and night from all the dopamine and this diet may be the answer for someone with Parkinsons. You can prove everything I am saying below with your own experimentation.

I dont have Parkinson's, But I like to experiment. I knew that dopamine is releaed when we do something that in our history we did something that aided our survival. So I ate each food , one at a time.to see which caused a dopamine release. I noticed that for each oee some I guess tiny amont of it get into the blood stream in about two minutes, and five minutes for any oil. How it gets in there so fast is a mystery but I am certain I am correct by observing multiple responses

One response is whether the food increases my dopamine, a tell tale feeling of pleasure that we get when we release dopamine, that has evolved as the system the body uses to encourage repeating that thing that helps us to survive, in the erea of food that would be food that is healthy for us. ANother is no change in my dopamine. A third is to suppress dopamine, cause me less of a pleasureable feeling.

Using that method I found that the only foods that incrased dopamine were fruits and vegatables, well most of them at least and the rest were at least close to neutral, Grains had close to a no change effect. And all animal products had a suppressive effect especially meat. BIrds including chickens came the closest to no change, except for chicken eggs which suppressed dopamine. Quail eggs were ok. That finding fits pretty close to what we have always been told about food and health. Our diet in the jungle during evolution was basically fruits and vegetables and that is what our genes prefer now. So I eat beans and lentils to get enough protein and I eat grains to get enough calories and the rest fruits and vegetables. Not a single bite from an animal.

The other foods that suppress dopamine and that I avoid like the plague, even a tiny bit of them because even a litttle will suppress my dopamind , and I check each lable to make sure and dont eat out so I wont know whats in the food, are anything with any soy in it, if the label says the word soy , I dont eat it, salflower oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, sessame oil , chia oil or more than a small amount oilive oil or nuts becauset too much omega 9 suppresses m dopamine too. There are some other foods that suppress dopamine , presumably due to a foreign to us fatty acid, tumeric, thyme, curry sweet potatoes , and all spice and nutmeg , I avoid the latter two like the plague My cholesterol gets too low if I dont get enough saturated fat, which a vegan diet and avoiding those oils can do and it is also if I dont eat any nuts or olives or their oils become deficient in omega 9 fatty acids so the too little sat fat causes my cholesterol to be unmeasurable low,like below 80 which is dangerous and a deficiency of omega 9 can also cause problems so since I eat no nuts or olive oil, for the omega nine, or enough saturated fat in that diet, I need to supple or a tablespoon and a half of
a day of red palm oil from Whole FOod Market etc or Amazon on line, a and its becoming more know how healthy it is and I need to supplement a table spoon a day of grapeseed oil , to get enough omega 6 which is deficient in this high dopamine diet and essential to have in our diet and some grepeseed oils obviusly depending on the grapes suppress my dopaminen, but Salute brand never does, you can experiment with different brands to see, I can tell because if its one that does, and you are on this otherwise perfect diet you will after five minutes of ingesting it feel an uneasy somewhat nerve jangling feeling which also includes dopamine suppression rather than the otherwise smooth light marelous feeling this diet provides. You can cook with that grapeseed oil too, rather than loading up on olive oil which again suppresses dopamine if too much of it is eaten, even a table spoon of it if I am eating that red palmoil will decrease my dopamine a little.and the more I eat of it the more suppression of dopamine I geet, same with nuts and all the large seeds one can buy by themselves do too in any amount like suflower or sesame seeds and peanuts also suppres dopamine in any amount even though they are a legume, perhaps due to the arachadonici acid content, and in addition it increases my dopamine to take a tablespoon of flax seed oil , SPectrum or Jarrows are good in bottles of liquid for that, fish oil capsules suppress my dopamine, keep flaxsee oil refredgerated.

The four black fruits, 100 percent CONCORD grape juice found in all organic brands I have seen,and no non organic brands like Welsch's which contain other than concord grapes, like green I think, the labels will say grape juice not 100 percent concord grape juice, get the latter, trader Joes having the cheapest organic brand, , ,and also blackberries, blueberries and black (not the red which are ok but not as good for raising dopmane if eaten daily as black ones do), raise dopamine each time I eat them, to the maximum, so I eat them at the end of each meal, the last bite of the day creating more dopamine than if that same bite is not eaten as the last bite.

Try it yourself. Eat one of the four dark fruits I listed above on an empty stomach,after not eating for 8 hours over night, wait for the dopamine rush, and then take any amount of food with soy of safflower oil etc, in it, a teaspoon of soy oil or soy oil being one of the ingredients, or soy milk, etc. After about five minutes of taking one of the dopamine suppresors, , for me, whack, that marvelously pleasureable feeling I was getting from the 4 dark fruitsc disppears same for all the foods I mentioned that suppress dopamine, dairy and birds being the lesst offensive although still some suppression especially cream, cheese or butter, and milk deranges my immune system and causes autoimmune symptoms in me, and several studies conclude that those who drink the most milk are more likely to have Multiple Sclerosis.

So thats the high dopamine diet.

Steve Lord, Santa Barbara, Ca

Hi I had forgotten I had posted this thread in 2011. I was going to post something similar today but it was removed and now I see why, this thread already existed. I bet some people a quarter today that I cold post this high dopamine diet and not a single person would try it. Looks like I win my bet because a truly amazing 18.000 views later and not a single person has said they tried it.

So let me make it official so I can collect my quarter. :D DID ANYONE TRY THIS DIET? IF so how did it turn out, could you feel the dopamine sense of well being in a couple of minutes or could you not. For a quickie test, eat some blackberries on a totally empty stomach after not eating for 8 hours so no current competititon from a suppressor of dopamine although there will still be dopamine suppressing fats in your brain from the night before and days before so you wont be getting the maximum possible effect in this super short test, but you will almost for sure be able to feel the rush or sense of well being if you pay attention for the five plus period after eating the blackberries, beginning in me two minutes after the first bite. . Then after you do, eat a couple of bites of say, anything with soy oil in it and kiss your dopanine pleasure from the blackberries good bye in five minutes or so.

BTW one respondent said my loss of dopamine from eating certain foods must be individual. Really? AFTER I started telling people about how soy suppresses my dopamine I read a huge medical journal study out of Hawaii in which they showed that the people who ate the most tofu (soy) had brain matter missing on MRI, brain loss , lower IQ and more alzerimers. In the blackberry soy test I just described t its perfectly obvious what I am alleging about raising and suppressing dopamine. I believe anyone who is paying attention will be able to notice it. \

Villiers, you expressed interest it this diet, you were the onl one who did, but , why didnt you try it? Or did you? ALso to the person who asked about Brewers Yeast, it suppresses dopamine after eating it. Regarding the allegation one person postod on this thread that meat raised dopamine, yeah if you had no other protein in your diet and so had no raw materials to work with, it would be better to eat some kind of protein , even meat, but this isnt Bangladesh and none of us is deficient in protein, and I promise you one thing, if you eat meat in between two to five minutes you will start to feel like you loaded some lead into your brain and afterwards will feel like taking a nap. Dopamine suppressed. + THe best 4 frutits , 100 percent cconcord grape juice, blackberries, blue berries and black grapes make a person feel like shouting , the energy and sense of well bing if so energyizinig. In fact I commonlly do shout after eating them. :D BUt that is a temorary fix, the diet I posted about is constructed to keep our dopamine level higher throughout the day than any person has ever experienced, I would bet. OF course a person witih PD isnt going to feel it perhaps to te degree of a non PD , but you are going to tell a huge difference and maybe, just maybe it the full diet dont exactly as described at al times, will take some of you out of the Parkinsons zone into the normal zone. I hope. BUt I am very very pessimistic that anyone well eer try it after 18000 already passed on it.

STeve Lord.

you gotta be kidding!
 

were're all taking very strong medicines, the equivalent of 100's of mgs of dopamine, you think we'd be taking these medicines if diet made a difference? do you know anything about the underlying biochemistry of parkinson's?

it's likely 1 egg has enough tyrosine, a precursor to dopamine, to supply our needs for a week.
people who are fasting for weeks don't start "freezing" because of a lack of dopamine, they can still move. obviously even in starvation we can mfg all the dopamine we need in a normal brain.
i miss 1 dose of my dopamine medicine and i have a very hard time moving smoothly. that kind of tells me diet isn't my problem.

we are lacking the enzyme necessary to produce dopamine from precursors in food and the cells in our brain that store and protect dopamine from being broken down in the brain, we are getting plenty of precursors. and dopamine doesn't penetrate the BBB.

THANKS BUT NO THANKS

You may be right, Soccertese, but just for the hell of it can one of the 18000 one morning on a totally empty stomach , first bite of the day eat a amall bowl of blackberries , check how you feel, walk around, etc and tell me if anything is better , your pleasure, your movements, anything. By the way there was a medical journal article that got into the news severl years ago of one researcher's opinion that those same black or blue fruits, like , blueberries, blackberries etc could prevent progression of PD, something about them counteracting the free radicals or whatever caused by iron.

Steve Lord

I'm not certain that this is what you have in mind, but my best times are usually the two hours or so after waking and before breaking fast.

Reverett, that is the time of day when our dopamine is highest. Its true of me and I bet its true of everyone, Then we eat breakfast which will contain things that suppress our dopamine. Then we dont feel as pleasurable and have less energy and less of a sense of well being. My dopamine is lowest at night but evidently my serotionin is in a reverse order because in the morning , back in the days I had depression, it was always worse in the early morning, steadily getting better throught the day, until late night it was the best.
So EVerett, what you are saying to some degree verifies the high dopamine diet for Parkinsons, not conclusive , but our first piece of evidence outside of my observations of myself.

STeve Lord

Here's the problem with such diet: PD sufferers have a huge deficiency in dopamine-producing cells. So such a diet would have a minimal effect because of lack of dopamine cells.

Ah, so what is a small amount of cells times two, or times three?

Steve Lord

Hi Steve I have parkinsons was diagnosed when I was 27 10 yrs ago. . I'm looking at your high dopamine diet and I'm going to do it. Do you have any ideas on how to make a tasty dressing for a salad ? Thank you
Jessica christie

Don't understand
 

Steve, i don't understand what you are asking or saying here?
I do know that i function well in the morning after my medication and I attribute that mostly due to fasting overnight so the tablets are not competing with food protein.

im interested!
 

Hi steve,

I'm very interested in your post. I will be trying your diet from tomorrow.

Can you enlighten me on what to look out for with regards to vitamins and supplements as I take a lot of these.

Also. What about caffeine? Im British and we drink a lot of tea which I think helps me with accessing my dopamine stores but what's your experiences around caffeine?

What about exercise as well. Surely that's good for dopamine?

Also do you have any suggestions regarding products to buy as we don't have the same brands etc. As you do in the usa.

Lastly, I think if you posted this on other health forums you'd get a lot more interest.

Thanks

Joe

This is what every day is like for me (bold above).

Waking am hours are the worst - Just the opposite of most others. Any comments or input about this???

So, while Pumpkin Seeds and Raw Almonds have dopamine in them, they are Dopamine suppressors?

Dopamine might compete with l-dopa and dopamine precursors in passing thru the small intestine and the BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER. not sure if dopamine might block the transfer sites in the BBB even though it can't pass thru.
Not sure if dopamine is broken down into another amino acid that can pass the BBB.

the fact that we eat far more protein than we need and that you can fast for days without developing pd systems tells me that the body tightly regulates, at least in a non pder, how much dopamine moves freely in the brain. if it didn't we wouldn't be able to eat any high protein foods, an egg would cause dyskinesias.

The Hinz amino acid protcol tries to fill the dopamine pipeline so that the lack of dopamine receptors is overcome by enough L-dopa to make up the difference.

so zanpar, your're advocating the non-conventional, unproven, highly expensive hinz treatment over the inexpensive, proven use of l-dopa/carbidopa? may i ask if you have pd and if so, what if anything you take for it?

i don't think lack of dopamine receptors is our problem.
i'm not trying to get in an argument, just trying to seperate opinion from fact.

All fruits and vegetables are ok, except soy, .Hi insulin does make me feel a bit woozy but I wouldnt call it suppressed dopamine and this effect from fruits can be defeated by interjecting bites of vegetables or whole grains. Although cucumbers squash, pumpkin and bell perppers are fruits they cause excess insulin the least so dont worry about them. Blueberries do it the most, but anything sweet will do it, orange juice.

Steve Lord

SOccertease, you are not understanding, the dopamine something such as blueberries cause is due to the reward center of the brain rewarding you for eating something that helps in survival, but more importantly, it is the avoidance of foods that suppress dopamine, probably by having fatty acid types in them that human genes are not familiar with that get inserted into the brain that is the key to this diet working.

STeve Lord

I see meat on this list of recommendated raise dopamine foods. Anyone I believe can quickly dispel this notion. Wake up in the morning, eat a couple bites of blueberries, wait two or so minutes til you feel the dopanine glow, then eat one bit of meat. Several minutes you will lose that glow as the meat and its fat hits the blood stream. BLueberries enliven a person, meat makes people feel tired, like taking a nap. I guess if you are DEFICIENT in protein, it would be necessary to eat some protein in some form to create some dopamine but virtually no one is deficient in protein and if so, there are non dopamine suppressing ways to correct it. WE dont need to read big studies to determine what increases our dopamine. WE have perfectly good test subject in ourself. Eating meat will not raise your dopamine, it will suppress it beginning in two to five minutes, unless you are malnouished in protein.

Steve LOrd

Whatever gain in dopamine can be had from increasing tyrosine by eating meat, is totally outweighed by the effect its fatty acids crushing our dopamine. And that saturated fat remains in our brains indefintely, thus continuing to suppress dopamine indefintely, thus defeating other attempts to raise our dopamine with diet.

Steve Lord

Steve Lord

My brother is going to eat a couple of bites of blueberries some morning after awakening, on an empty stomach, and report if that not only gives him the pleasure rush in a couple of minutes, but also whether it improves his Pardinsons performance.

Steve Lord

reading the first line of this thread I knew that you have no idea what you are talking about and you insult everyone with this disease with your arrogant claims that you never back up with any science. I wish a handful of blueberries would make me symptom free, but that is not reality.

** my dopamine is highest in the morning. lowest the later at night, which is I assume people get restless leg syndrome the closer to bedtime it gets. BUt Reccommended morning before eating because then the least interference from the steak they ate the night before.

Steve Lord

** foods that raise our dopamine do so by rewarding higher survival activity. I should have added that that dopamine rush, such as from blueberries, lasts only as long as it takes to fully digest whatever it is you ate. But there will be a prolonged effect of higher dopamine if we are familiar historically with the type of fatty acids in the food we are eating, since it end up in our brains. That is why fruits and vegetables , all but a couple of kinds that I listed like any kind of soy, either are good dopamine raising foods or are at least close to neutral enough that almost all of them can be eaten. WHy? Because that was basically our diet during evolution for millions of years in the jungle of Africa and our genes evolved to like them, thus our brains perform better. Makes sense to me as everything I do that prehistoric man did a lot increases my functioning and health. And manmade stuff suppresses all my functions, like elecltronic radiation suppressing my neutrotransmiters and immunitiy but cosmic rays increasing same. So the bottom line is evidently the most familiar to us types and levels of fatty acids we eat, the more dopamine we secret.


Steve Lord