astaxanthin for parkinson's

[sumos]

Is there someone who uses astaxanthin for Parkinson's?

How much should you take daily?

[lempa_nik]

I can't speak specifically for PD, but maybe 2 years ago, I read (from Dr. Mercola?) that for general purposes, the maximum recommended dose of astaxanthin is 4 mg/day. "More is not necessarily better" since it is said that at high doses, antioxidants can turn into pro-oxidants.

[laglag in reply to lempa_nik]

I didn't realize you could take too many antioxidants? Can you expand on that?

[silvestrov in reply to laglag]

Vitamin C has been investigated for pro-oxidant overload and the following New York Times article is interesting:

Taking Too Much Vitamin C Can Be Dangerous, Study Finds

"Those who think that if a little vitamin C is good, more must be better should think again, says a team of British researchers, who found that a supplement of 500 milligrams a day could damage people's genes."

nytimes.com/1998/04/09/us/t...

Also in the article:

''Unlike the vitamin C naturally present in foods like orange juice, vitamin C as a supplement is not an antioxidant,'' Dr. Herbert said. ''It's a redox agent -- an antioxidant in some circumstances and a pro-oxidant in others.''

"In contrast, vitamin C naturally present in food, he said, has no oxidizing effects."

Commentary:

So it you do not want pro-oxidant side effects, take natural vitamin C (and not abscorbic acid).

More from the article:

"Dr. Lunec took issue with the late Dr. Linus C. Pauling, the Nobel laureate chemist who took 12,000 milligrams of vitamin C daily and suggested that people could take as much of it as they wanted with no ill effect."

________________________________________________________________________________

August 21, 1994

OBITUARY

Linus C. Pauling Dies at 93; Chemist and Voice for Peace

nytimes.com/learning/genera...

________________________________________________________________________________

Anti-Parkinson botanical Mucuna pruriens prevents levodopa induced plasmid and genomic DNA damage.

"Mucuna pruriens cotyledon powder (MPCP) has shown anti-parkinson and neuroprotective effects in animal models of Parkinson's disease that is superior to synthetic levodopa. In the present study two different doses of MPCP protected both plasmid DNA and genomic DNA against levodopa and divalent copper-induced DNA strand scission and damage."

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/176...

________________________________________________________________________________

In the case of vitamin C and levodopa it appears only the natural forms of both do not cause DNA damage. I wonder when doctors are going to stop prescribing synthetic levodopa in the forms of sinemet, madopar, rytary.....because of DNA damage?

[enjoysalud in reply to silvestrov]

Hi silvestrov, the Vit C info is disturbing to me. Based on past literature I had gone under the understanding that ANY Vit C supplement taken, past what the body needed, was expelled. No worries. For decades I have taken Vit C (about 1000mg) in two divided dosages. I can't remember getting a cold or the flu (never taken a flu shot). Perhaps I'm just super healthy. Yes I was influenced by L. Pauling, as today I am influenced by Dr. Bruce Ames. Here's my main concern. In addition to the other supplements I have my son on, I put together a LIQUID concoction for him, taken 3X daily, that has definitely given him energy, but more important brought back most, but not all, of his pre-PD cognitive reasoning. HURRAH!! I have slowly been increasing it over 8 weeks. I do not plan to increase it further. I'm pretty sure it has been the CQ10 and GREEN TEA EXTRACT that has made the difference. The day's total consists of CQ10 (1,200mg), Green tea extract (375mg), Niacinamide (1000mg), B-12 complex (500mg), Vit C with Rose Hips and Bioflavonoids (3000mg). Separately L-theanine (1000mg) and five days ago he started taking 10mg of sublingual NADH from the NADH store. He loves OJ, and so drinks at least 2 or 3 glasses of organic OJ from Trader Joes. I just called him and asked him to cut back from 3000mg of Vit C to 1000mg of Vit C. After reading the L Pauling 1994 obituary and 1998 study, I now question myself. Next week, he and I are scheduled for blood work for our upcoming physical. Kaiser always checks our liver. In addition, last week, I had him re-take the Spectracell nutrient blood analysis. We should get those results back in about 2-3 weeks. We are all different. I get that, however I am asking for your feedback. I deduce that you are taking a minimum of 400mg of Vit C daily to help the MP. So, please let me have some feedback.

[silvestrov in reply to enjoysalud]

I structured my response to pro-oxidant effects of vitamin C to be informative and ironical. Informative to the point of letting those people know that natural vitamin C does not cause pro-oxidant DNA damage and ascorbic acid, does.

I followed up this news with the obituary of Linus Pauling, one of America's greatest scientists, who died at the ripe old age of 93 - he obviously had massive DNA damage. This is the irony. I take about 4,200 mg/day of mixed vitamin C. The majority is ascorbic acid accompanied with bioflavinoids and hesperidin (which aids in absorption).

Protective effect of hesperidin in a model of Parkinson's disease induced by 6-hydroxydopamine in aged mice.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/252...

Quite some time ago I read Dr. Thomas Levy's book, Curing the Incurable, the History of vitamin C:

vitaminc.co.nz/pdf/INTRO-CU...

The book chronicles vitamin C's long history of treating disease and included episodes of curing patients with polio, infections, cancer.... One intriguing chapter is about the treatment of 6 patients with TB by the Dr. Charpy. Before the trial started on patient died because he was too far gone. After being treated with 25,000% (l5 Grams or 15,000 milligrams a day) of the daily allowance of then vitamin C (ascorbic acid), the remaining 5 gained between 20 and 70 pounds each and "became unaware of the enormous tuberculosis lesions they harbored". Vitamin C brought back patients near death from on of the world's greatest killers (if not the greatest).

Even with this DNA information the only thing worse than getting DNA damage from ascorbic acid is to not take ascorbic acid at all.

Remember the drug thalidomide which caused birth defects in children during the 1950's? Yes it has a black box warning on label but it is back and is prescribed for the treatment of leprosy because of its inflammatory properties.

Thalidomide in the treatment of leprosy.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/123...

In terms of mainstream, common drugs which are used everyday, the one I think is horrible is acetominophen - because it causes liver damage. But it is in many cough and cold remedies across the globe. And guess that, if you want to lower the dose of it and make it safer, take it with vitamin C (ascorbic acid); also Vit. C has been shown to protect against tylenol inflicted liver damage in lab rats: bioline.org.br/pdf?md08024

Doctors push all sorts of drugs which have terrible consequences to human health and they do so proudly and profitably. One of the worst is statins and yet little is said of their negative side effects on the general public by mainstream practitioners. Who can forget that Bayer pharmaceuticals first marketed heroin and a cough remedy? Take this and you will never cough again. Amen.

Without a doubt the single worst example of drug-induced death is the case of vioxx. The following article was published in The American Conservative and it showed that from 1999 to 2004 there was a statistical anomaly of 500,000 unexplained elderly deaths. Vioxx was marketed as aspirin on 'steroids' to treat arthritis and its date of introduction into the market was 1999 and its removal from the market, 2004:

theamericanconservative.com...

I loose no sleep over this DNA info and if you are concerned start taking natural vitamin C. I can recommend a great company which only produces natural vitamin C products, Supplement Clinic. When I went through my adrenal therapy I was taking prodigious amounts of vitamin C to the tune of 23,000 % a day (state of the art vitamin C) from Supplement Clinic. The following from is slow release vitamin C:

supplementclinic.com/Adrena...

The only problem I have is I am broke so I do not by the above product. I also liked using Dr. Lam's Adrenal C:

supplementclinic.com/Adrena...

If you look at the ingredients it includes lecithin, resveratrol and grape seed extract.

lecithin & PD: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/700...

resveratrol & PD: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/245...

grape seed extract & PD: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/245...

Again since I do not have money I stick with basic ascorbic acid and am fine with it. Here is a great article about vitamin C authored by Dr. Lam:

Vitamin C Safety

"Vitamin C's oxidant properties are found in low dosages (60 mg up to 2,000 mg). For its pro-oxidant properties to manifest, it requires high circulated or tissue level of one or more catalytic metals such as mercury or lead. Asides from Vitamin C, other anti-oxidants like glutathione and NAD have pro-oxidant capabilities. The primary factor needed for Vitamin C and other anti-oxidants to demonstrate pro-oxidant activity is the presence of catalytic metals like mercury and lead."

drlam.com/articles/vitamin_...

Regardless of what type of vitamin C you take I think a slow release from must be included. I read the article entitled, "Vitamin C transport and its role in the central nervous system" and I concluded that the admittance of vitamin c into the brain and central nervous system is a slow process and constant amounts need to be available for conversion.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

Additionally, the article notes that "The AFR (ascorbate free radical) is also reduced to ascorbate with high affinity by both NADH-dependent reductases (Nazemi & Staudinger 1968; Ito et al. 1981; Villalba et al. 1993) and by the NADPH-dependent enzyme thioredoxin reductase (May et al. 1998a)."

This process makes ascorbate available to the cell for use.

As a bonus, as if I am not giving you too much to read, the following article is why I use nicotinamide and recommend the use of NADH. Surprise, it comes from the study of tuberculosis:

Big Brains, Meat, Tuberculosis, and the Nicotinamide Switches: Co-Evolutionary Relationships with Modern Repercussions?

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

It is a brilliant article and after re-reading it I started to take Evening Primrose Oil, a good source of trptophan.

I am a bit burnt out here and have to get ready for bed.

Cheers!

Rich

[enjoysalud in reply to silvestrov]

Thank you! I know it's time-consuming for you to give me a lengthy reply. Time is a gift you give me. You give us. I have never done well with irony. I'm sorry that I missed it, but grateful that I wrote and more grateful that you promptly replied. I've decided to stick with my VIT C intake and also my son's. You know, Silvestrov, you were the motivating factor, the info you provided, to start my son on that concoction. You do much good.

[Mnd0vrmnky]

My dad has Psp and he takes 12mg daily, as do I. It is one of the ingredients of high quality fish oils.

[sumos in reply to Mnd0vrmnky]

Is there any side effects? I have been taking daily krill oil (twice daily). Do you know it? A Krill oil pill has 0.6 mg astaxanthin. Please kindly advise high quality fish oil?

[silvestrov in reply to sumos]

Salmon oil has astaxanthin:

salmonoilreviews.com/top-15...

[sumos in reply to silvestrov]

You say that 'salmon is better than krill oil' isn't it?

[silvestrov in reply to sumos]

Krill oil comes from a small crustacean with less toxic metal contamination so it is cleaner than salmon oil. If salmon oil is distilled at a molecular level, the contaminants (heavy metals) are removed.

Here is a study comparing krill and fish oil which may help you make a decision:

Comparison of bioavailability of krill oil versus fish oil and health effect

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

Dr. Mercola thinks krill oil is better than salmon oil:

articles.mercola.com/sites/...

____________________________________________________________________

I am taking salmon oil and will continue to do so because it, combined with vitamin C, helps the body absorb EGCG, which is a natural decarboxylase inhibitor. I do not think the authors tested krill oil for EGCG enhancement, so I take salmon oil.

EGCG decarboxylase inhibitor:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/113...

Absorption of EGCG:

"We were able to reach the highest ever level of EGCG in plasma with the combination of EGCG (purity > 94%) without caffeine taken after an overnight fasting period together with 200 mg ascorbic acid and 1000 mg omega-3 fatty acids from salmon."

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

[laglag in reply to silvestrov]

So salmon oil is the same as Krill oil, correct? How much do you take and what kind of vit C do you take and how much?

[silvestrov in reply to laglag]

Salmon and krill oil have some of the same components but they have many differences. Generally, 2,000 - 3,000 mg of salmon or fish oil is recommended. I am completely burnt out now and have included an article about the differences between krill, salmon, cod liver and fish oil (I have not had the time to read it):

omega3innovations.com/blog/...

I take a combination of ascorbic acid and if you go further up in this thread I write a response to a query by enjoysalad and I give my thoughts about ascorbic acid.

[laglag in reply to silvestrov]

I guess I should have asked if salmon oil is the same as fish oil?

[silvestrov in reply to sumos]

"Krill Oil, and other omega 3 supplements, stop platelets from clumping together and will often cause thinning in the blood. If you duplicate the blood-thinning effect by taking blood-thinners with Krill Oil, it could lead to negative reactions if not monitored properly. Too much of a good thing can be bad as they say."

The same is true for fish oil. Do not take either if you are taking Coumadin....warfarin.....