Mucuna pruriens

[andreifa]

I started to use Mucuna pruriens (MP) from Zandopa. So far I am taking 4.5g that corresponds to 1.5 100/25 sinemet pills. This will last me 2h15min, sinemet or MP. I tried to increase the MP dose up to 7.5g hoping to obtain the same on-time duration as the one provided by the equivalent sinemet pills. But I did not manage to go beyond 2h30min. My question is did anybody manage to get longer on-time by using any form of MP?

[rhenry45]

No. You are better off just taking sinemet and also Xadago for the best results.

[andreifa in reply to rhenry45]

Thank you for the suggestion.

[Greenday in reply to andreifa]

4.5g or 7.5g Mucuna powder is not equivalent to 1.5 pills of 100/25 sinement:

You may check the recent human study :

Mucuna pruriens in Parkinson disease. A double-blind, randomized, controlled, crossover study (2017)

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

Instead of Sinemet they compare with Madopar (100/25)

A possible equivalent may be the following

MP-Low = (350 x 100*1.5) / 5.7 = 9, 210 mg Mucuna powder

Mucuna powder in the study was 5.7% Levodopa concentration extracted from beans with no fillers. What is the levodopa concentration in Zandopa? Does it contain any fillers? You should take account those factors when calculating the correct dosage.

also check the following thread:

healthunlocked.com/parkinso...

Silvestrov (forum member) suggests EGCG catechines with mucuna as a replacement to the decarboxylase inhibitors such as Cardidoba. healthunlocked.com/parkinso...

[andreifa in reply to Greenday]

Thank you for the info. According to the Zandopa product site, it is stated that 7.5g of Zandopa powder is equivalent with 250mg of levodopa. Hence 1.5g of powder equals 50mg levodopa. I take the powder, 3g, with 1/2 of 100/25 levocarb pill.

This is the info site:

mall.coimbatore.com/bnh/zan...

[Greenday in reply to andreifa]

Mucuna typically contains 4-6 % levodopa. I can't see where Zandopa disclose this crucial information. Does this formulation contain 100% mucuna powder? Does it contain any fillers/sugars? Zandopa does not appear to disclose specific label information.

[andreifa in reply to Greenday]

At the point 1 it is stated that the powder yields for 7.5g 250mg of levodopa. This formulation does contain sugars.

[andreifa in reply to andreifa]

This actually translates in a content of 3.33% levodopa content.

[Greenday in reply to andreifa]

It seems like a proprietary formula which contains fillers. I cannot find the full study of HP-200 where Zandopa is possibly based on.

Depending on the human study the bio-availability of Levodopa in Mucuna powder is much lower than the Sinemet or Madopar equivalent.

For example based on the following human study:

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

100mg Levodopa from Madopar is equivalent to 350mg Levodopa from Mucuna powder.

I copy the dosages from the Link you provided as reference to Zandopa mall.coimbatore.com/bnh/zan...

1 tablet of 100mg L-dopa approx + 10mg carbidopa

= 2 x 7.5g Zandopa [+ 25mg carbidopa of Zandopa (?)]

Translates as:

100mg/10mg (LD/CD) = 15g Zandopa [+ 25mg carbidopa of Zandopa (?)]

It seems that the dosages described are much higher to the ones you tried. However the link you posted is not from the official manufacturer and I cannot verify the validity of the content.

According to the page mall.coimbatore.com/bnh/zan... 7.5g of Zandopa powder contains 6.5g actual mucuna powder.

If the levodopa content is 250mg then the levodopa concentration in mucuna powder translates as 3.84%, which is a substantially low concentration of Levodopa in mucuna powder extracted from velvet beans.

Mind the typical levodopa concentration in Mucuna is 4-6% ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/272...

Another human study uses 15g of mucuna powder to achieve similar results to 200mg LD/CD

jnnp.bmj.com/content/jnnp/7...

The following recent human study uses 6,140mg of Mucuna powder (5.7% levodopa) to achieve similar results to 100mg LD/Benserazide

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

It is possible Zandopa adopts a modest approach to minimize adverse reaction such as gastrointestinal side effects which more likely at higher dosages.

Most studies with mucuna are short term; larger human studies will possibly evaluate its effectiveness and safety for long duration human use

Since the link you provided is from an unofficial source I cannot verify the accuracy of the levodopa content in Zandopa.

[andreifa in reply to Greenday]

Greenday, thank you for your well documented post. All I can say, is that I use Zandopa powder since October 2017. I replaced one sinemet pill with 3g of powder in 3 out of 6 daily servings, with the same end result. As I felt it.