This is a product that has tudca in it which arrived in my inbox today. This is interesting to me as it is one of the ingredients in restore gold, the Parkinsons formulation which my husband has been using for more than a year now. He is doing well but takes many things so not sure how much RG has helped.
This product has way less tudca in it and RG says it is probably the main helpful ingredient in their product. This link is interesting in that it has a spiel about tudca. I’m not suggesting buying this as it is expensive for less of the ingredients. microbeformulas.com/collect...
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LAJ12345
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I took three bottles of TUDCA three years ago and felt it did nothing for me.
Then I did research on how it is harvested.
Since much of it is harvested from bears in Third World countries, I think it's safe to assume most of those animals are treated cruelly.
There are videos on YouTube about how the Vietnamese were extracting it from bears and I immediately quit taking it. They totally immobilize the bear for its entire life in a cramped cage with, among other things, a pipe running through its neck. Some of the most cruel videos I've ever seen. (There are also videos for some of these bears have been rescued.)
Since there is no evidence that it is of any benefit, in consideration of how probably most of it is harvested, I wouldn't take it if I were paid big $$.
I cannot even say I'm glad it's in a clinical trial because I don't trust big Pharma to treat animals any better.
Are you meaning it is still from bear or bull bile? Sorry you are a bit cryptic. If you have some truth please post the link as innuendos aren’t very useful.
Saw some of the videos. Meanwhile, suggesting animal bile is out there, far far far far far out there. Too far out to not have to prove your case and justify what's done to animals, which can't be justified anyway. Not cryptic, just tipping off potentially trusting, naive readers to use their critical thinking and not just take everything someone puts up at face value.
So whats your offer of proof? Obviously a sales brochure is not evidence, except potentially of deception. Of course a sales brochure is going to assert only good things, can you imagine sales to say "animals are harmed and tortured to produce our useless snakeoil"? Not likely. Uh huh, no problem, it SAYS everything is lovely.
Folks, don't just believe something because someone here says something, such as a sales brochure is something to trust, use your God given common sense. Somewhere someone is going to champion eating tiger penises, they do it in China after all, and there are more Chinese than anyone else so it must work, right, must be ethical, it says so right here after all, sure. (Chinese traditional health medicine holds that eating bat feces is good for you, which is how the world was given the gift of SARS). If that's all it takes for you to champion it, shame on you.
Folks, nothing on this website prevents someone from smoking their socks before hitting the keyboard. That's why you must consent to disclaimers prior to signing up.
The thing about Chinese medicine is that a lot of their stuff is been in practice for thousands of years, but what I find interesting is somewhere along the line someone had to be the first to eat bad poop. Who thought that might be a good idea?
Another good Chinese therapy is centipede juice. Apparently, you get a handful of centipedes, put them in a meat grinder, put a cup underneath it and crank away.
I mean, really, what has to be wrong for someone to eat bat crap or drink centipede juice? Maybe growing third arm out of the top of your head would do it.
I recently suggested we start a competition for the biggest health guru scam artists. Perhaps we should start a competition for the most ridiculous therapy?
Do you think they are really getting all the worlds supply from bears? Or bulls? I wouldn’t think there would be enough animals to produce it all? Disturbing if they do.
You are a trip and half my friend. Why you tried TUDCA for your PD is beyond me. I do see its value for liver health, particularly for individuals who have damaged their livers for a variety of reasons, particularly "cookie" users or alcohol users. However, the issue here is PD.
TUDCA and its kissing cousin UDCA are currently derived from two(2) completely different processes. As a bio-chemist of some experience, I can inform you that UDCA is commonly produced in the US today by the synthetic transformation of cholic acid (CA), which is the most abundant and least expensive bile acid available. Unfortunately, many Asian countries such as Japan and China still obtain both substances in large amounts from dried bear bile because Asiatic bears have very high concentrations of TUDCA and the process (synthetically) of making UDCA is complicated and requires a sophisticated lab rather than a bunch of animal cages and manual labor.
Much more importantly (!) for this thread, UDCA is the chemical most frequently used in medical research and was the chemical used by the University of Minnesota in their 2020 published information blurb regarding their Phase 1 CT of UDCA efficacy for PD patients (which will be of questionable validity given the tiny handful number-20- of participants and the "open label", but I am sure others will disagree with me citing my ruthless and negative "objectivity"). They found it was "safe".
The current Sheffield (UK) Phase II CT related to PD will also use UDCA rather than your TUDCA. Again, unfortunately, a very small CT of 30 participants, but it is a move up the scale towards an eventual Phase III...perhaps.
Trouble is...TUDCA is far more available and much cheaper on the retail market than UDCA (ursodeoxycholic acid). UDCA costs about twice as much. Figure 80 cents to more than a dollar US per pill depending on the strength.
The doctor running that study is the doctor who first diagnosed me. A 10 minute visit. Sent me out of the office with, "There is no cure, there's nothing to be done." Since I didn't want it to take over and dominate my life, did nothing for six or seven years. Huge mistake. Would it undermine their billing cycle to have mentioned exercise?
Very few neurologists believe exercise is efficacious for anything. Even fewer are what I would call "holistic" or CAM oriented. Brain oriented to a fault.
By the way, interesting 2019 study on Atremorine which belies some of your (and several others) previous criticism of this substance as a scam. Read:
Pharmacogenetics of Atremorine-Induced Neuroprotection and Dopamine Response in Parkinson's Disease.
In this study, they claim that Atremorine at a single does of 5 grams per day (which is a whole lot given its retail price) induced DA synthesis causing a significant increase in plasma DA levels 1 hour after administration in practically 100% of patients. Rather amazing to see 100% response to anything.
No, I didn't read the full study, but we know the cost of 5 grams per day would prove beyond many PD individuals financial ability.
Don't think it is quite as simple a compound as you suggest. Are you involved in the processing? Let me know if you know about it or who the major supplier is:
Specifically, "a novel biopharmaceutical compound, obtained by means of non-denaturing biotechnological procedures from structural components of Vicia faba L.".... Not simple.
No, I’m not involved. Wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Levodopa is levodopa whatever the source, I like to know what I’m talking so it’s the pharmaceutical version for me.
Hi Sharon, do you have a reference for the pharmaceutical version? If it really is a pharmaceutical, then you’d expect some data in the public domain. I can’t find any reference on clinicaltrials.gov, nor the FDA and EMA websites.
Either way, are you saying that the pharmaceutical version doesn’t include levodopa?
I gave the citation to MBA. Look again. If you can't find it, let me know. I will find it for you.
"...are you saying that the pharmaceutical version doesn’t include levodopa?" No, I'm not saying it or anything close to it.
To repeat my comment: Specifically, it is "a novel biopharmaceutical compound, obtained by means of non-denaturing biotechnological procedures from structural components of Vicia faba L.".... Which isn't a simple process by any stretch of the imagination even for a lay person who isn't a professional chemist. It is complicated and costly.
"Levodopa is levodopa whatever the source," I don't think you mean exactly that.
MP out of India isn't sourced or produced the same way the high quality levodopa pharmaceutical is produced from Sigma-Aldrich or Merck. The purity and percentage of levodopa is vastly different. Hence the difficulty for many PD patients who have difficulty with typical MP passing through the intestinal tract intact and then on through the BBB. I'm not knocking MP in its basically raw form. It avoids the use of carbidopa. I simply saying it isn't comparable with a pharmaceutical.
Without paying $57 to get beyond the paywall, I can't read the full paper, so we're left with the abstract, from which you can't say whether the process is complicated and costly or not.
"Levodopa is levodopa whatever the source," - yes, I did mean to say that. It is chemically indistinguishable. What's different is everything else that comes with it. In MP and Atremorine they are - as far as I can tell with the latter - uncharacterised, and those that are, are variable. That's why I prefer to take LD/CD, then I know what I'm getting.
Just because the company call it a biopharmaceutical doesn't mean it is. In my book, to call something a pharmaceutical means it has been approved for use by a regulatory authority e.g. FDA, with proof of safety, efficacy and quality. I can't find any evidence that Atremorine is approved.
Sounds like this study came out after my commentary? I'm always open to new information. Would you link to the study? I'll read the full study and report back. I don't doubt you, but can you link to my previous comments?
It is in restore gold and according to their site which has many positive reviews it is effective so I can see why you tried it😊. Restore gold has lots of other things in it too so it might be the combination, or maybe the people who are responding are also taking many other things that are helping too.
"Natural Tauroursodeoxycholic Acid is sourced from bear bile. However, due to the inhumane way in which this is harvested, Nutricost will only use synthetic Tudca in their products. It is always then tested for quality and safety."
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