"What is science? Learn from science that you must doubt the experts ... Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts. Every generation that discovers something from its experience must pass it on, but it must do so with a delicate balance between respect and disrespect..."
Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize in Physics 1965.
The answers are everywhere. In levodopa itself, with its lights and shadows.
There are doubts and questions that we ask ourselves throughout the disease process, from when something starts to go wrong but we still don't have a diagnosis, to the moment when we have been on medication for years and have tried one after the other various remedies... and we start to wonder if there really is "something" that can help us.
At first we worry about how long the levodopa will be useful. Later, we asked the neurologist about Mucuna pruriens. A little later we didn't ask any more. And finally we look for alternatives that allow us to have hope...
Possibly the answer is to complete the puzzle of one's Parkinson's disease, which, although common in many respects, has unique pieces in each case. And for that we need some powerful "giants" (B1, B2, D3, C, B12) and an army of hard-working "dwarfs" to complete the job (alpha lipoic acid, turmeric with black pepper, magnesium, EGCG from green tea...).
I think we should look at everything differently, ask ourselves questions about everything, take nothing for granted:
1) We have to know well what we are dealing with. Parkinson's diseases, a PARKINSONIAN SYNDROME, rather than a single entity that we can call Parkinson's disease, as it is already stated in many places. We already know that it affects everything from the SN and BBB to the gut, the intestinal flora or the liver itself. Perhaps this is part of the reason for the enormous diversity we find between individual patients and others.
2) As important as the substance, is the DOSE (sometimes the form, the brand...) and the time or patience. When giving a substance in very high doses, cofactors may also be needed.
For example, the most appropriate form of vitamin B12. A trusted brand, either sublingual, oral or intramuscular. 500, 1000, 2000 mcg? The other B vitamins must also be present in a certain amount. Some problems are solved in a week, others need 3 months or more. Time, patience... Sleep is the body's repair shop.
3) And YATROGENIA (not only levodopa, which seems to be one of the most persistent taboos).
But let's see what levodopa itself teaches us:
There is a percentage of patients for whom levodopa does not help. How could we demand from any vitamin what the reference medicine has failed to achieve over the last 50 years.
In the early days, tolerable doses of levodopa were ineffective. And going higher until motor improvement was seen produced unbearable effects (nausea and vomiting). The pioneers of levodopa had to face this problem, which seems to have been solved by Cotzias in 1967. Later, carbidopa/benserazide solved that problem but created others.
Once again, History ("teacher of life", as an ancient Roman sage called it) helps us: Oliver Sacks criticised the use of levodopa in dementia patients until 1972, when he seems to have given up, devoting himself to telling us beautiful eccentricities since then; Walter Birkmayer shifted his focus from bringing levodopa from outside to advocating the stimulation of natural dopamine production by using a vitamin B3 coenzyme, the famous NADH, etc.).
We know that levodopa increases the neurotoxic homocysteine, oxidation in dopaminergic neurons, chelates zinc, overloads the liver, carbidopa affects the metabolism of vitamin B6 and the internal synthesis of the scarce niacin (B3) from tryptophan...
The damage caused by levodopa is so great that it seems like another disease superimposed on the original Parkinson's disease. I first became aware of this when reading Marty Hinz. Whatever his faults and sins, I owe him something so essential to keep me moving towards my dream: the day when Parkinson's disease is a thing of the past, like the encephalitis lethargica depicted in "Awakenings" or the lytico-bodig of the island of cycads (Guam).
Then, the suffering of my father and of so many millions of sick people in this "Parkinson's Archipelago" will have served some purpose... and will be forgotten in the mists of the past.
I never stop dreaming of a cure and I will not give up, nor will so many hundreds or thousands of people all over the world, whatever their native language.
ADDED TEXT.-
All this can be corrected or alleviated. The famous Canadian neuropsychiatrist Abram Hoffer claimed to have successfully treated his Parkinson's patients on levodopa with high doses of vitamin B3 for the mind and coenzyme Q10 for the body, although in reality it is all interrelated.
- for oxidation of levodopa remnants, vitamin C, lycopene from tomato and EGCG from green tea (Berg, Pardo...)
- for liver overload, milk thistle in capsule or tablet form (Lombard, Marjama-Lyons...)
- for mitochondrial complex I involvement, coenzyme Q10, vitamin C, carnitine (Shults, Hoffer, Abdin, Ebadi...)
and so on, almost everything.
LEVODOPA VERDICT: Start Early/Late = Same Outcomes
