Dopamine & prolactin modification

[zkt]

C&P from somewhere

X

22


Re: Dostinex

05/25

After looking into the matter a bit more, and finding pills for sale at the rate of 8 for $135, I decided to check into prolactin inhibition in general.

Prolactin is interesting stuff. The only time when it's very useful is when a woman is lactating, it causes milk to be produced. It also appears to be responsible for decreased libido and decreased fertility during that time. When people have pituitary gland tumors, they may have very high prolactin levels (it is produced by the pituitary). If they are female, they will stop ovulating, and will produce milk. If they are male they may produce milk as well.

Prolactin's natural limit in the body is dopamine. Dopamine is kind of the flipside of seratonin, and is a vital part of our nervous system's chemistry. As we age, the levels of dopamine we produce will decline, particularly after age 40. Eventually the decline may become severe enough to cause one to get Parkinson's Disease, get shaky hands and so on, which gradually leads to debility and death.

The antagonistic relationship between prolactin and dopamine is why a prolactin-killing drug is used both for pituitary tumors and for parkinsonism.

A couple of things which you can do to lower your prolactin levels in a safe way is to keep zinc and vitamin B6 in your bloodstream. 30-50 milligrams of each a day should do. If you take an antidepressant, an antipsychotic or an antihistamine for stomach problems (loraditine, etc.), all of which raise prolactin levels, B6 and zinc will not work very well, but they should not interfere with your meds.

A more heavyhanded approach is to raise your dopamine level, and let the dopamine drop your prolactin level. L-dopa is the drug (long used to treat parkinsonism) usually used to do this, and increased libido is one of its side effects. It is simply dopamine with a carboxyl group stuck onto the molecule, and it decarboxylates after it's in your system. L-dopa is an expensive prescription drug.

A plant grown through much of the world, velvet bean, contains very high levels of natural l-dopa, and has been used as an aphrodesiac in Ayurvedic medicine. Because heat will quickly decarboxylate most things, cooking is required for them to be safely used as food, otherwise one can OD on l-dopa, which is a very bad thing -- potentially fatal in severe cases. However, if you don't want them as food, but rather as a medication, raw is ideal. You can buy powdered velvet bean (usually sold as mucuna pruriens), or you can, with some hunting, buy whole beans. A teaspoon a day should be sufficient to try this idea out, or in the case of whole beans, you can sprout them and increase the l-dopa level by 10 times. At that rate, you'd only need to eat maybe 1/3-1/2 a bean sprout a day!

However, there is an even easier and cheaper way to go. A close relative of the velvet bean is the fava bean. It contains significantly less l-dopa, but 2-3 fava bean sprouts would probably be plenty. Just remember, more is not better. Overdosing on l-dopa can make you feel nauseated, lethargic, depressed and generally crappy. A severe overdose can interfere with heart function. So if you plan on trying this, don't think that upping the dose will make for more fun. It might only make you feel lousy, but if you got totally carried away you could end up dead, having a psychotic reaction, or any number of bad things. This is a powerful substance we're talking about. Long-term recreational use, particularly without a break every few weeks, would also seem like a risky idea, as things like diskenisia (uncontrollable movement) can happen with overuse.

For the ultra-lazy: 4-16 oz. of canned fava beans per day would also do. Most of the l-dopa would have been decarboxylated, but a little bit usually survives.

Note: a very small number of people, primarily of Middle Eastern descent, are extremely allergic to fava beans, and very likely to velvet beans as well. If you have never eaten fava beans and found out that way, you might want to find out. A drop of extract made from the beans and applied to your skin should tell you pretty quickly.

Under no circumstances should a woman play with l-dopa if she might be pregnant, or if she is breastfeeding. You should not combine l-dopa with vitamin B6, the B6 will cause it to decarboxylate prematurely and not work. You should not take l-dopa if you've taken a monoamine oxidase inhibitor within the last couple of weeks. You should not take it if you have heart, liver or kidney problems, high blood pressure, or any sort of psychiatric issues (including depression). For the usual list of precautions, see www.drugs.com/MTM/D/Dopar.html

So there you have it, an alternate route to Dostinex, which could cost as little as a penny or two a day, instead of $135 for 8 tablets, and which requires no prescription. If you use l-dopa instead of the safe zinc/B6 route, you are, of course, still taking chances with your health for recreational purposes.

CYA clause: I am not an MD, and I am especially not *your* MD. Look into things for yourself, and do anything mentioned above at your own risk!

[JanSz]

Originally Posted by zkt

C&P from somewhere

X

22


Re: Dostinex

05/25

After looking into the matter a bit more, and finding pills for sale at the rate of 8 for $135, I decided to check into prolactin inhibition in general.

Prolactin is interesting stuff. The only time when it's very useful is when a woman is lactating, it causes milk to be produced. It also appears to be responsible for decreased libido and decreased fertility during that time. When people have pituitary gland tumors, they may have very high prolactin levels (it is produced by the pituitary). If they are female, they will stop ovulating, and will produce milk. If they are male they may produce milk as well.

Prolactin's natural limit in the body is dopamine. Dopamine is kind of the flipside of seratonin, and is a vital part of our nervous system's chemistry. As we age, the levels of dopamine we produce will decline, particularly after age 40. Eventually the decline may become severe enough to cause one to get Parkinson's Disease, get shaky hands and so on, which gradually leads to debility and death.

The antagonistic relationship between prolactin and dopamine is why a prolactin-killing drug is used both for pituitary tumors and for parkinsonism.

A couple of things which you can do to lower your prolactin levels in a safe way is to keep zinc and vitamin B6 in your bloodstream. 30-50 milligrams of each a day should do. If you take an antidepressant, an antipsychotic or an antihistamine for stomach problems (loraditine, etc.), all of which raise prolactin levels, B6 and zinc will not work very well, but they should not interfere with your meds.

A more heavyhanded approach is to raise your dopamine level, and let the dopamine drop your prolactin level. L-dopa is the drug (long used to treat parkinsonism) usually used to do this, and increased libido is one of its side effects. It is simply dopamine with a carboxyl group stuck onto the molecule, and it decarboxylates after it's in your system. L-dopa is an expensive prescription drug.

A plant grown through much of the world, velvet bean, contains very high levels of natural l-dopa, and has been used as an aphrodesiac in Ayurvedic medicine. Because heat will quickly decarboxylate most things, cooking is required for them to be safely used as food, otherwise one can OD on l-dopa, which is a very bad thing -- potentially fatal in severe cases. However, if you don't want them as food, but rather as a medication, raw is ideal. You can buy powdered velvet bean (usually sold as mucuna pruriens), or you can, with some hunting, buy whole beans. A teaspoon a day should be sufficient to try this idea out, or in the case of whole beans, you can sprout them and increase the l-dopa level by 10 times. At that rate, you'd only need to eat maybe 1/3-1/2 a bean sprout a day!

However, there is an even easier and cheaper way to go. A close relative of the velvet bean is the fava bean. It contains significantly less l-dopa, but 2-3 fava bean sprouts would probably be plenty. Just remember, more is not better. Overdosing on l-dopa can make you feel nauseated, lethargic, depressed and generally crappy. A severe overdose can interfere with heart function. So if you plan on trying this, don't think that upping the dose will make for more fun. It might only make you feel lousy, but if you got totally carried away you could end up dead, having a psychotic reaction, or any number of bad things. This is a powerful substance we're talking about. Long-term recreational use, particularly without a break every few weeks, would also seem like a risky idea, as things like diskenisia (uncontrollable movement) can happen with overuse.

For the ultra-lazy: 4-16 oz. of canned fava beans per day would also do. Most of the l-dopa would have been decarboxylated, but a little bit usually survives.

Note: a very small number of people, primarily of Middle Eastern descent, are extremely allergic to fava beans, and very likely to velvet beans as well. If you have never eaten fava beans and found out that way, you might want to find out. A drop of extract made from the beans and applied to your skin should tell you pretty quickly.

Under no circumstances should a woman play with l-dopa if she might be pregnant, or if she is breastfeeding. You should not combine l-dopa with vitamin B6, the B6 will cause it to decarboxylate prematurely and not work. You should not take l-dopa if you've taken a monoamine oxidase inhibitor within the last couple of weeks. You should not take it if you have heart, liver or kidney problems, high blood pressure, or any sort of psychiatric issues (including depression). For the usual list of precautions, see www.drugs.com/MTM/D/Dopar.html

So there you have it, an alternate route to Dostinex, which could cost as little as a penny or two a day, instead of $135 for 8 tablets, and which requires no prescription. If you use l-dopa instead of the safe zinc/B6 route, you are, of course, still taking chances with your health for recreational purposes.

CYA clause: I am not an MD, and I am especially not *your* MD. Look into things for yourself, and do anything mentioned above at your own risk!

http://www.intlgourmet.com/cgi-local...84682576.54707

Scientists have discovered that fresh fava beans helps to fight Parkinson's disease.

Due to the high demand from Parkinson's patients, we have committed ourselves to being a resource, not only of the product itself but the great recipes, as well. We believe that healthy foods should taste good.

Besides carrying canned fava, we also carry fresh frozen fava beans, available all year.
Fresh grown fava beans are now available during all seasons.
================================================== ======================
Wlii have to check few indian an arabic food stores in my town.

[gregxy]

I think that the problem with taking L-dopa orally is that it is destroyed in the digestive system. When it is given to Parkinsons patients I think they also give cabodopa (I'm not sure of the
name here) to stop it from being destroyed.

Another route may be to block the converson of dopamine into norephinephrine. Excess norepi.
causes anxiety which can kill your sex drive, raise your blood pressure and cause other problems.

One advantage of dositex is that it cannot be converted to norepi.

[KSman]

dostinex causes heart valve problems, as with some other ergot derived drugs.

L-dopa is an amino acid, not a drug, not all things that have medicinal effects are drugs, but many will not understand this distinction.

L-dopa is not really very expensive, but the "legal/medical" restrictions make it costly. It can be obtained as the amino acid, or in vegetables or vege concentrates. 500mg of l-dopa per day oral has been used to increase HG release, so that dose is a known safe point. Might need to start with less and work up to that.

[zkt]

Originally Posted by gregxy

I think that the problem with taking L-dopa orally is that it is destroyed in the digestive system. When it is given to Parkinsons patients I think they also give cabodopa (I'm not sure of the
name here) to stop it from being destroyed.

Another route may be to block the converson of dopamine into norephinephrine. Excess norepi.
causes anxiety which can kill your sex drive, raise your blood pressure and cause other problems.

One advantage of dositex is that it cannot be converted to norepi.

since L dopa is able to cross the blood-brain barrier whereas dopamine itself cannot. 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 – carbidopa or benserazide – and often a catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) inhibitor.

How readily available are the inhibitirs ?
As I understand it selegiline and L-dopa together will do wondrs for your dopamine levels. Selegile alone raised my BP. Due to the comversion to norepi ? How can this be blocked ?

[Sunkist]

"Due to the comversion to norepi ? How can this be blocked ?"

That is the $64K question. If that is solved for a given subject, I believe with what else we know about TRT, dopamine, prolactin, the adrenal precursors, and then hGH... that we have a leg up on the fountain of proverbial youth.

Why are the chemical mediators so much more easily balanced when you are 20... and not when you are fifty? What is the role of stress?

[gregxy]

Psychological stress may enhance conversion of dopamine into norephinephrine since norepi
is the neurotransmitter that is used in the sympathetic nervous system which responds to
stress. OR maybe high levels of norepi (for what ever reason) cause us to percieve stress as
higher than it is.

It does seem like a drug that would block Dopamine conversion to norepi would be interesting,
does anyone know if such a drug exists? The enzyme the does the conversion is dopamine
beta hydroxylase and it uses copper as a cofactor. So maybe increasing zinc and reducing
copper in the diet would help.

Growth factors like testosterone, and HGH may decline with age because the systems "wear
out" or it may be a deliberate protective mechanism against cancer

[zkt]

Which came first the chicken or the egg eh?

Seems we have found some old friends here.

"Drugs that are known to interfere with the dopamine / norepinephrine system include, but are not limited to:

• Bupropion (Wellbutrin IR/SR/XL, Buspar, Amfebutamone)
• Amphetamines (Adderall, Dexedrine, etc.)
• Methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta, Focalin, etc.)
• Cocaine (Occasionally used in dental procedures, and a known substance of abuse.) "

Ritalin: now thats an interesting drug. Anyone have any direct experience ?
Not familiar with this tho. Treatment for alcoholism- mix with ethanol and instant hangover. Aside from blocking DBH, no doubt has other effects.
"Disulfiram has been found to inhibit the enzyme dopamine-beta-hydroxylase, blocking the metabolism of dopamine into norepinephrine."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disulfiram

Hard core boichemistry:
http://www.studystack.com/studytable-14514

Somewhat related:
"Cocaine and methylphenidate block the action of the dopamine transporter and, to a lesser extent, of other monoamine transporters. This causes an overload of dopamine in the extracellular space (synaptic cleft), since the neurotransmitter cannot be cleared away after its release."
http://www.answers.com/topic/dopamine-transporter

[Sunkist]

Actually Buspar is Buspirone and not Buproprion... but are often used together since one of the probs with the use singlly is anxiety development particularly to the extent of GAD in a few. Buspar with Wellbutrin works to congtrol that. I would not Rx one in many individuals without the other from a mal-practice standpoint. Understood as to why they are listed togegther.

I do agree that a mental state is pehaps the most important of all. We look for a chemical mechanism to do everything here, but meditation and stress reduction techniques might be the best way to decrease the flight or fight.

Now.... what happens if one uses an alpha blocker and a beta blocker together? Besides being a bit dangerous physiologically, would this push enough epi out to slant the dopamine to a more elevated position... while still not allowing the bad side of the epi to take place? Just a thought.