Green Tea, Dopamine, and Parkinson's Disease

Hats off to Matt Cook and “Daily Medical Discoveries” for this important information. It arrived in my email and there is no website article that I can refer you to. I will do my best to interpret and summarize it for you, but I highly recommend that you subscribe to his newsletter.

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a debilitating condition that causes the depletion of dopamine, an essential neurotransmitter. Therapy consists of replacing it with oral dopamine (L-dopa), monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and/or dopamine agonists, agents that mimic the activity of dopamine. What happens to dopamine after ingestion is the gist of this article.

There is an enzyme called “catechol-O-methyltransferase” (COMT) which converts dopamine, a good chemical, to O-methyl dopamine, a bad chemical. From Cook: “Not only does it displace dopamine from the brain and nerves, it can actually inhibit transmission… It interferes directly with nerves… (and) causes imprecise and spontaneous movements, and it is actually this alone which causes the effects generally attributed to L-dopa after ingestion.”

So now scientists are doing research into ways to block this nasty conversion. There are drugs that do this effectively, but they are expensive and harmful to the liver. Dapeng Chen et al discovered that a chemical found in green tea called “epicatechin gallate” directly inhibits COMT, thereby lowering levels of O-methyl dopamine. And it does this at doses found naturally in single cups of green tea.

Because of fluoridated water, Matt Cook suggests drinking your tea with a little boron, which converts it to boron trifluoride, an excretable form of the element. Boron has other beneficial effects on the body, and because of its propensity to lessen arthritic pain, I drink a little every day. My mixture is composed of one-half to one tablespoon of borax (yes, the laundry stuff) dissolved in one-half gallon of water.