Was The Dose Of Deprenyl Too High?
One explanation for the excess mortality in the patients receiving deprenyl and L-Dopa in the British study may be that the 10 mg/day of deprenyl they received may have been too high when combined with L-Dopa. Here are some findings that suggest this: • Studies have shown that a daily dose of 10 mg of deprenyl a day enhances dopamine transmission in the brain by an average of 40-50% 32 • Deprenyl also appears to inhibit pre-synaptic dopamine receptors, thus increasing the synthesis of dopamine in the brain 33 • Treatment with L-Dopa, which is converted into dopamine, also elevates dopamine levels in the brain via a different mechanism.34 • Dopamine is known to cause toxic oxidative stress in the process of being degraded into its metabolites. 35-36 It could be that the combination of deprenyl and L-Dopa in the absence of very many functioning dopaminergic neurons, results in an excessive amount of dopamine in the brain, which becomes toxic to substantia nigra neurons, and which, in tur
