More and more, metals are thought to play a role in Parkinson's disease. Recently iron has received a lot of attention in this regard. It seems that too much iron in particular too much heme or ferric iron may be especially bad. Be careful of that red meat!
This also means you should eat healthy portions of chelating foods. Broken record here but eggplant chelates iron and copper very well:
http://www.nasunin.com/health-benefits.php
I've also just learned that sweet potatoes chelate metals from your gut, especially mercury. Green tea is another good chelator. So if you eat these things on a daily basis they chelate the metals from your gut before they ever have a chance to get to your brain. But Nasunin in eggplant does cross the blood brain barrier to get the metals out of your brain.
Background
Reportedly the rate limiting factor in the production of dopamine is the cellular production of tyrosine hydroxylase.
It says here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrosine_hydroxylase
That when Fe(III) is present, tyrosine hydroxylase is deactivated. So maybe this is the whole problem, Fe(I,II) enter the brain, accumulate, get oxidized, and subsequently deactivate the enzyme. Perhaps the cells are not dead at all, it's just the enzyme is deactivated by the iron. Then subsequently since L-DOPA is not being produced the melanin disappears. there's got to be something we can inject in there to precipitate the iron and get it out. then full function would be restored perhaps!
Digging a little further:
http://m.jbc.org/content/271/40/24395.full
We find our friend tetrahydrobiopterin reduces ferric (Fe+++) to (Fe++) ferrous on the TH enzyme, reactivating it: "As noted above, metal replacement studies have implicated ferrous iron as the active species in tyrosine hydroxylase. This suggests that the iron must be reduced during or before the catalytic cycle. As shown here, either dithionite or 6-methyltetrahydropterin can supply the electrons for the reduction. The physiological reductant is most likely tetrahydrobiopterin, given the ready reduction of the iron by 6-methyltetrahydropterin."
So maybe tetrahydrobiopterin could be an option. Here are some other options for reducing iron in the body I found that may be of interest:
This site had an iron-reducing cookbook it offered, and had this food for thought:
"Mismanaged iron in the brain has been observed in autopsies of people with neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer's, early onset Parkinson's, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and Huntington's disease."
http://www.hemochromatosis.org/
Here are some recent observations on of all things – therapeutic bloodletting! :
Blood letting increases serum oxidation resistance:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/7852918/
21st century bloodletting reduces cardiovascular risk
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120529211645.htm
Here's a little more thought on the topic:
Evidence conflicts on iron’s role in Parkinson’s disease
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/evidence-conflicts-irons-role-parkinsons-disease
