Print

---

I can understand pharmacokinetic plots for different drugs, but the one
for Sinemet seems a bit more complicated, just assuming we are looking
at the absortion rate for dopamine itself.  Pharmacokinetics are based
on determining plasma level of the drug or the metabolite in vivo.  The
initial study usually described the conditions of the volunteers tested,
whether they are normal or Parkinsonians, the time and content of their
meals, etc., and these conditions can severely influence the shape of
the curve, and in this case, I suspect it is far from a first degree
slope, and likely drops off asymptotically.
I have not looked or read any of this material in over 11 years, so that
I may just be dreaming.  Yet thinking about the frequency of dosing and
the duration of being 'on' seems to vary considerably from day to day
and from meal to meal, so that a graphic plot of all that would become
even more confusing and I would expect a coefficient of error to exceed
50%.

I probably make no sense, but I am retired, so I am allowed.

Michel Margosis
'Carpe Diem'