Funny thing - I was "wide awake" at 3:30 in the
morning a few weeks ago [insomnia induced by my
PD medicine most likely], and I fired up the ole' TV,
flipped to the Mississippi Educational TV network, and
what do you know, they were broadcasting a series in
cellular biology produced by the University of Toronto!
"So what?", you ask.
Well, fellow parkies, much to my surprise and delight,
it dealt with cellular metabolism!
You say you still don't grasp the significance of this
pontification?
Part four [I think] talked directly about NADH!
Got your attention now, eh?
[Talk about a cloud having a silver lining or what -
maybe I was supposed to be up at that time so I could
see this show and report to "you all" as we say here in
the south.]
And so, fellow parkies, here is a **very brief**
summary of what I learned early one fall morning,
when most of the folks in my part of the world were
sound asleep [if there is enough interest in this
subject, I'll do a more technical/complete post later on
- keep that e-mail coming]...
A HOMEOWNER'S GUIDE TO NADH
NADH, recently introduced to this user community as
"co-enzyme Q-10", is a material that is present in
every cell in our body, and is an essential "player" in
the formation of a substance known as adenosine
tri-phosphate (ATP). For those of you who didn't know
it, ATP is the actual "energy source" that we use to
accomplish work.
Put in terms of an example we can all relate to, think of
our bodies as a fireplace - then ATP would be the logs
we would actually put in the fireplace to produce the
fire that ultimately "does the work" of heating the room,
cooking the food, etc.
As I remember it, most of the NADH we have results
from the breakdown of glucose [a simple sugar - the
"tree" from which we obtain the logs for our fireplace]
through the metabolic process known as the Kreb's
cycle. This biochemical transformation takes place in
the cellular body known as the mitochondria, itself
affectionately known as "the body's Power House".
Thus, in our example, the mitochondria would function
as a "chain saw" by which the tree is cut down, and
the Kreb's cycle would be represented by the forester
felling, limbing, cutting, and splitting the tree to get at
the individual logs [do you get the feeling that my
background is in forestry?].
Within the mitochondria, NADH [produced from the
conversion of glucose] transfers [gives up] two
"electrons" that are subsequently used in the
production of ATP, which as I already mentioned we
use as our energy source. Looking at our example, the
NADH represents the "gasoline" for the chain saw.
The fact that the production of ATP [the logs we
actually burn] is directly linked to the presence and
amount of NADH [the gas in the saw] may help explain
why some people who take oral NADH supplements
say that they "have more energy" after using NADH for
awhile [providing more gas to cut down more trees].
One has to wonder if the ingestion of a source of
glucose [like honey - I'm also a hobby beekeeper]
would result in the same "energy high" experienced by
NADH users, by providing more "trees" in the forest
that could be cut down and converted into logs for our
fireplace? One also wonders if a combination of the
two [NADH taken in concert with glucose] would
produce even bigger returns - more gas + more trees
= more logs? Here again, diet may play a crucial role
in mitigating at least some of the problems associated
with PD.
Hope this clears the waters somewhat!
Jim
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