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janet paterson wrote: > rada sent this inquiry to me > and i think the best way of getting the answer to her question > is to ask all of you > i think that madopar is roughly equivalent to sinemet > [=levodopa plus an anti-nausea component] > but i'm not sure on the HBS part My understanding is that Madopar is the UK and European counterpart of Sinemet. Both contain levodopa, which crosses the blood-brain barrier and then becomes dopamine, to replenish the natural supply diminished by Parkinson's disease. Levodopa by itself, however, tends to break down to dopamine while still circulating in the blood, before it can enter the brain, and if allowed to do so, the dopamine in the blood, not the brain, causes violent nausea in nearly everybody. Therefore, each of the two drugs contains an added component to inhibit the premature conversion of levodopa to dopamine. In Sinemet the added component is carbidopa, in Madopar it is benserazide, but they both do about the same thing. Cheers, Joe -- J. R. Bruman (818) 789-3694 3527 Cody Road Sherman Oaks, CA 91403-5013