Darkening of white hair in Parkinson's disease during use of levodopa rich Mucuna pruriens extract powder

Abstract

An 85-year-old patient with stable Parkinson's disease (PD), treated with levodopa/carbidopa 250/25 mg tid. During a follow-up visit, it was noticed that her temporal white hair was getting progressively darker (Figure), starting after introduction of Mucuna pruriens extract (MPE) at a dose equivalent to 1000 mg of levodopa/day. Hair and beard darkening was recognized as a complication of treatment with levodopa in PD since its earliest introduction. 1 DOPA/dopamine are intermediate metabolites in the production of melanin, therefore, this association is not surprising. After the addition of decarboxylase inhibitors, this phenomenon, probably related to peripheral effects of levodopa, became strikingly rare.

Mucuna and Parkinson’s Disease: Treatment with Natural Levodopa

“…Anecdotally, a woman with white hair has been described that after 3 months of treatment with Mucuna, it turned back to black [50], "like when I was young," she said. This is food for thought: the threads connecting youth, dopamine, suffering, old age, stress, and gray hair [48,49].…”