Fava Beans and Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson’s Disease is a progressive disorder that affects nerve cells in the brain responsible for body movement. When dopamine-producing neurons die, symptoms such as tremor, slowness, stiffness, and balance problems occur. Its symptoms start gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand.

In the early stages of Parkinson's disease, your face may show little or no expression, your arms may not swing when you walk and your speech may become soft or slurred. Parkinson's disease symptoms worsen as your condition progresses over time.

Although Parkinson's disease can't be cured, medications, such as Sinemet, Madopar, Dopar, Larodopa and others that contain L-dopa (levodopa), the precursor of dopamine, might significantly improve symptoms.

Fava beans (Vicia faba) contain naturally occurring L-dopa (levodopa)[1]. Yes, because it's made by nature, the levels of L-dopa can vary greatly per plant, depending on the species of fava bean, climatological conditions, soil conditions, harvest time and other factors.

It appears that the young pod and the immature beans inside the pod contain the greatest amount of L-dopa, and the mature, or dried bean, the least. A 100 grams of fresh green fava beans may contain about 50-100 mg of L-dopa. If using the young pod as well as the beans, the amount of L-dopa may be greater than that in the fresh beans alone.

Some small studies have shown that the L-dopa in fava beans may help control the symptoms of early stages of Parkinson's Disease and may delay the moment you really start thinking about taking medication to counter the effects of this progressing disease[2][3][4].

The obvious problem, however, is that you never know exactly how much L-dopa hides in the fava beans, so you can never be sure if you eat enough to treat the symptoms.

[1] Mohseni Mehran, Golshani: Simultaneous Determination of Levodopa and Carbidopa from Fava Bean, Green Peas and Green Beans by High Performance Liquid Gas Chromatography in Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Review – 2013. See here.
[2] Liu et al: Effects of L-DOPA treatment on methylation in mouse brain: implications for the side effects of L-DOPA in Life Sciences – 2000
[3] Rabey et al: Improvement of Parkinsonian features correlate with high plasma levodopa values after broad bean (Vicia faba) consumption in Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry – 1992
[4] Apaydin: Broad bean (Vicia faba) – A natural source of L-DOPA-prolongs ‘on’ periods in patients with Parkinson’s disease who have ‘on–off’ fluctuations in Movement Disorders - 2000