Dopamine & Adrenaline Breakdown, and Aldehyde Toxicity
Headaches, Brain Fog, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities
Introduction
I was just writing an article over on the Out-Thinking Parkinson’s website about the biochemical processes in regard to the breakdown/degradation/metabolism of dopamine, and, in doing so, I was reminded of something I discovered a while back. This was something I had tried to alert folks who have [apparent] dopamine deficiency conditions to, but failed to get the message out. So I thought I would try again here.
This will be especially important to those of us who are supplementing long term with exogenous substances that increase dopamine or adrenaline levels, and hence are flooding our brains and bodies with excesses of these. This includes pharmaceutical drugs such as l-dopa for Parkinson’s, or those for ADHD, natural supplements such as l-tyrosine or mucuna puriens, or recreational drugs such as cocaine [indeed, the following toxicity issue may be one reason that long term or excessive use of cocaine can itself cause Parkinson’s symptoms!].
The issue here is that the enzymatic biochemical breakdown of dopamine generates intermediate chemicals which are aldehydes, in particular substances called DOPAL and MOPAL [the -AL bit stands for ALdehyde]. Like other aldehydes, DOPAL and MOPAL are [neuro]toxic if they build up to too high levels.
Another pathway for dopamine metabolism is its conversion to adrenaline under stressful conditions [recall that adrenaline and noradrenaline are made from dopamine:
]. However, the breakdown of adrenaline also involves the creation of aldehydes as intermediate chemicals, in this case substances called DOPEGAL and MOPEGAL.
So all dopamine breakdown pathways lead to aldehydes being produced.
The further breakdown of these aldehydes into other chemicals that can then be excreted through the urine, requires the presence of an enzyme called Aldehyde Dehydrogenases (ALDH). If insufficient ALDH activity is present, then these aldehydes by-products of dopamine and adrenaline biochemistry may start to build up to [neuro]toxic levels. There are several reasons why this may occur, from epi-genetic and cell danger responses, nutritional deficits, to lack of “co-factors” required for the enzyme to work.
However, here we consider the cases that
total aldehyde burden = aldehydes from dopamine and adrenaline breakdown + exposure to other aldehydes in the environment
is too much for our limited ALDH supplies to deal with, and hence total aldehydes begin to build up to toxic levels.
The first scenario is chronic exposure to environmental aldehydes such that there is not enough ALDH available to deal with the aldehydes generated by dopamine and adrenaline breakdown, because it is constantly needed elsewhere to mop up the environmental aldehydes.
The second scenario, especially the case when taking large amounts of exogenous dopaminergic or adrenalinergic substances, is that the ALDH is too busy dealing with the breakdown of dopamine and adrenaline to cope with chronic exposure to environmental sources of aldehydes.
Other Source of Aldehydes
Aldehydes are in fact ubiquitous in our modern environment. Many of the perfumes and chemical smells which abound these days involve aldehydes, as do cosmetics and washing chemicals. If you get headaches or brain fog from being around such smells, then you may be a sign you have an aldehyde overload issue already.
The headache you get after consuming too much alcohol is not due to dehydration, but also due to the ethanol getting turned into an aldehyde in your body and brain. Again, if you are susceptible to hangovers even after relatively small amounts of alchohol, this could be a warning sign.
Aldehydes are also present in some foods, including bananas and almonds, but mainly processed foods, and especially food fried in seed oils.
They are also problems with dyes, fabrics, new carpets and upholstery, new car seats, and off-gassing from plywood, particleboard, and foam furniture.
Another source is fungal infections, especially candida.
Indeed, many folks with a chronic condition find themselves increasingly sensitive to a disparate array of chemicals - we are multiple chemical sensitive. One reason for this may be because many of our chemical anathemas all involve aldehydes, and so each one of them adds to the total aldehyde burden, i.e. it may be the aldehydes which are the common factor of most of our sensitivities.
Pragmatics
So what to do? I believe that what this tells us is, firstly, that if you have signs of aldehyde toxicity, including getting frequent headaches and brain fog when exposed to smells or chemicals, that long term dopamine or adrenaline supplementation may then be a particular problem, and it is best to try to keep dosages as low as possible, and to try to optimize natural dopamine biochemistry, so as not to be supplementing the total aldehyde burden.
Secondly, if you must take exogenous dopamine or adrenaline boosting drugs and chemicals long term, this means you are likely to eventually have a problematic aldehyde burden, and hence awareness, elimination and avoidance of additional chronic environmental sources of aldehydes that you may be being exposed to would be wise.
Some supplements, such as molybdenum, selenium, and vitamins B1, B2 and B3 can help ALDH to detoxify the system of aldehydes, but avoidance may be the best option.
You can access my own auto-biographical story of recovering from a chronic condition, together with everything I have learned along the way, like the above health tip, by becoming part of the HOPE-shortcut Community Area
Back when I used to party hard and drink a lot, a B complex multivitamin taken halfway through the drinking would help mitigate the hangover.
Sometimes the space headedness would remain but the pain and pressure and weakness would be gone.
I wonder if NAC could help too as it helps the liver detox mechanisms. Dangerous drugs like statins and Tylenol/acetaminophen/ paracetamol deplete the liver of this!
hmmm i work with plywood, constantly cutting it.
my boss has parkinsons