Chris Kresser: Okay. Next one from Chi also, “A 79-year-old, Parkinson’s symptoms worsened once he began taking low-dose car/L-dopa. GP put him on a higher dose, he is now worse than before. Is there something I can do to help him? He’s on keto antimicrobial reset and iron overload protocol.”
Yes, this is a tough situation. If you’re not the primary treating physician, you obviously don’t want to make any recommendations about medication, especially if that’s outside of your scope of practice. It seems pretty clear in this situation that the medication is what’s making him worse. That’s a tricky spot to be in when you’re not the prescribing clinician. What we do in this situation is we just try to optimize everything we can. It’s also possible to provide a patient with education about the medication that they’re taking, so that they can inform themselves and make their own decisions about whether they want to continue to do that. In the interim, I think things like you’re doing, the ketogenic diet, getting excess iron out, which can certainly affect the brain, you might want to try testing for toxins. I know we don’t cover that in this course, but there’s a very strong link even recognized in the conventional medical world between a variety of environmental toxins and contaminants and Parkinson’s. Something like the Great Plains Lab tox profile is a good test, and then just keep doing the lifestyle exposome modifications and the functional workups that we’re talking about in this course and then providing as much education as you can. I think that’s the best you can do in this situation.