'On-off' phenomenon in Parkinson's disease: relationship between dopa and other large neutral amino acids in plasma.

Administration of a low-protein diet to parkinsonian patients with "on-off" syndromes consistently increased the total daily time of "on" states when compared with a high-protein diet. The clinical effect of the low-protein diet may be due to a marked decrease in the plasma concentration of large neutral amino acids that compete with L-dopa for carrier-mediated transport into the brain.