Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive, disabling, neurodegenerative disease that requires long term care and pharmaceutical treatment. Levodopa remains the gold standard treatment for PD globally, although it is largely unavailable and unaffordable for the majority of patients in many sub-Saharan African and other low-income countries (LICs). We suggest the potential for Mucuna pruriens (MP), a leguminous plant, to replace or supplement levodopa-based medicines in countries where levodopa is unaffordable and inaccessible due to its low costs of preparation and high natural availability. MP has been shown to induce a great improvement of motor symptoms with few adverse events in recent studies. However, caution is important until more robust data on the long-term safety of MP are available. We believe that MP could potentially be part of the answer to affordable, symptomatic treatment of PD in LICs worldwide.

帕金森氏病（PD）是一种进行性，致残性神经退行性疾病，需要长期护理和药物治疗。左旋多巴仍然是全球PD的黄金标准治疗方法，尽管它在许多撒哈拉以南非洲和其他低收入国家（LICs）的大多数患者中都无法获得且负担不起。我们建议潜在的Mucuna pruriens（MP）是一种豆科植物，用于替代或补充左旋多巴的药物，这些国家的左旋多巴的制备成本低且自然利用率高，因此无法负担和无法获得。在最近的研究中，MP已显示出可大大改善运动症状，几乎没有不良事件。但是，在获得有关MP长期安全性的更可靠数据之前，请务必谨慎。我们认为，MP可能会成为对全球LIC中PD的负担得起的，对症治疗的答案的一部分。