Nootropics: their effects, their risks, and where to get them

Eh, piracetam. Anirecatam or oxiracetam are more expensive, but they're also a better value, because while piracetam is cheap, you're also eating three-plus grams a day of something that tastes like ground-up mothballs. (When the author of the linked article says, "it'll probably have the taste and texture of sugar", you should know they're either blissfully ignorant or pissing themselves laughing. Piracetam tastes like sunshine and gumdrops, totally!) Piracetam and friends may work for you, or they may not, but (as these things go) they're among the most benign nootropics. Either way, they will probably take at least a week of consistent use to have a real effect. (For piracetam, at least, that's often too much trouble, though gelcaps help.) I still wouldn't necessarily recommend them, but odds are you'll just find them boring and move on, neurons intact, albeit with a distinct hatred for orange juice.<p>Taking choline can make them work better, though for some people, racetams (alone or combined with choline) can cause major headaches. Regularly eating foods with moderate amounts of choline (particularly eggs) is a middle path. YMMV.<p>While not mentioned in the article, I've had good results with l-theanine, which is mainly present in green tea. (The sort of salty / MSG-ish taste from Japanese matcha and gyokuro is from high concentrations of l-theanine. It's an amino acid, and tastes very <i>umami</i>.) At the very least, it counteracts caffeine jitters, and if you're still reading this, you may already be taking enough caffeine. A bit makes me feel calm-but-alert, though IMHO there's not much point in taking significantly more than occurs in green tea already. I like green tea, but if coffee's more your thing, then powdered l-theanine is quite cheap - it's extracted in bulk from low-grade tea. It's worth a try.<p>I've also had good results from getting enough sleep and exercising, as lame as that sounds. (I like martial arts, weight training, and bicycling. Find something fun.) There are going to be diminishing returns from nootropics, particularly if you're sleeping or eating poorly to begin with.<p>Also: Vasopressin / desmopressin is a major antidiuretic hormone, so if you're experimenting with it, keep that in mind.

The Immortality Institute forums have some great discussion on nootropics. This one for instance:<p><a href="http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=35751" rel="nofollow">http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=35751</a><p>This comment in particular I thought was very thought-provoking:<p><i></i>The MOST important tactic to prevent brain disorders: avoid fructose, and carb over-consumption. The brain degrades MUCH faster under the assault of a glucose-driven metabolism. It runs much cleaner -- metabolically speaking -- on fatty acids, which it can do up to approx 50% of its energy needs.<i></i><p>I'd be curious to hear of other places on the web where people are discussing nootropics as it a very interesting area to me.

there was a long reddit IAMA thread where some med student said he'd tried everything and the only one he'd consider using long-term is a daily extended-release dextroamphetamine, like dexedrine spansules. i've got no clue about this stuff but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.<p>this thread: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/b4duo/iama_grad_student_who_has_tried_nearly_every/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/b4duo/iama_grad_studen...</a>

Piracetam has the distinct disadvantage of having to take large doses of it before any noticeable effects. I think one of the more popular tips for it is to mix it in with orange juice to dilute the taste. Coupled with the headaches it can cause, and it's very much a matter of whether or not you can personally elicit any benefits from it.<p>If not, save yourself a few bucks. If so, have fun~

The important thing you need to do if your planning to take these drugs is <i>do the initial work</i>.<p>You cant (at least not from my observations) just start taking these tomorrow and see improvements; you'll be mentally and organisationally unprepared and the effects will likely be negative. You should:<p>- get <i>really</i> organised; get into a routine and stick to it. This is key because if you drop out of the routine things can spiral out of control<p>- learn how to recover fast. At uni I learned quickly how to get home at 4am and be up/bright at 7am ready for work - and last the whole day (I never took drugs but coffee + OJ were consumed in large quantities).<p>- focus your mind with mental exercises and so forth. This will help you concentrate generally and will help the drugs do their job.<p>I advise you try all of that first and get a routine/pattern sorted - often that might give you the desired affect anyway (worked for me :)).

I wonder what a carefully designed research study would look like<p><a href="http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html</a><p>to show that so-called nootropics do anything at all. What would be a good objective test (as contrasted with patient self-report) of better mental function? What treatments are best suited for placebo-controlled trials?<p>After edit: thanks to another participant for a link to a 1981 study that didn't seem to look at human behavioral outcomes (better memory, etc.) but rather physiological outcomes in an animal model. As the link in this comment<p><a href="http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html</a><p>notes, it's always a good idea to look for replication of a first published result. Has there been any replication at all of any peer-reviewed result regarding the more common kinds of nootropics?

I feel like folks are tap dancing around the border of the parts of the topic that fall under the "behind the counter" category, so I'm going to jump over for y'all.<p>Adderall and related schedule II nootropic stimulants are amazingly effective for their intended roles and when used at medically indicated dosages (rather than doing the abusive equivalent of swallowing a bottle of no-doze caffeine pills) are among the safest drugs for which it is possible to get a prescription, in that any side effects induced by taking a prescribed dosage will cease soon after cessation of the medication.<p>That being said, the view that they are study drugs is not quite a complete or accurate picture of their cognitive effect. A more accurate but still imprecise view would be that at the correct dosage, adderall and family "reduce the activation energy needed for attentional engagement" and "increase the baseline activity level of higher order planning faculties" (that is, every time you have a "I should do this vs i want to do that" moment and chose the "should do this" path, you are actively using the higher order planning faculties).<p>These effects are why adderall et al are great for treating those who have ADHD, ie those who have a dysfunctionally high activation energy for attentional engagement in tasks, and perhaps due to insufficient activity of those higher order planning faculties that influence moment to moment behavior also have impulsive behavior and all the externalities that these difficulties imply. Study drugs they are not, they just happen to help you focus on what you really really want to focus on if you try hard enough.<p>If you do not have much in the way of excessively impulsive behavior or difficulty focusing on what you really really want to be doing when both well rested and in shape, then you do not stand to gain much / anything from using them.<p>If you're not well rested, either drink some strong tea (because caffeine and theanine are great!) or go to sleep, and if you're not in good physical health, go fix that with some exercise instead of whatever you'd be procrastinating with because that affects your quality of life and net productivity more than getting another hour of work done. Adderall et al will not make you better at focusing just then and there.<p>I feel that people often lose sight of the fact that while the human brain can do amazing things, there are limits. With nootropics such as adderall, even a slightly higher dosage in the normal dosage range can essentially result in a sort of unpleasant "overload" of your ability to direct your focus. I suspect this is a miniature version of whatever those who recreationally abuse these stimulants experience, in which case they must be idiots because i don't understand how that could be pleasant.<p>if you have allergies that can be made tolerablish without something like zyrtec or claritin and you have work you need to do, don't take the allergy medication, they have essentially the exact opposite (I believe antagonistic is the term used) cognitive effect of prescription dosages of adderall et al.<p>Obvious caveat, everything I say is merely reflects my personal experience managing adhd, reading up on various bits, and observing how many people work. Also, it seems that at least anecdotally that the manner in which a person with unmedicated adhd structures and approaches work is radically different from how everyone else does so, and that part of the adhd treatment process is sort of a (think HeMan) "By the power of ADDERALL, I shall use my newfound powers of ease of attentional engagement to devise more effective and efficient ways of structuring how I approach work"<p>theres probably things i'm overlooking, omitting, oversimplifying or exaggerating, but hopefully this has some useful information for someone.

I've been interested in piracetam for a while.<p>Anybody with personal experience?<p>Wiki: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam</a>

Mind Boosters by Ray Sahelian MD <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Boosters-Natural-Supplements-Enhance/dp/0312195842" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Boosters-Natural-Supplements-Enha...</a> provides some good background on various pathways and mechanisms of action for different supplements. He advocates a conservative approach to supplements focused on counter-acting effects of aging.

Piracetam for me is about as effective as Adderall. Which is to say that it is very effective. I took it a lot in college. Be careful taking it with coffee though, it potentiates stimulants.

I have used several puzzle web sites to benchmark my brain from day to day. Obviously puzzles are a narrow measure of cognitive capacity, but that's true of any benchmark. I've used <a href="http://www.ricochetrobots.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.ricochetrobots.com</a> and the Puzzle Maniak game on the iPhone (usually the loopy puzzle).

Does anyone here have any experience with sulbutiamine?

(Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, nurse, or med school dropout. You shouldn't listen to me.)<p>Nootropics don't work, but this is mostly by definition. Just like any algorithm that works isn't AI, and successful minorities aren't minorities, when a drug is shown beyond all doubt to improve the ability to deliver sustained mental effort, it's not a nootropic. It's a stimulant.<p>I'm baffled why people spend so much time hunting the perfect combination of vitamins and piracetam and fish oil when prescription stimulants are so readily available, obviously effective, and completely safe at clinical doses. They're the Apple products of nootropics: They just work.