Many posters, do things intelligently here, but anytime LDOPA and PEA are brought into the convo, a red flag goes off in me. maybe for ADD type of problems they help some, otherwise it's just a drug, imo, a potentially damging class of drugs as many have warned over the years. Seglegine, made me restless, and even more crazed, manic...of course I'm also in a hugely different cognitive category than most, and low dose may be beneficial ...but there is so much we don't know about long term use of noots. For instance some complain of brain fog on 5 mg of lithium orotate, while others can tolerate unbelievable doses. It's playing a bit of Russian Roulette with our neurochemistries, I think.
I have read so much about lithiium's neurprotective and NGF potential, even the study that showed a whopping 15% increase in some long term users gray matter, at therapeutic or high doses. but just rambling I know people on high doses of lithium, and they are hardly good with cognition, in fact often just duller, than when I see them off of Lithium...so one of my former doctors at Mcleans suggested it may not increase neurgenesis in the hippocampal regions or thinking parts of the brain at all, when I vagely remember hippocampul neurgenesis is one of the brain regions some studies show lithium helps with, wouldnt' that be great...but wrapping my mind around the claims and what is actually true, is mind numbing in itself. I've been with imminst since it started, in 02, and most intelligent posters realized over time that the time honored noots don't do anything spectacular, at least not in the long run, or that is the "basic gut feeling," me and many others have learned along the way. Of course some may argue with this point.
I'm not sure...the nootropic polls showed nicotine to be the most favorible noot in an older poll here; what does that say about the current state of nootropics? Also seems like Piracetam, Choline sources, are still the most favored..in terms of increased verbal fluency and overall intelligence boosting effects. Some even think they are geniuses on some of the Racitems...but in general I.hear mostly this noot has a subtle calming effect, or it increases attention, but rarely anything more. Of course if you have better attention, and drive and mood enhancement one can problem solve much better, and that may be the way many of these noots really work, at least the older time honered ones.
In one thread everyone got excited by this guy who claimed he had mastered the perfect nootropic stack and was doing so well, everyone started, thinking GOD maybe I gotta get more nootropics! 3 weeks later or so, the OP was like, I'm better off without them, and I swear most members were like maybe it's not helpng....placebo is always a factor as has been routinely discussed I am aware on these forums..
Then there are the studies, some read like nootropics are amazing, the favorable ones, quoted on life extension orgs, or supplement companies making these seem like elixirs, while studies done from mainstream research hospitals usually say they do absolutely nothing, or no evidence of it's alleged claimes. It's like the left wing vs. the right wing arguments in mainstream politics, but we are talking the "stone age" of cognitive enhancement.
Many people here ARE good judges of how something is affecting them, I can just tell, I used to be acutely good at noticing affects of a noot I was taking, while others say, "I think it is working," or say it is, and then say I'm not sure, or the effects stopped after a short window of time, and adverse reactions reported.......and then they give up on noots. Don't get me wrong, the brain although incredibly complex, is not so complex imo, that we won't have amazing cogntiive drugs, supplements, in the future, or even near future...it's just frustrating to read articles like "The Valley of Death, why promsing cures don't see the light of day." Google Sharon Begley Valley of death...society has been wasting money on everything but the brain...we could have been so far ahead by now, in treating or curing so many brain diseases. The point of her article is how the FDA, funding for clinical trials, upstart biotechs with often the best intentions never get the funding needed for the vital clinical trials. Many diseases have claimed to be potentially curable, and people have tried so hard to get patents, and failed doing even that... so most give up. The claims, "they are hiding the cure for cancer," are not totally in conspiracy realms...Francis Crick co discoverer of the human Genome, has claimed many times most cancers could be cured in a decade or less, had all this political nonsense not gone on...of course I may dispute that claim myself.
Most go to the noot section these days, due to an imbalance or disorder, or loss in IQ, hoping to find a stack, this is so unfair that we are left to experiment on ourselves, for those desperate for help, we WILL be able to fix the most damaged brains...but as someone despeartely waiting for these breakthroughs, it makes us people in my category so angry and distrustful because the medical industry is so afraid to take chances with new drugs, but the approved treatments for brain illnesses in the past included lobotomy, ECT, psyche drugs, all horrible ot the brain...makes us very weary to believe anything docs and researchers say these days...
it's knowing who to trust, most cognitive science is still in the stone age of thinking, while some are more on the right track...stem cells, anti aging etc. We are just seeing in the last decade a widening gap between biotechs that are truly vested in cures, and mainstream status quo, profiting off of patients illnesses, as in cancer, and most every chronic and serious illness. Which brings this post full circle as to why I got interested in life extension in the first place, because medicine presently is bad news still. Imminst started for two big reasons. One the idea of beating aging, beating diseases, started to seem possible in just the past decade, and two, the philosophy of transhumansim, is inherantly alluring, it combines sci fi, with reality, and the amazing things scientists learn about longevity every day now.
It's amazing how imminst people were so in the dark, in the beginning, including me, when it came to our innovative, even sometimes brilliant discussions, and ideas, inspired by Kurzweil, and others, juxtiposed with the stark sad reality of how medicine is practiced in the best hospitals in the world....posters through the years have continually expressed how backward even basic nutritional guidelines have been, and of course now the latest realization is we have been destroying our minds and bodies with toxins in our processed foods, water, and now especially the heavy metal worries, like amalgam flilling poisonings, and even vaccinations, all of which I have come to believe myself.
Anyway, back to nootropics. we should do another poll, and try to pm all imminst members to see the latest thinking on what nootropics are helping the most, (the poll that I saw sucked, very few responders, and it was non inclusive of so many newer noots.) I greatly appreciate Chronos intro thread to all nootropics, and links, it give a good overview of so many, with skeptical links...but follow up polls are needed imo.
I personally think the best results for noots are ones that protect the brain from "life damage," including environmental insults, including toxins, head injury, depression, psychosis, trauma, but also ones that make people "feel good," so some of our best writers were alcoholics, smoked cigarettes, which helped them to feel inspired and engaged to write often brilliantly, but of course did dreadful damage to their brain and phsyical health in the long run.
..I'm alway amazed at people like Christopher HItchens who was able to write brilliantly, and speak flawlessly up until his still dying days from all the smoking and drinking, even after chemo he is far smarter than me, and many in the world...goes to show how brains differ in IQ, and what one brain is able to handle vs. another. Hitchens brain should be put in a reserach lab, when he does succumb ot his cancer, to see in the future how he was able to handle so much toxic abuse, and still be so smart, and quick. My father was in the genius category, worked for NASA, and still does amazing work involving high end algebra, calculus, and a plethora of skills that most could not master like he has, unfortuntatlely bad lifestyle habits like drinking, poor diet, and lack of exercise has made him much slower to learn new concepts, but hes' still sharp with what he does know.
Then we have athletes who have great brain health, don't drug smoke, who sound like retards...sorry for that word...obviously IQ plays a huge role, and not using your brain plays the other role.
So the problems for the future of noots, that I see are 1) we need to emphasize neuroprotection and neruogenesis, these two related things are just being focused on just recently, as in the past 5 or so years to my knowledge. 2) we need to find noots that make us feel good, anti depressants or adaptogens, to help with damage from sleep and stress, (like L Tryptophan, Maca,) and precursors to neurotransmitters, that allow for favorable mind states. But from researching noots for a while now, I have yet to find any that dramatically increase IQ, except for short bursts, anecdotally it seems...so the future of noots, and pharma drugs are ones that repair damage, in brain problems, and increase intelligence directly in healthy people...I don't see much of either yet.
We went through a small time frame where people swore psychadelics were the way to "expand the mind," this turned out to be, eh, not a great way of going about it.
Then the herbalists make wild claims too; again, some may have merit....It's upsetting ,that there have not been longitudinal huge studies, non biased, independant researchers on medicinal herbs, mushrooms, roots, compounds, even Cannabis there are such contradictory studies. From my limited experience it seems many promising compounds have been dumped, and who knows why? while others just failed miserably.
Brain foods however are talked about all over the net...of course this is tremendously helpful for people who dont' want to take chances on risky supplements, and go with diets that could protect them before they get screwed over like we are seeing with so many young people and old today.
To bring things back to this thread on schizophrenia, I have done clinical research studies for upping cognition in schizophrenia, when it was "assumed I had this dx," the studies were folic acid, ancient antibiotics, and other boring supplements...it's too easy to just study what is already there, instead of taking risks for creating novel and expensive compounds, like is happening finally with Alzheimers, and other neruological illness, yes stem cells, organ regeneration, all the stuff imminst advocates for, and tries to fund in it's small way, is what we still lack in even the best research hospitals, or too little and too late for so many..
Then my understanding of how dangerous brain medicine has been since the dawn of drugs for brain illnesses, makes it hard for many of us to trust that "good medicine" will be funded, or is even being done right....hence Methuselah Foundation, SENS, other life extension companies, biotechs, all hoping to actually achieve what mainstream medicine has failed miserbly at for too long.
cogntiitve enhancers are addicting by nature, the idea of bettering our intelligence, or our deficits, but human beings are incredibly swayed to believe anything that sounds intelligent, well thought out, and written well by "experts," is "worth a shot." In the end it's marketing, the pharmas have mastered this, now the supplement industry is luring more people into buying less dangerous remedies, that usually is just wasting money for most. The the lack of regulation makes scam supplement companies come out of the wood work, worse now than ever now. If only profit was not such a human motive...it's disgusting what kinds of people end up becoming doctors these days. Doctors are lawyers and salesmen first some have argued, and doctors second...most doctors don't know what the hell they are doing, old info from med school, now most being challenged.
Edited by dfowler, 11 December 2011 - 08:48 AM.
