Thank you for your reply progressive.
Unless you are experiencing a truly noticeable subjective enhancement with rhodiola rosea, ashwagandha, modafinil, aniracetam, etc then I would say dump them since they aren't terribly well studied.
Yes, I responded to Rhodiola Rosea and Aniracetam very well. Rhodiola Rosea gave me lots of energy and speeds me up a lot. Aniracetam is helpful with my ADD symptom. I just tried one day on Modafinil, I took 100mg that day and it worked so intensively on me, extremely helpful with my ADD symptom however, even though I could concentrate a lot easier my thoughts were not fluid and language fluency was affected negatively. 100mg seemed to be too much for me, I may want to try 50mg in next few days but I'm not sure whether grapefruit could interact with it. For ashwagandha, since I take it before going to sleep, I'm not sure if it works on me.
Cost effectiveness is probably the main thing you want to reconsider.
True enough, I've spent too much money on supplements, at least $5000 in 6 months even though not all for myself, my parents and my wife as well. It has been a terrible burden on me. The only thing I can hope now is that my parents and my wife would get better soon.
Some things seem to enhance or negate each other.
SAMe and Folate, Zinc and Copper, Amino Acids in combination with other Amino Acids, and so forth. So be extra careful with these.
Could you be more specific?
Lipoic Acid has had some questions about it recently.
What kind of questions about lipoic acid?
R-Lipoic acid is also quite expensive. I would consider dumping the supps that are expensive and questionable and diverting the money to good causes. Donating to anti-aging research
would have a higher utility from a life extension perspective than buying R-lipoic acid. Though vitamin D, being so cheap, effective, and well studied, has very high utility. (you could also consider switching to regular Lipoic Acid)
Lipoic Acid is so attractive on it's universal anti-oxidant property. I'm using it also for the blood glucose concern. I also read from somewhere about S-enantiomer in regular ALA being harmful and because of this concern I'm spending a lot more money on R-Lipoic Acid. If regular ALA can be confirmed to be no harmful at all, I would certainly be interested in switching back to lower the cost.
LEF Mix already has lots of selenium in it, so taking extra doesn't make much sense. Also, if you are taking a full dose of the LEF Mix and taking Jarrow's CarotenALL, that is quite a lot of vitamin A.
I bought a bottle of LEF Mix a few months ago and have never taken it yet. I thought I shouldn't waste it so I started to experiment with it yesterday, seems to work pretty well as I could actually feel something from it. I'm thinking if I should stock some since it's on big sale at LEF right now. The very big thing I don't like is the regular Vitamin E in this formular. While I'm on the LEF Mix, I'm not taking any of other vitamin and minerals except extra 2000IU of vitamin D.
CoQ10 is another very expensive supp. Perhaps if you are old and rich it makes some sense, though I think taking all the other stuff probably covers enough bases and thus makes CoQ10 supps redundant. Young people especially have little need for CoQ10.
I'm over 40 now and a few months ago I was extremely tired everyday. Co-Q10 seemed to have given me noticeable energy and I could always feel it's effect on my heart. However, while I was on LEF Mix in these two days, I didn't take Co-Q10 but still feel good, I might want to consider taking it every two to three days to save me some money.
Centrophexine and citicholine are redundant, and centrophexine is more expensive and probably not worth it.
I just bought Centrophexine and just took one tablet a few days ago, didn't feel anything from it. I will try it again some time next week. I use it for removing possible brain lipofuscin and also hoping it to remove the sun spots on my face.
I don't think you are doing anything dangerous though. Most people are getting just as large of a chemical cocktail per day as you.... between pesticides, pharmaceuticals, smog, smoking, xenoestrogens from leached plastic, etc etc etc. Our livers are pretty good at filtering out toxins. Best not to chronically overload it, but you are probably healthier than most considering your stack and your health-consciousness.
Thank you and I hope I could be "healthier than most". Actually, I'm feeling much better now compared with a few months ago. I've lost 25 ponds in two months and my fasting blood glucose has come down from 110 to 81 now. I will keep going to be more and more healthy.
Edited by cougar, 18 January 2010 - 05:03 AM.