27 replies to this topic

[calengineering]

http://drinkneuro.com/products/sonic/

Definitely not a fan of energy drinks. But, this one actually looked healthy from the ingredients, so I bought of these today at the local gas station. Tried half a bottle and I was instantly chirping along. Mood improved, focus shot up, and I was able to concentrate 3 hours on spicing up my resume and cover letter, something I've been procrastinating with.

What's interesting about this drink is that it seems to have a lot of the healthier ingredients we talk about here. Here are the "active" ingredients:

• Taurine – improves cognitive performance
• Glucuronolactone – helps improve mood
• Acetyl-L-Carnitine – may help promote memory
• L-Phenylalanine – a precursor for neurotransmitters
• Caffeine – promotes alertness
• L-Theanine – helps promote mental function
• Alpha GPC – helps promote energy and alertness
• Inositol – precursor for energy neurotransmitters
• Eleutherococcus senticosus – helps increase endurance
• Resveratrol – helps promote heart health

Also includes a few other ingredients.

I compared this to the ingredients of monster energy drink:

CARBONATED WATER, GLUCOSE, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, TAURINE, SODIUM CITRATE, COLOR ADDED, PANAX GINSENG ROOT EXTRACT, L-CARNITINE, CAFFEINE, SORBIC ACID, BENZOIC ACID, NIACINAMIDE, SODIUM CHLORIDE, GLUCURONOLACTONE, INOSITOL, GUARANA SEED EXTRACT, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE, SUCRALOSE, RIBOFLAVIN, MALTODEXTRIN, CYANOCOBALAMIN.

So, as you can see, Neuro seems to have a lot of ingredients we respect around here.

Has anyone else tried this? Do you notice any unhealthy aspects of it?

[calengineering]

any comments about the ingredients?

[FrequencyX]

any comments about the ingredients?

Neuro Bliss concerns me a bit considering it has 5HTP. Could be asking for Serotonin Syndrome if the consumer is already on SSRI's. That one you are referencing in particular does not seem too bad. I see the drinks all over here, but have no desire to try.

[Guacamolium]

My concerns are that you pay 2 dollars per unit for a pixie-dusted product. There's no way that there are adequate levels of alpha-GPC, theanine, and resveratrol based on their price per mg.

Also, L-phenylalanine - really??? How about Nalt instead...? Ginseng too - replace with ashwaganda or rhodiola. It's an okay formulation - better than some others.

[PrivateerX]

I dunno, I washed down a dose of 1600mg of piracetam and 150mg of picamilon earlier today with Neuro Sonic and felt pretty good the rest of the night.

[chrono]

As usual, I think it's a gimmick. Without dosage information, the presence of substances on the ingredients list is fairly meaningless. Indeed, since most are listed after the artificial coloring, it's safe to say the quantities involved are probably not clinically relelvant.

And in general, I strongly dislike such "nootropic soup" products. The implicit assumption is that 5 or 10 chemicals with have the same, desirable effect on everyone's diverse neurochemistry. As FrequencyX said, the inclusion of 5HTP (potentially dangerous for those on meds) shows the design is fairly unintelligent. The other problem with this type of soup is the inclusion of caffeine/taurine in unspecified quantities. Sure you may feel it working, but that's true of Red Bull, too.

The other interesting thing about Neuro Sonic is its style of 21st century hypercommercialism. In Lady Gaga's video for Paparazzi, she kills her boyfriend by poisoning his Neuro Sonic, the bottles displayed so prominently and lusciously it must be a paid advertisement. Celebrities also use it as a kind of fashion accessory (see Mutineer and Coolspotter).

I dunno, I washed down a dose of 1600mg of piracetam and 150mg of picamilon earlier today with Neuro Sonic and felt pretty good the rest of the night.

This really says nothing about the properties or effects of this energy drink...

[#1hit]

does anyone know anything about Glucuronolactone? just curious.

[nito]

we might find out Steve Jobs took jumbo doses of piracetam, that would be cool, or maybe other nootropics. However most likely is that he was just a genius.

[unregistered_user]

RIP Steve Jobs :(

[JD.]

Big Neuro fan here, I LOVE the functional beverage idea and am glad one has come along and gotten this much public awareness.

Yes, the dosages are obviously too low to be completely effective (especially for nootropics) but understand this is a product that they are selling to millions of people.

Also, they TASTE good, I usually end up drinking them just for the taste and would take a neurobliss or neurogasm over any other soda out there. Taste and, yes, image is why this stuff is selling so well, which is cool because its getting raising awareness for this kind of stuff and paving the way for more effective functional drinks down the road.

The marketing may be misleading, but could you imagine how these things would taste if they upped the dosages any? A drink with cool stuff like piracetam and sulbutiamine would be really cool, but even at half-dose I'm sure 12 oz of it would taste like ass, that would lose them a pretty big chunk of the paris hilton/lady gaga follower market

[chrono]

Taste and, yes, image is why this stuff is selling so well, which is cool because its getting raising awareness for this kind of stuff and paving the way for more effective functional drinks down the road.

Indeed, promoting the idea of cognitive enhancement is potentially a good thing. OTOH, it's largely snake oil, and could potentially turn people off to the idea when it doesn't deliver. As you say, I think the best one can hope for is that it will pave the way for popular products which contain more than microdoses of a few questionable ingredients.

Edited by chrono, 06 October 2011 - 11:59 AM.

[Dirk_Diggler]

Too bad this isn't available where I'm at

[swell]

The problem I have with the stuff is that it contains SUCRALOSE... those unrelenting artificial sweeteners....

[angela86]

Has anyone ever seen one of these products marked individually? Gimmick or not i'm always a sucker for new energy products. All i'm stumbling across is various package deals.

[Ampa-omega]

i could even make a better energy drink then that, though as a community on this forum it would be cool if we even did come up with our own energy drink or series of drinks it would be cool, i have my own ideas on some formulas, they should get rid of the sucralose and put in stevia which actually helps increase insulin sensitivity

Edited by Ampa-omega, 14 January 2012 - 04:23 AM.

[manic_racetam]

Has anyone ever seen one of these products marked individually? Gimmick or not i'm always a sucker for new energy products. All i'm stumbling across is various package deals.

This specific brand has been sprouting up in gas stations and grocery stores more often than before. They have "neuro-sonic" "neuro-gasm" "neuro-sleep" (with melatonin) and another gimmicky addition having to do with sun-light or something with high levels of vitamin D.

I've tried some of them just because I have this terrible noot habit and couldn't resist the temptation... HA!

But honestly they're breaking the law as far as I can tell. They are definitely in the gray area between supplement and beverage, and leaning further towards beverage with that large carbonated drink container.

That's the reason that 5-hour Energy is in that tiny bottle, and why "Red-Line" has the meter-measurement on the side. Supposedly to distinguish them as supplements rather than beverages.

Remember the "Lazy Larry" brownies with melatonin in them? Yeah, that guy got taken by the FDA for melding the worlds of supplements and food. Red Bull and Monster energy drinks I'm slightly confused by... maybe they make large donations to the FDA or maybe I'm missing something.

But there is one drink sold at Whole Foods that has at leas 200mg Alpha-GPC in it (Can't remember the name) It's about 3 bucks a can but two cans of it saved my ass in California while on my Noopept Mega-Dose experiment when I realized I was seriously choline-depleted.

[Introspecta]

I wish they'd make some of these drinks without caffiene seeing as cafffiene is the culprit for most peoples morning fogginess, adrenal weakness, and ups and downs. I'm on day 4 without caffiene, well i've sipped a little tea here and there but I don't count that, and I feel better than ever. I'm actually getting up earlier in the morning. An adequete dose of rhodiola and ginseng in a product could potentially work just as well as caffiene. Most of society is addicted to caffiene though so I can see why they do it and like everybody else says the other ingredients probably arn't active and the caffiene will make you actually feel the drink.

[manic_racetam]

Oh yeah, this is the stuff I was talking about... caffeine free and apparently with active levels of Noots...

[sam7777]

I thought one of these drinks also contained citicoline, which is the most potent active ingredient obviously (and I do not believe it is safe for certain subgroups of people).

[technetium]

I wish they'd make some of these drinks without caffiene seeing as cafffiene is the culprit for most peoples morning fogginess, adrenal weakness, and ups and downs. I'm on day 4 without caffiene, well i've sipped a little tea here and there but I don't count that, and I feel better than ever. I'm actually getting up earlier in the morning. An adequete dose of rhodiola and ginseng in a product could potentially work just as well as caffiene. Most of society is addicted to caffiene though so I can see why they do it and like everybody else says the other ingredients probably arn't active and the caffiene will make you actually feel the drink.

I think most people have this morning fogginess and adrenal weakness due to a constant insulin rebound as opposed to caffeine. They wake up in a mild hypogycaemic state due to attrocious diet and then reach straight away for a sugary breakfast and repeat a viscious cycle that puts stress on their body. Small amounts of caffeine are not the problem. What is the problem is too much refined glucose and other high GI carbs particularly from processed foods such as bread, pasta and rice, which cau se a stress reaction and the release of adrenaline and cortisol when digested, causing inflammation, insulin resistance and worse is implicated in the diseases of aging such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

[manic_racetam]

I wish they'd make some of these drinks without caffiene seeing as cafffiene is the culprit for most peoples morning fogginess, adrenal weakness, and ups and downs. I'm on day 4 without caffiene, well i've sipped a little tea here and there but I don't count that, and I feel better than ever. I'm actually getting up earlier in the morning. An adequete dose of rhodiola and ginseng in a product could potentially work just as well as caffiene. Most of society is addicted to caffiene though so I can see why they do it and like everybody else says the other ingredients probably arn't active and the caffiene will make you actually feel the drink.

I think most people have this morning fogginess and adrenal weakness due to a constant insulin rebound as opposed to caffeine. They wake up in a mild hypogycaemic state due to attrocious diet and then reach straight away for a sugary breakfast and repeat a viscious cycle that puts stress on their body. Small amounts of caffeine are not the problem. What is the problem is too much refined glucose and other high GI carbs particularly from processed foods such as bread, pasta and rice, which cau se a stress reaction and the release of adrenaline and cortisol when digested, causing inflammation, insulin resistance and worse is implicated in the diseases of aging such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Thanks for the great post. Led me on a search and found a nice article explaining what insulin resistance is. Can't believe I've gone that long with a misunderstanding of diabetes in general. So let me get this straight. Insulin resistance leads to an increase of insulin in the blood with a reduction in effectiveness of insulin on the body. So the solution is to inject extra insulin into the blood to increase "resistance" (aka: Insulin Tolerance) even further?

What kind of solution is that? Isn't that like continually increasing the dosage of a heroin user experiencing tolerance building up?

[technetium]

Yep, the conventional way they treat diabetes is pretty much as insane as you suggest.

This site explains it well in laymans terms: http://www.marksdail.../#axzz1oWDA60EG

[manic_racetam]

Yep, the conventional way they treat diabetes is pretty much as insane as you suggest.

This site explains it well in laymans terms: http://www.marksdail.../#axzz1oWDA60EG

Excellent link! Thanks a lot!

[Cognoid]

I've tried this drink, nothing special. Any "active" nootropic type ingredients it has will be in such small quantities they'll have no effect. Just a marketing gimmick imo.

[treonsverdery]

I just had a sip
The flavor was pleasant

[lietosanabaltija]

If the goal is to enhance cognition, I wouldn't touch artificial sweeteners with a ten foot pole.

[manic_racetam]

If the goal is to enhance cognition, I wouldn't touch artificial sweeteners with a ten foot pole.

What direct effects do they have? Is it just aspartame you're talking about or also acesulfame potassium, etc? Thanks

[jack1234]

If the goal is to enhance cognition, I wouldn't touch artificial sweeteners with a ten foot pole.

What direct effects do they have? Is it just aspartame you're talking about or also acesulfame potassium, etc? Thanks

Lurker first post!

There was a study conducted, on rats, and the results were recently blown up around the interwebs.

Basically, fructose solution given to rats versus omega-3s rich diet. The tested the rats with a basic maze study and found the Fructose-rats did significantly worse then the Omega-Rats.

http://jp.physoc.org...230078.abstract

They found metabolic differences between the two groups.. and now to my point; driving a hardline for cognitive health through nutrition is most certainly admirable and effective. However, with the amount of processed foods today having a predominantly healthy diet can allow for minor exceptions.Allowing you to remain on a diet with much greater ease.