http://www.imminst.o...20
Hi, Danila, nice of you to drop by. I hope my description of you did you justice and was accurate. Still considering you Cryopereservation offer. Anyway, back to topic at hand..
QUOTE (xanadu)
Opales, you still haven't explained this statement of yours
"we also have to worry that it might in fact degrade our cognitive ability as whole, even if enhancing some individual attributes."
And then you go on to say that nootropics likely cause antisocial behavior. Based on what, the fact that you consider those who oppose your ingrained beliefs against noots to be antisocial by definition? You admit by default that you have no evidence to support either of those beliefs yet you go on to say about me
"It has been very obvious that you defend and stick to whatever a priori notion you may have on the subject at hand, completely disregarding contradictory evidence and reasoning, no matter how overwhelming"
You make the statements that noots cause antisocial behavior and likely lower our cognitive abilities based on no evidence at all and have the nerve to say that I disregard evidence. Ever heard of the term "projection"? That's where the person accuses others of the same faults he has. He never sees it in himself but alway in others. Can we get back to science and facts instead of personal attacks. There have been many many studies posted showing benefits of piracetam and other nootropics. Where is your evidence to support either of the statements you made?
Ok, I'll explain it to you ONE more time. As a primer to my thinking I think you should view this passage from cognitive enhancement panel at Tomorrow's People conference (starting at 1:05:50), that has a great question IMO illustrating the often times simplistic models driving cognitive enhancement and even greater reply by Nick Bostrom.
http://streaming.oii...6/16032006-1.rm
With any substance you take in long term you have to basically assume, in addition that it is safe, that a) it either raises the cognitive function accross board without any tradeoffs or b) the diminishing function happens in some "less valuable" areas of cognition or is not substantial enough to offset the positive effect in other sites.
Obviously these would depend on the situation and individual alike, b) probably much more than a).
I was not claiming (I am not sure though) that there are studies showing that Piracetam reduces some cognitive abilities, that does not however yet mean that it does not do that. There are variety of reasons for me to think that this is a reasonable fear, and to completely reject this possiblity reveals IMO disturbing intellectual neglect, especially as purpoted positive effects are inconsistent and subtle. Your position (illustrated by your demand for scientific studies showing these effects and ignoring my other points) essentially was that until a drug has been shown do something negative, we can pretty much assume it does not. If I take a random new substance and ingest it, I'd say it is pretty fair to assume it does more harm than good if even I don't have scientific studies showing negative effects.
A recap of my skepticism towards piracetam
a)While piracetam is reasonably researched I'd estimate it still dwarfs in face of most approved drugs that have gone through enormous clinical trials involding tens or hundreds of thousands of people and that are constantly being followed up for negative effects (with ever more sophisticated models, see next part).
I have been repeating this principe ad neaseum but the fact that we know for example about the negative effects of Ritalin does not necessarily reflect any unusual and exceptional nature of that particular drug compared to other purported nootropics but rather that we have done way more research on it than other substances out there, which we in turn have no idea how they would affect similar qualities.
b)The cognitive models used twenty thirty years ago may or may not be adequate in describing the effect on a given cognitive aspect even it was explicitly studied, let alone to describe the effects to whole scope of cognition. This depends on what was studied, our models of creativity have almost certainly devloped quite a lot during this time, on the other hand, I think IQ tests were pretty farily developed even back then. This point is especially important when speculating about any purported mechanism of action, as our knowledge of brain function was at a completely different level from today. I don't know if the scientist describing some mechanisms of piracetam were actually describing what they thought they were or something altogther different thing.
Relatedly, using self reports is probably not the optimal way to proceed in measuring effect on cognition in many cases, I'd say alcohol makes me feel like I am more intelligent than usual but I am not sure if I actually am.
c) Even today, I believe to cognitive models are still in their preteens (if they were in infancy in the seventies). As you have yourself pointed out, we can't really explain why someone is a great writer etc., because our models are not yet sophistcated enough to amount to the complexity of human cognition. That's why I think I would be extra cautious messing up with my brain function, for example opposed to better characterized arterial functions, the targets of cholesterol and blood pressure drugs. The human brain and cognition are more complex than our circulatory system.
See BTW how Danielle Turner well illustrates the complex nature of these processes and our still relative lack of understading of them (begninning at 1:18:25)
http://streaming.oii...6/16032006-1.rm
QUOTE (Danielle Turner)
...there are enormous interactions I don't think we really understand
The suggested strategy to deal with above mentioned uncertainties has been to rely subjective assesment of the overall impact, but it has inherent downsides. First the placebo effect is incredibly strong and very much underappreciated by individuals making assesments. This becomes especially problematic in cases like piracetam where the positive effects are purportedly rather subtle and exert their effects over a long period of time. Secondly, the oftentimes vague cognitive model that the individual posesses is likely to be even much more restricted than the current scientific consensus, thus the individual would perhaps not even know to look for effects in areas not traditionally covered in cognitive models, such as social behaviour where a decreased performance might have much more detrimental effect to completely offset slight increase in some "intellectual" aspects of cognition. Still, I know subjective assesments by the patients are used as guidance in clinical treatments and tailoring of depression treatment, so it's not always completely useless strategy.
Note that I did not say nootropics *likely* cause antisocial behaviour, it was just *illustration of a principle* based on admittely limited online observation, and it has BTW nothing to do with "opposing my beliefs about noots" but that those who have acted like biggest jerks online have mostly been nootropic users.
As for your providing "evidence", the few links you provided as "convincing evidence" in the piracetam thread were complete jokes, it really illustrates my point that your heuristics lead you to rely on completely questionable sources of information to enforce your a priori notion. How these usually poor a priori notions have originally developed is somewhat of an mystery, but it likely involves another set of poor heuristics and disttorted belief system, that build on each other over time. I know I am being crude here, but you are really wasting a lot of people's time providing claims that are poor synthesis of existing evidence, making nonsensical remarks and not bothering to read arguments carefully but keep repeating your original nonsensical remarks ignoring careful criticism of them. Ad hominem may not be valid form of argumentation, but it is a damn effective heuristic filtering out irrelevant noise and poor quality information in this era of total information overload. You have been on my ignore list for some time and will remain there until you show improved reasoning, argumentation and better sense of reliable information sources, but occasionally I have to attack your most ourrageous claims if they happen to catch my eye as some other people might be lured to think they are actually based on evidence and meticulous reflections.
Although, to my suprise, I actually agreed with most of your criticism of IQ.
The reason I have lost most of my confidence in nootropics is that science can only account at a very high level or even not at all about what produces the "nootropic" effect. How does two of our most popular substances on this forum: modafinil and piracetam cause cognitive improvement? Who knows, there are only unproven theories. How did some people stumble upon this stuff? Purely by experimentation. We are in a very primitive age regarding nootropic "technology". I do believe that there are much better nootropics to come and someday there will be a better "coffee" or a safer "alcohol" with a better affect. We are not there yet. And we will not arrive until science has a better understanding of how the mind works.
I could live without knowing how some nootropic effect is produced if I would be convinced it existed (without unaccptable trade-offs) and the substance was safe. Despite the fact that the arterial system is much better characterized, we still discover novel mechanism why for example statins or blood pressure medications work (apparently statin recude inflammation too). Many modern medicine discoveries has been more or less stumbled upon by accident. In fact, drug development has been a major driver in our understanding of human physiology and even neuroscience. For example, the (now questioned though) monoamine theory of depression arose to explain why certain substances seemed to relieve depression, i.e. drugs became first, then the explanatory models and "understanding". Although of course desireable, it is perhaps little unrealistic to expect at least full or maybe even close to full explanation why someone works or not especially in cognition.
However, there is IMO one critical difference between medication affecting physiology vs. medications affecting cognition: namely, with the former we can always rely on the gold standard of total mortality while in the latter we don't as of yet have such a great aggregate measure for cognition (as pointed out in my above post). I have frequently pointed out the IMO overvaluation of IQ over social cognition, I wil further explicate this if I have more time later.
opales, thanks for the daily dose of negativity. Despite what you say, there has been lots of evidence for resveratrol, antioxidants in general and many polyphenols found in grapes and wine. Do a search on this site and you will find tons of stuff referrenced. I am not going to rehash it all here. opales, I recall a while back that you asked me for evidence to support something I said and in that same forum there were several threads with all the info you asked for and they were current. Funny how you can never find it. Glucosamine/chond has proven itself for decades. Sales of those products are growing by leaps and bounds. I guess according to you, it's all in their head and someone conned them into buying it... and buying it and buying it. Hey, if it works, people don't care if it's all in their head. The benefits of the so called mediteranean diet have been proven over and over yet you still cast negativity on that. About the only drug you seem to approve of is alcohol.
Lots of evidence has been presented in these health forums. Have you anything to counter that with?
Thanks for the daily dose of nonsensical argumentation, especially the abundant straw men. I don't know why I bother, but I'll address this once more for the sake of educating the masses.
I don't know what hell was my "casting negativity on the mediterranian diet" supposed to mean, I never mentioned that and I have been very explicit that the evidence for certain dietary interventions is rather robust but not so for most singular supplemental/micronutient/orthomolecular interventions (see below for more thorough explanation). I also assume you you mix "Mediterranean diet" with "French Paradox" here, after all, they are almost from the same region
. I mean you cannot be possibly attributing the Mediterraen diet effect solely on resveratrol or even (individual) antioxidants, and ignore for example replacement of saturated fat with mostly monounsaturated fat (plus high consumption of vegetables, whole grains, low red meat intake etc.).The problem with your thinking is that you assume that because people who are healthy consume food/drink that contains substance X, then substance X much be healthy for you. However, this ignores the fact the most foods/drinks contain various (thousands) of substances of which many, or more likely all together, could be causing the desired effect. This is a great passge from the Linus Pauling Institute (which has shockingly up to date and accurate analysis despite quacky past), in context of fruit and vegetables being healthy but principles holds in general too
http://lpi.oregonsta...foods/fruitveg/
Despite all of the controversy surrounding the optimal components of a healthy diet, there is little disagreement among scientists regarding the importance of fruits and vegetables. The results of numerous epidemiological studies and recent clinical trials provide consistent evidence that diets rich in fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of chronic disease (1). On the other hand, evidence that very high doses of individual micronutrients or phytochemicals can do the same is inconsistent and relatively weak. Fruits and vegetables contain thousands of biologically active phytochemicals that are likely to interact in a number of ways to prevent disease and promote health (2). The best way to take advantage of these complex interactions is to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables.
A number of compounds may contribute to the cardioprotective effects of fruits and vegetables, including vitamin C, folate, potassium, fiber and other phytochemicals (8). However, supplementation of individual micronutrients or phytochemicals has not generally resulted in significantly decreased incidence of cardiovascular events in randomized controlled trials. Thus, in the case of fruits and vegetables, the benefit of the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts.
Note that the bolded sentence on that latter quote holds especially true for "antioxidants".
Eventually we may be identify the active compounds and what combinations are best but unfortunately we are not there for the most part. Not to mention there is always the chance that some unaccounted for confounding factors could be causing the effect instead of the foods/drinks themselves (ie. wine drinkers exercise more).
http://www.imminst.o...=0
Resveratrol is admittely promising, but to automatically attribute the French Paradox solely to resveratrol is making hasty conclusion as a) alcohol itself is likely causing large part of the effect b) wine contains various other substances that could be individually (quercetin?) or as a whole account for the difference between wine and pure alcohol.
Resveratrol has some good preliminary results but hailing it as some sort of superingredient is JUST preliminary at this point. The LPI has a terrific summary of resveratrol, as I said, resveratrol has been hyped quite, based on great in vitro results (which may not hold in vivo), extrapolation from simple animal models and somewhat unfounded automatic attributing of red wine benefits (if any) to resveratrol.
http://lpi.oregonsta...ls/resveratrol/
* Resveratrol is a polyphenolic compound found in grapes, red wine, purple grape juice, peanuts and some berries. (More Information)
* When taken orally, resveratrol appears to be well-absorbed by humans, but its bioavailability is relatively low because it is rapidly metabolized and eliminated. (More Information)
* Scientists became interested in exploring potential health benefits of resveratrol when its presence was reported in red wine, leading to speculation that resveratrol might help explain the “French Paradox.” (More Information)
* Moderate alcohol consumption has been consistently associated with 20-30% reductions in coronary heart disease risk, but it is not yet clear whether red wine polyphenols, such as resveratrol, confer any additional risk reduction. (More Information)
* Although resveratrol can inhibit the growth of cancer cells in culture and some animal models, it is not known whether high intakes of resveratrol can prevent cancer in humans. (More Information)
* Resveratrol administration increased the lifespans of yeast, worms, and fruit flies, but it is not known whether resveratrol will have similar effects in higher animals or humans. (More Information)
* At present, relatively little is known about the effects of resveratrol in humans.
Again, I actually think resveratrol has promise, I am keeping my fingers crossed and even seriously thinking of adding it to regime right now, as it appears to be acutely safe even with large dosages (though longer term effects are admittedly a suspect).
Your ramblings about "evidence referenced in threads" and "people would not buy it if it did not work" are about as vague and stupid arguments I can think of. Why don't you just point me to the Internet and say lots of stuffed referenced there, huh? As for people buing something that does not work, well, the astrologists and homeopaths seem not have vanished yet, so what they advocate must be true. I remember one skeptic telling how in the medieval times people ferociously demanded to be able to have some sort of facial treatments with lead, purported to restore the youthfulness of skin but which turned out to be hideously toxic. Once the treatment was prohibited after it became clear is was very toxic (and not helpful), the demand for it sore.
