Why I Don’t Supplement With Piracetam
In the above post I bring 63 cases of harm, my own exeprience and lots of other information. I constantly try to update the post, so click on the link for the most updated version. I'm posting this because I just redid it and I think people need to see this. The main side effects for piracetam are brain fog, sleepiness/drowsiness, irritability, sleep issues, depression, muscle twitching, headaches, sweating and cognitive impariment (issues with reading, spelling and verbal retrieval).
Possible Mechanisms Behind Negative Reports
"Brain fog, drowsiness and feeling sleepy in the day
Brain fog is something that I've dealt with since I was an adolescent. Understanding its causes and cureshave been a particular area of interest for me. I have cured my own brain fog and helped others cure theirs. As I came to appreciate the role that oxidative stress in the hypothalamus plays in causing brain fog, it got me thinking that piracetam probably did just that. Here's what I wrote in this post before I found these studies:
"Due to the abundant reports of brain fog, I would also add 500mg of NAC, just in case piracetam is causing oxidative stress in the brain in some way which we don't understand yet (there's likely more information that we don't know about piracetam than information that we do). Though I haven't seen any studies on piracetam causing oxidative stress in the brain, the brain fog that I felt from piracetam was similar to the brain fog that I get from other things that is a result of oxidative stress."
The hypothalamus also controls wakefulness and if it's not dysregulated or functioning properly, we will be tired in the day. These two symptoms of brain fog and drowsiness fit perfectly with my theory that piracetam causes oxidative stress to the hypothalamus. After some Googling, I found a few studies that confirmed my suspicions. The hypothalamus is an extremely important part of the brain and body.
MDA.... increased in cortex and hippocampus and in cortex, hypothalamus and striatum by the higher dose of vinpocetine or piracetam, respectively along with decreased TAC (total antioxidant capacity)....at their high concentration, these drugs exhibit pro-oxidant properties and increase free radical production or act as a free radical....[Ref.]
The high dosage that this study speaks about is 300mg/kg. So for someone who weighs an average weight of 68kg, this would be equivalent to 20.4g, but when converted to an equivalent human dosage it would be 3.25g. This is a fairly common dosage that people take in a day. People aren't healthy rats, though. People are sleep deprived, stressed and engage in many other behaviors that increase oxidative stress of the hypothalamus. Many if not most people in my estimation have a hypothalamus that isn't working optimally. This would explain why people get brain fog even when taking less than the human equivalent dosage given to rats. These interacting factors add up and maybe even synergize to cause brain fog and drowsiness by way of hypothalamic damage and dysregulation. In people who are very healthy, they are less likely to notice these effects and be harmed in the short term. But this doesn't mean nothing is happening if they don't notice anything. In people like me, who already have a damaged hypothalamus, the negative effects are noticeable more quickly and acutely (upon a dosage of just 800mg). This type of damage to the hypothalamus doesn't necessarily go away in a day, but usually does. In susceptible people who do many other things that compound the damage to the hypothalamus, long term dysregulation can occur, which explains the people who are having long term issues. Disrupt your circadian rhythm for one day and nothing happens; do it every day and you are at increased risk for every chronic disease.
Oxidative stress to the hypothalamus and dysregulation fits in perfectly with the description of symptoms described by a piracetam retailer: "If I take too much, with or without a choline source, I get a bit tired, or tense, or foggy - especially if I'm not well rested and well fed when I go higher into my "personal" dosing range."
Besides oxidative stress, piracetam seems to interact with the hypothalamus in other ways. For example, I found this study that showed it decreased serotonin in the hypothalamus (and in the striatum and brain stem) and increased dopamine turnover. Hypothalamic function is responsive to—and regulated by—levels of all three classical monoamine neurotransmitters, i.e. noradrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. Decreased serotonin in the hypothalamus decreases its activation, making people drowsy. The effects can get complex because they can be different with dosing, time of day and individual variation. All we can really say is that it's likely interacting with the hypothalamus by changing serotonin and dopamine, and it's possible that these changes could account for the drowsiness and hypothalamic dysregulation in people. There's obviously still a lot of question marks here.
Irritability, sleep onset issues and sweating
Some of piracetam's effects are mediated by aldosterone/mineralcorticoid receptors. These receptors are activated by aldosterone and cortisol. Increased activation of this receptor explains the common side effects of irritability and sleep issues from piracetam. These issues are experienced by people with stress and/or overusage of stimulants, which results in excessive cortisol release and therefore excessive mineralcorticoid receptor activation. So piracetam may be just simply additive in this regard. The following can increase cortisol levels: psychological stress, intense prolonged exercise, sleep deprivation, stimulants(caffeine, etc..), excess sodium, fasting, food allergies, Adrenal glandular, Licorice, Rehmannia, Lj100, RSV, Foskolin, physical trauma, injuries, body fat (subcutaneous adipose tissue regenerates cortisol from cortisone), train commuting, sex, severe calorie restriction, alcoholism, (Hypoestrogenism and melatonin supplementation increase cortisol levels in postmenopausal women), etc....
Adapted from studies on piracetam:
Aldosterone receptors are involved in the mediation of the memory-enhancing effects of piracetam.... Adrenalectomy blocks the memory-improving effect of piracetam-like compounds in mice...... blockade of the memory-enhancing effects of piracetam by adrenalectomy were overcome by replacement with either 3 micrograms/ml corticosterone or 30 ng/ml aldosterone given in the drinking fluid.
Aldosterone receptors are involved in the mediation of the memory-enhancing effects of piracetam.
Adrenalectomy, corticosteroid replacement and their importance for drug-induced memory-enhancement in mice.
Muscle problems and headaches
Piracetam interacts with the bodies cholinergic system. In some regions of the brain (and probably body) it decreases acetylcholine. Most people usually have less than optimal levels of this all-important neurotransmitter. Decreasing it even more can not only decrease intelligence, but also cause muscle spasms and headaches, which is why people also supplement with choline. I suspect that the people getting headaches and muscle spasms weren't taking enough choline or if they were then they were taking too much. Acetylcholine also interacts with sweat glands, possibly also explaining this side effect. Hypothalamic dysregulation can also explain increased sweating.
See: Piracetam diminishes hippocampal acetylcholine levels in rats.
Cognitive issues with reading, spelling and verbal retrieval, etc...
I found this on a forum once and I'd rather not change it because I don't have anything to add or subtract, although I must say that I haven't been able to find the study done on physicists. What I get from this is coordination between brain region's isn't necessarily great and possibly explain some cognitive deficits related to reading, spelling and verbal retrieval:
"Here is one that you won't hear on most forums: Reduce your usage of piracetam/oxiracetam/etc. The racetams increase coordination between different brain areas, thereby increasing a brain wave pattern called "alpha waves". Sounds good doesn't it??? What most people don't understand is that the brain does its best work (most complex processing of information) when in a "beta wave" state. In contrast to the "beta" name, beta waves are actually of higher frequency than alpha waves. This means that there is less coordination between large sections of brain tissue. This is actually a good thing and I will explain why: Each brain area can be seen as a small parallel processor which is specific for a certain type of information. A small chunk of brain area from the occipital lobe of your brain processes only one aspect of visual information, and nothing else. Now, the racetams force larger brain areas to process info that they were never intended to process. This means that instead of an area of 5 mm cubic processing the equation "5+5=?", you would then have an area of 10 mm cubic processing this same task. As you can gather from this, it would be much better to have 2000 small parallel processors working on separate chunks of info and have a really good system in place to combine the information from the separate processors, then to use very large brain areas to process very simple concepts. In a study, physicists were given piracetam before attempting difficult physics problems; it was found to actually decrease their ability to process complex information (I don't have the reference for this off-hand, but you can look it up on pubmed if you are interested). The alpha waves associated with piracetam are associated with repetitive and moreso automatic tasks. They are really good for concentration if you are doing regular 9-5 jobs, but for intense study sessions, exams and complex material, I would keep their use to a minimum.
This is my first post in this forum but I am very knowledgeable in this particular area (schooling in neuroscience)."
Random: Piracetam impaired learning by parameters of procedural memory."
