17 replies to this topic

[toska]

Hi guys, I'm 30 years old and currently attending a University…I do a lot of studying and have to write a lot of papers. I’ve use Ritalin before to help me concentrate but I don’t like anxiety/nervousness that it makes me feel. So I’ve decided to give nootropics a tried and this is what I’ve come up with so far;

Aniracetam
hydergine
CDP-Choline
Deprenyl

My questions are as follows:
-What should be the dosing and time of the day? Empty or with meals?
-Does Aniracetam needs high dosage preloading and then lowered to maintenance?
-Any other worthwhile additions needed to this stack?
Please feel free to post any comments suggestions, pointers or experiences. Thank all in advance!

[thumb]


toska

[gcurrie]

Aniracetam and deprenyl with some food. Aniracetam is fat-soluble so you will waste a lot if you don't have some food (fat). I haven't seen that deprenyl is the same, but I've heard it is more bio-available with food.

Hydergine I don't know about.

CDP-choline, I'm not sure it matters, but the choline will help the aniracetam, so maybe keep them together.

I personally don't believe in attack dosing. Maybe someone else will explain the theory behind it.

Aniracetam - 500-750 mg with each meal.
Deprenyl - try 1 mg with breakfast.
Hydergine - I don't take it, didn't work well for me.
I take a-GPC instead of CDP-choline. Look in LifeMirage's thread for indications of dosages for some of these things.

For concentration, I recommend adding 5-10 mg vinpocetine 3 x day (with each meal). It is *cheap* and essential for clearing the mind.

And huperzine-A is nice for memory, although not essential if yours is currently good.

I would start with this (adding vinpocetine). See how it works. It's a great foundation for writing, IMO.

Once you have figured out the combos and the doses *for you* then you might consider adding pyritinol, centrophenoxine, alcar, idebenone...

[toska]

gcurrie, first of all, I want to thank you for the fast reply!

Now….

Regarding the Deprenyl, I have 5mg capsules and I can probably take half, about 2.5mg, I hope this is okay.

Did you have a bad experience with Hydergine or it just did not do anything for you?

Good call on the vinpocetine! Although, I read that is hard to find a reliable source that sells high purity vinpocetine and that whatever it’s sold on most places has very, very low grade and quality. Is this true at all?

Lastly, any especial reason why you picked A-GPC over CDP-choline?

Reagrds,

Toska

[gcurrie]

Deprenyl: I'd take 2.5 mg maybe every two or three days. It has a cumulative effect, and the MAO inhibition will continue even when you're not taking it. Remember, with nootropics, more is NOT always better.

Hydergine just made me feel fuzzy mentally. I was using the liquid form. Maybe the FAS form is better.

I've never heard anything about variable vinpocetine quality. I do know that I tried it from a few different places and it was good. Then I found Puritan's Pride (www.puritan.com). Yowza. Their vinpo rocks (as is often really cheap when they have a sale - I got a TON last time they had their 3 for 1 sale). I've read that much of the raw vinpocetine used by companies to make their supplements comes from one source anyway.

Alpha GPC is the most bio-available form. I have not tried CDP-choline. I notice a subtle lift from taking alpha GPC by itself. It seems that CDP is equally popular. I've priced it, and it seems more expensive, dose for dose, than alpha GPC.

[rfarris]

I think Toska has confused vinpocetine with hup-a. I've never heard of quality problems with vinpocetine, but it is a common complaint about hup-a. Even at UNI some of the hup-a mentions that it is "three times stronger" than others. Since he has some hup-a labeled claiming to be stronger, and some that don't, I'd buy the stronger one.

If you want to be absolutely certain that you're getting high quality vinpocetine, though, you can always buy the AOR 15mg vinpocetine...

[fitos]

About hydergine, you might want to check this thread:
http://forum.avantla...36&hl=hydergine

Some people seem to react better to 1.125mg dosages (1/4 tab) as a start.

[rfarris]

Also, I've been reading that bacopa monniera has the advantages of deprenyl (as well as some others) and none of the disadvantages -- one of the significant ones is that it is hard to buy in the US.

Has anyone considered replacing deprenyl with bacopa?

[toska]

Thanks for the replys guys, lots of of good info!!

Hydergine just made me feel fuzzy mentally. I was using the liquid form. Maybe the FAS form is better.

Where is this fas form available from?




To rfarris & da_sense, when taking Deprenyl, how does your dosage or stacks look like?



Also, aside from the big suppliers, does anyone else sell/resell raw nootropic powders directly from china?



toska

[xanadu]

Bacopa is nothing like deprenyl. Bacopa is not a stimulant and is a plant. It's been used for thousands of years in India. I take it myself.

[rfarris]

Bacopa is nothing like deprenyl. Bacopa is not a stimulant and is a plant. It's been used for thousands of years in India. I take it myself.

Oh. I see that you haven't been keeping up with the current research:

But the most exciting of the recent animal studies* shows that Bacopa boosts the brain’s production of the key protective antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and catalase (CAT). In this, Bacopa is closely paralleling the effects of deprenyl (selegiline), a drug prescribed for Parkinson’s disease, which is being taken by many people in the life extension movement because animal studies suggest that it has potent anti-aging effect. Remarkably, however, the effects of Bacopa were shown to be even more broad ranging than those of deprenyl: Bacopa cranked up levels of these enzymes in every tested area of the brain, while deprenyl failed to upregulate these enzymes in the hippocampus.

*Bhattacharya SK, Kumar A, Ghosal S. “Effect of Bacopa monniera on animal models of Alzheimer’s disease and perturbed central cholinergic markers of cognition in rats.”  In Mori A, Satoh T (eds). Emerging Drugs. Vol 1: Molecular Aspects of Asian Medicines. 2001;Westbury, NY: PJD Publications, 21-32.

[purerealm]

How strong is Deprenyl as a stimulant? 5 mg of adderall is hardly enough to feel anything, would 5 mg of deprenyl offer as much stimulation per mg as adderall?

[dopamine]

Deprenyl isn't technically a stimulant. Officially, it's classified as a relatively selective MAO-B inhibitor. I wouldn't expect any kind of stimulant effect from it in the usual small doses taken.

[LifeMirage]

Also, I've been reading that bacopa monniera has the advantages of deprenyl (as well as some others) and none of the disadvantages -- one of the significant ones is that it is hard to buy in the US.

Has anyone considered replacing deprenyl with bacopa?

Bacopa can never replace deprenyl...the impressive weight of antiaging studies on lifespan done on deprenyl and the fairly large number of human studies leaves Bacopa lacking clinical research. I currently recommend them both for best effects.

[opales]

Bacopa can never replace deprenyl...the impressive weight of antiaging studies on lifespan done on deprenyl and the fairly large number of human studies leaves Bacopa lacking clinical research. I currently recommend them both for best effects.

Michael severely criticised deprenyl's alledged life-extension properties in a another thread here. how would you respond to those?

Deprenyl is often cited as a counterexample, but it really isn't. Yes, Knoll made an exciting single report (and repeated it in several journals), but he's the ONLY person to report an extension of max LS: lots of others show increases in av'g bu t not max, no extension at all, or even *increased* mortality. Flat ad hominem: Knoll had the patent on the stuff. See the desperate attempts to reconcile the data between different studies on pp. 3-8, esp. the lifespan discussions on pp 7-8, of (1). Much of this info (but without, alas, the unpublished stuff sumarized in (1)) is put in a tabular form in (2), which makes the fundamental lack of anything like a logical pattern in the results clear. IMO, this shows pretty clearly that even if you believe there's something to it as a life-extension drug, there is just no way that one can rationally USE it as such at this time as there is no basis upon which to reasonably extrapolate a dose which can be expected to consistently extend even AV'G LS in humans.

It doesn't appear to give any reliable benefits in animal systems; it seems to kill the folks it's designed to TREAT; I just do not see how the risk:benefit calculation can be fudged to make it come out in favor of use by young, healthy people.

So when I say that "Knoll made an exciting single report (and repeated it in several journals), but he's the ONLY person to report an extension of max LS: lots of others show increases in av'g bu t not max, no extension at all, or even *increased* mortality", I'm referring to this failure to extend the normal, healthy organism's lifespan, not to the alleviation of premature mortality in short-lived strains or animals raised under poor husbandry. It's easy to reduce mortality by antioxidants in short-lived strains or chorts -- it's been done with any number of compounds, from Harnam on -- and deprenyl has certainly been reported to do this several times, although (again) it has also increased mortality in others (eg (6)).

[Pablo M]

Oh. I see that you haven't been keeping up with the current research:

Meh, that quote you provided isn't really current research either. It's a quote from an AOR product description of bacopa which is several years old by now.

[rfarris]

Meh, that quote you provided isn't really current research either. It's a quote from an AOR product description of bacopa which is several years old by now.

Does that mean it's wrong?

It may not be research that was done yesterday, but it was a cogent response to the comment the poster made who claimed "bacopa is nothing like deprenyl".