I've tried a lot of nootropics and I have yet to find something that gives me any effect, at all. Either I'm a non-responder or I have too high expectations since I compare it to proper drugs. I'm used to being blown out of my mind and body when taking substances.
Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#42Well, I didn't know that. Maybe I should expect a rise on my cog-skills now that I started taking it last week for exercise. On a side note: As others pointed out, Modafinil is really what you want if you need a brain supplement. I've been taking it since November last year on a daily basis (100 milligrams, half a pill) and I can say that I've been able to make a lot of progress to actively stop procrastination. It's…
But Modafinil as a brain supplement isn't an FDA approved use and doctors generally won't prescribe it. Creatine is available at any health food or supplement store, it's legal and widely available.
Yeah, that's true.
I live in Argentina and Modafinil can't be bought without a prescription. My doctor prescribed it to me (just for the sake of getting a discount when buying it, I was going to keep getting it from a shady pharmacist anyway)
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#43So it is supposed to be a brain supplement now? Back in the mid to late 90s I knew people that took it to try to get bigger muscles.
When I took it regularly, I'd retain a bit more water and muscles felt fuller. Doing high weight / low rep training, it definitely felt like it helped me to squeeze out another rep at the end. And that is supposed to be the key benefit, allowing you to train a little harder.
I noticed no effects on cognition at all.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#44Caffeine and walk breaks every hour or two work pretty well for me.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#45No creatine, but I'd like to profit of this occasion to tell people that suffer from allergies to try high doses (several grams 1) of vitamin C. This has been a life changer, I can now mow the lawn without symptoms where even with antihistamines it wasn't possible (last year my father had to do it for me). I'm sharing it here because I wish I knew about vitamin C 30 years ago. 1- buy it in bulk powder form this will…
There's absolutely zero evidence that taking more than 100% of your daily required amount of any vitamin is effective for anything. Your body simply cannot absorb or make use of it. What you've described may very well be a placebo effect. Take a daily supplement which ensures you are getting a sufficient amount, and nothing more. Anything beyond that is literally getting flushed down the toilet in your urine.
> There's absolutely zero evidence that taking more than 100% of your daily required amount of any vitamin is effective for anything. Your body simply cannot absorb or make use of it.
I take your point, but I think it's important to say that this isn't strictly true. Your daily requirement is what you need for normal functioning, not what you can absorb.
For vitamin C, this isn't a huge distinction - it's water soluble, and the excess will be flushed, as you say. But for fat soluble vitamins, you absolutely can absorb more than a 100% dose. This is usually bad, and comes about from things like home overdosing or extremely narrow diets. It's occasionally medicinal, though, with something like isotretinoin being very similar to a major overdose of vitamin A.
I wouldn't suggest overdosing on vitamins to anyone unless a doctor tells you do, but it's worth noting that it does cause an effect - usually a bad one.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you tried creatine loading? Take 20 to 25g per day for a week, then take 5g/day for a month. Take a few weeks off and do it again. That's what I've done in the past when I was taking creatine for a recovery enhancer.
There was a research that concluded that after a month, there is no difference in creatine amount in blood if you've been loading or just taking 5g daily.
I've only ever heard of creatine loading as a way of getting an early kickstart for workouts. I didn't think it was even supposed to help in the 1+ month window, just get you better training results for a week or two up front.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#47I very much doubt you'll see any fugitive enhancement and in the two decades I've been cycling on and off supplemental Creatine for my workout regime, I can't speak for any such gains.
Creatine is both synthesized by the body and consumed in meat. The vast majority of it goes into skeletal muscles where it functions as an ATP recycling compound, something these cells consume a lot of. Small amounts are found inn the blood and brain add well but not nearly as much.
It may provide a small boost if you're low on blood sugar simply from providing some extra energy and drawing water into the cell - but it's not much more than you would get from simply consuming energy rich compounds like sugars or carbohydrates. It does certainly provide significant physical performance enhancement by increasing endurance, reducing muscle fatigue and generally providing greater muscle "pump" from it's cell volumizing qualities. Thus I'd say that the only cognitive gains one would experience would be from the added satisfaction coming from better performance and improved physique - ie. A placebo effect of sorts. However, depending on the importance of physical fitness to an individual, this can be substantial. My improved workouts and increased strength definitely put me in a much better mood and provide greater motivation for my intellectual endeavors. Ironically, because it can supercharge workouts, it can leave one with substantial mental fatigue immediately after such workouts at which point you're better off taking a break to recover before doing any mentally intense stuff
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#48This is interesting! I only knew it as a muscle building supplement. It's role is to store water inside your muscles, making them larger. I don't know of any effects on the brain and I would be cautious of taking something that it wasn't made for. In saying that there's been a number of cases where pharmaceutical products were developed for one issue but the side effects ended up being the actual product. I was takin…
Creatine concentrations are highest by far in muscles, but it also distributes throughout the blood and brain.
Creatine phosphate is part of a reaction making ATP use effective (specifically: it allows rapid conversion of ADP to ATP during times of high demand). This is necessary for basic functioning - we synthesize creatine naturally and also absorb it from our diet. Supplementing it enables using muscles for a longer period without exhaustion, and helps you reach the boundaries of muscular strength before you reach energy limits.
The proposed mechanism of improved brain functioning is, interestingly, the same as the muscular mechanism. During times of high demand, creatine improves ATP regeneration rates. The ATP cycle happens the same way in the brain, so creatine can play the same role there. This claim is nothing new, it was for instance studied back in 2003 here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691485/pdf/1456...).
There's no mysterious second effect here - we know for certain that creatine plays the same role in the brain and muscles. (We also know what that effect is - it wouldn't have any relationship to physical damage sustained in a concussion.) The outstanding questions are whether improving ATP cycling in the brain has a meaningful impact on performance, and whether safe creatine supplementation changes neurological PCr levels enough to cause that benefit.
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#49If you're thinking of supplementing nootropics and haven't taken the time to seriously address sleep (quality and quantity), diet, and exercise, you're wasting your time and missing the biggest ROI variables. (After those three factors, I'd include regular meditation before even bothering with nootropics.)
That said, there are plenty of other well-documented benefits to creatine supplementation as documented on sites like examine.com (linked elsewhere in this thread).
Re: Ask HN: Do you use creatine as a brain supplement?
#50My current nootropic stack is: * Pramiracetam 500mg * Alpha GPC 50% 600mg * Noopept 10mg * Agmatine Sulfate 500mg I am convinced that these chemicals work, improve mental ability, memory/recall and focus. Ive found myself able to handle more task simultaneously, even able to understand to multiple conflicting conversations. If you can handle the awful taste of Pramiracetam (its bad... probably the worst thing ive eve…
Thanks for this! Didn't know about Pramiracetam, and it seems I can get it online. I'm already taking Modafinil, so I might experiment with taking Pramiracetam as well, see if I can get an extra boost.
Give it a try! Do stack it with Alpha GPC, you will need a cholinergic compound with the racetam family or else you will get headaches.